Becta have release a new framework to help schools recognise and exploit the opportunities provided by ICT in encouraging parents to work in partnership with schools. Download it from the BECTA website here.

I”m sometimes asked why a primary school might want to use the Performance Analysis routines in Assessment Manager. Here’’s some good examples of the kind of questions you can answer using Performance Analysis:

1. Find out the correlation between Foundation Stage points scores and KS1 results. Many schools have a rough idea what the correlation is for their pupils, but few schools actually know for sure.
2. Graph the progress of your year 3 pupils towards their year 3 targets. RAISEonline makes this easy for pupils at KS1 or KS2, but how can you do this for year 3 (or 4 or 5)?
3. Identify pupils who are strong in one subject, but weak in others. Once you know ”who”, you can ask ”why?”.
4. Identify year groups that don”t make the progress you”d expect.
5. Spot pupils who are being left behind their classmates.
6. How many people who got a 2B at Key Stage 1 are at 3C by the start of the spring term of year 3? More importantly, how many aren”t at 3C yet (because they should be by ther summer term!)

The November release of Assessment Manager contains some useful (and timesaving) new features for assessment co-ordinators. Here’’s a list of the main ones taken from Capita’’s release notes:

New Features

This release includes the following new features:

Marksheets Calculating on Data Entry

Marksheets can now be set to calculate results automatically for all summary rows and formula columns. This occurs when you click the Entry key after entering or editing a result, or when the cursor leaves the cell.

Viewing the Student Teacher View Page from a Marksheet

Clicking a pupil/student’’s name on a marksheet now displays the Teacher View page, which displays an ‘at a glance” summary of their attendance, behaviour, achievements etc.

Displaying Multiple Additional Student Information Columns on a Marksheet

Multiple additional pupil/student information columns (i.e. date of birth, gender, age in registration group, etc.) can now display on a marksheet.

Adding a Marksheet to the Favourites Panel

A marksheet can be flagged as a favourite, so that it can be accessed from the Favourites shortcut panel in SIMS .net.

Setting the Default Width of Narrow Columns on a Marksheet

You can set the default width of marksheet columns when a marksheet is viewed in mode.

Copying and Pasting Additional Pupil/Student Information into an Aspect

The functionality that enables the copying and pasting of column contents can now be used to copy additional pupil/student column details into an appropriate aspect.

Adding Multiple Result Sets to a Template

When adding columns and formula columns for data entry to a template, it is now possible to select more than one result set.

Viewing Template Columns in Full Screen Mode

You can expand the Template Columns panel to the screen, by clicking the Zoom button.

Applying Additional Student Information Columns to a Template

Additional pupil/student information columns can be displayed on all marksheets created from the selected template using the Create Template Columns wizard.

I managed to test a few of these changes yesterday and was very optimistic that they would speed up the process of creating templates.

As ever, if you”d like me to come in to school and discuss these changes, or any other Assessment Manager issues, feel free to email me.

Assessment Manager and SIMS can be used to help you record the details of your EAL pupils. Not only does it allow schools to record their targets and progress, it also allows their progress to be correlated with other information (admission date, FSM, SEN status etc). Give the Schools ICT Unit Helpline a ring (ext 2034) if you need help, but if you want to try it yourself here are some ideas and tips:

1) SIMS pupil data screens already contain a field that allows schools to record pupils with EAL. Go to Focus Pupil Pupil Details and find a pupil, then scoll down to section 7 (Ethnic/Cultural). The field for EAL is in the second column.

2) You can easily create a report that lists all the pupils classified as EAL by using the SIMS Report module as follows:

a) Go to Report Design Report

b) Click ”Create a new report”

c) Choose ”People - Student” for the focus of the report, the click ”next”.

d) Choose to display just the pupils on roll and click ”next”.

e) Select to display ”pupil name and reg” and pressing the green arrow

f) Scroll down to the Ethnic/Cultural section and exand the list by pressing the + sign.

g) Select ”English as Additional Language” and press the green arrow. Click next.

h) Create a new filter and select ”English as Additional Language”. Tick the ”yes” box and choose the ”is one of” option

i) Run the report to generate Word document that you can print off as required.

A copy of this report is available from the Schools ICT Unit - we can install it for you - contact the Helpdesk and log a call.

3) A template has been created by the Schools ICT Unit to help schools to record EAL scales. It looks like this:

Please click on the image above to view a larger, easier to read version.

For help installing and using the marksheet contact the Schools ICT Unit helpdesk (ext 2034)

4) More advanced schools might want to include new EAL aspects within their existing templates. You can create the aspects and gradesets used in the example above and use them in your existing marksheets. Create them as follows:

Gradeset: EAL TA

Then create four grade aspects using the gradeset above:

• EAL TA: Reading
• EAL TA: Writing
• EAL TA: Listening
• EAL TA: Speaking

Results Sets

Note that you are only required to assess pupils against this scale on admission to school. Schools who use results sets might choose to create a results set called ”Baseline” to record this value.

David Pott (email david.pott@sict.bolton.gov.uk, ext 2034)

Introduction

Our example school wants to create a marksheet that calculates the value added for each pupil in Y4 based on their KS1 result. The school assumes that pupils in year 4 should have acheived 3 sublevels of progress since KS1. A simple formula calculates how many sublevels they have actually acheived and subtracts this from 3 to give a positive or negative score to indicate how many levels above or below their target they are.

Method

1) Create a new template called *Value Added Y4 Maths and add the following aspects and results sets (the names of the aspects may vary on your system):

Attainment Maths (result set = Y2 Summer), column name = KS1 Result
Attainment Maths (result set = Y4 Summer), column name = Attainment Maths Y4 Sum

2) Create a column for data review using a formula. The column will calculate the points score of the KS1 result. Create the formula as follows:

Column name: KS1 PS
Formula type: Value
Column: KS1 Result

3) Create another column for data review using a formula. This column will calculate the points score of Attainment Maths Y4 Sum

Column Name: Y4 PS
Formula type: Value
Column: Attainment Maths Y4 Sum

4) Next we need to subtract Year 4 points score from the KS1 points score:

Column Type: Data review using a formula
Column Name: Y4 - KS1 PS
Formula type: Difference
Column 1: Y4 PS
Column 2: KS1 PS

5) Now we convert the difference in points into sublevels (2 points = 1 sublevel):

Column Type: Data review using a formula
Column Name: Y4 Maths Levels Added
Formula type: Division
Column: Y4 - KS1 PS
Constant: 2

6) Finally, each pupil should have made 3 sublevels of progress by year 4, so we calculate the value added as the difference between their actual number of levels progress (calculated at point 5 above) and 3 levels. We”ll save this result back into the aspect we created earlier, so remember to create a column for data entry using a formula.

Column Type: Data entry using a formula�
Column Name: Y4 Maths Value Added
Formula type: Difference
Column: Y4 Maths Levels Added
Constant: 3

Save your template and create the relevant marksheets for year 4.