Archive for the ‘SIMS’ Category.
Capita will be closing their data centre for essential maintenance on Wednesday 6th and Thursday 7th August 2008, a consequence of which is that you won”t be able to upgrade SIMS via SOLUS on those days.
If you were planning to upgrade your SIMS system on any of the dates above, please drop me an email as we may be able to help.
Our very own Neil Gregory has been awarded for his Outstanding Contribution to SIMS User Acceptance Testing in 2008.
Over the past 12 months, Bolton Council has participated in user acceptance testing (UAT) programmes for Cover 7, Attendance 7, Lesson Monitor 7 and SIMS Learning Gateway.
We have also attended software consultation groups for the technical aspects of SIMS, primary and secondary school administration and the SIMS performance suite.
It should be recognised that Neil has contributed a significant amount of his own time to various UAT programmes and we applaud him for his involvement.
In an email to Bolton Council, Stephen Pagano (SIMS User Acceptance Test Manager at Capita Children’s Services) wrote:
“Many thanks for your continued contribution to SIMS UAT. The impact of colleagues of your calibre testing our product is fantastic and I know 22,000 schools see the benefit!”
The next step in our association with SIMS UAT is that we extend the invitation to colleagues in schools. This was tremendously successful with the Cover 7 Field Trial (thanks once again to Turton and Canon Slade), so watch this space for details!
There wasn”t a photographer available to record Neil accepting the award but there was, unfortunately, a caricaturist. Please click on the image below to the reveal this blatant misrepresentation in all its horror. 
Comment After upgrading to 7.106 (June Update), colleagues at Ladybridge High School have discovered an issue with the display of preferred forenames in Take Register.
Prior to upgrading (from 7.102 March Update), students” preferred forenames were displayed in Take Register. After upgrading to 7.106, legal forenames were displayed, causing a degree of embarrassment to some students.
SIMS .net 7.104 (May Main Release) introduced an additional Attendance Setup option. I”ve detailed below the steps that need to be taken in order reinstate preferred forenames.
2 Comments I am in the process of contacting secondary schools to discuss the latest SIMS .net upgrade. While many colleagues who attended the Cover 7 training courses last week will be keen to get their hands the new module, there are a few things to consider before upgrading to 7.106.
.net Framework 2
Microsoft .net Framework 2 must be installed on SIMS clients prior to upgrading to the SIMS June 2008 Update Release. If .net Framework 2 is not installed, it will not be possible to log into SIMS .net.
Personnel 7
Personnel 7 is activated as part of this release as it is required for Cover 7 to operate normally. Please note that the additional functionality provided by Personnel 7 is not currently supported by Bolton Council.
Nova-T6
A link for Nova-T6 has been added to the shortcut panel in SIMS .net.
The problem is that anyone with access to Nova-T4 gets FULL access to Nova-T6 via the new link. Access to Nova-T6 via Nova-T4 is unaffected.
This isn’t expected to be resolved until the August 2008 Main Release (7.108).
Full details of this update and the previous release (which wasn’t installed by most schools due to stability issues) can be found in the Release Notes, available at the following internet links:
If you have any suggestions on how your school might get around the Nova-T6 access issue, please leave a comment below.
As always, please don”t hesitate to get in touch if you wish to discuss this further.
A number of schools have contacted me to discuss Capita’’s SIMS Infrastructure Update Tool. According to Paul Christie at Ladybridge High School, RM are advising that this program be run on all SIMS workstations.
The SIMS Infrastructure Update Tool does the following:
Even if .net Framework 2 hasn”t been rolled out, I suspect most schools won”t need to use this tool as PCs will have been rebuilt/replaced since March 2004. Also, unless schools use optical mark readers, the bar code fonts won”t be required.
In addition, Judith Holden at Sharples Secondary School has reported that the program takes a long time to run. Judith has kindly informed us that Capita document InfrastructRNa_12377.pdf suggests it can take 15 minutes or more depending on network configuration and memory. Judith has also tried installing .net Framework 3 onto a PC with 1GB RAM and that too took a long time to install.
The SIMS Infrastructure Update Tool can be downloaded directly from Capita by clicking here.
To download the SIMS bar code fonts on their own, please click here.
If you wish to discuss further, please don”t hesitate to get in touch or leave a comment below.
Comment 
Please click here for the latest version of the Secondary School SIMS End of Year Procedures for Promotion to Academic Year 2008/2009 document.
Please note the following: Colleagues in the Information Management Unit have requested that leaving dates for Year 11 students should be entered as 27/06/2008.
If you require any further assistance, please don”t hesitate to contact any member of the team.
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.
Microsoft UK is giving away free Office 2007 posters to schools.
Please click here to view the article on the Microsoft UK Schools Blog.
On an additional note, Capita test and support SIMS .net with Office 2007.
Bolton Council is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
As we have discussed at Secondary Technical Forum meetings over the last eighteen months, the next version of SIMS .net (the June 2008 Update Release) will require Microsoft’’s .net Framework 2 to be installed on client workstations.
Workstations running FMS 6.91 or higher will already have had .net Framework 2 installed as part of the migration to Microsoft SQL.
If you wish to discuss this further, please drop me an email. Alternatively, please feel free to leave a comment below.
On May 20th 2008, Steve Buckthorpe (Turton High School and Media Arts College), Jan Buffey and Dave Lever (Canon Slade CE Secondary School) kindly introduced the new SIMS cover management software to Bolton schools.
Both schools have participated in the Cover 7 field trial as well as our own Neil Gregory.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those mentioned above. I”m absolutely positive that their contribution to the development of the module will benefit all schools come September.
All secondary schools are encouraged to use Cover 7 from September 2008 as Capita are withdrawing support for cover management in Nova T4 by the end of the year. As a consequence, the Schools ICT Unit will only formally offer support for Cover 7 from the start of the new academic year, although we understand some schools will want to run the two systems side-by-side for a short period of time.
There are a limited number of spaces remaining on the instructor led courses in June/July, so please click here to reserve a place for your school.
If you would like to express a view on the seminars or your first impressions of the Cover 7 software, please feel free to leave a comment below.
