End of year procedures - Preparing for a new school year - secondary

Integra is the trading arm of South Gloucestershire Council Preparing for a New School Year (Academic) - Secondary 01 Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year This chapter contains: Chapter Introduction Step by Step – Setting the Academic Year Step by Step – Exploring Existing Memberships of Academic Schemes Step by Step – Allocating Students to Base Bands and Classes Manually Step by Step – Allocating Students Manually to Base Bands Activity – Allocating Students Manually to Base Bands Step by Step – Allocating Students Manually to Classes Step by Step – Setting up Base Band Promotion Rules Activity – Setting up Base Band Promotion Rules Step by Step – Setting Block Promotion Rules for Year from Year Activity – Setting Block Promotion Rules for Year from Year Step by Step – Setting up Block Promotion Rules based on Current Year Ancestor Schemes 10 Step by Step – Using Promotion Rules to Make Curriculum Assignments 11 Step by Step – Allocating Students to Classes Using Export and Import Routines 14 Step by Step – Editing the SYLK File 15 Step by Step – Importing the SYLK File 16 Chapter Introduction Curriculum structures consist of bands, blocks and cluster groups of classes Where there is more than one band, blocks will have been created that serve either one band or all bands Students can only be allocated to classes in blocks if they have first been allocated to the relevant band which serves them The process is therefore:  allocate students to base bands in each year group  allocate students to curriculum schemes (classes in blocks) in each band The allocation of students can be done manually by using academic promotion rules or by export and import methods Manual Allocation Students are placed in relevant groups by selecting checkboxes in a grid Academic Promotion The purpose of the academic promotion functionality is to generate curriculum memberships in the next academic year for all the groups of a scheme at once, on the basis of equivalent memberships of classes and other curriculum groups in the current academic year The promotion uses rules that can be set up using SIMS Export and Import All curriculum allocation involves selecting checkboxes There are automatic processes that can also be used, for example the academic promotion rules mentioned in the preceding section An alternative is to export the tick grid itself to Microsoft Excel and make allocations outside SIMS using a specially formatted spreadsheet The spreadsheet can then be imported into SIMS Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year Some worked examples Step by Step – Setting the Academic Year As the data in SIMS is date-related and the focus of a year’s data is by default the current academic year, SIMS should be set to refer to the relevant academic year This setting only applies to the workstation in use and is not necessary when the year changes in September, as it happens automatically when the date changes to a date in the new year If not already done, set the academic year to the year you will be working on Select Tools | Academic Management | Set Academic Year Select the new academic year, then click OK Click OK in response to the message displayed Step by Step – Exploring Existing Memberships of Academic Schemes Select Focus | School | Academic Structure | Curriculum Assignment by Scheme to explore the memberships of curriculum schemes (or lack thereof) Leave Year Taught In set to Any and change Type to Bands Click Search to populate the Scheme browser Double-click Base Bands in Year 10 or highlight it and click Open Select as the Named Date Range when asked It may be appropriate to select the Don’t ask me again (this session or until manually changed) checkbox to suppress this requirement each time a new scheme is selected Note that the listed students are displayed with their current Reg Group, but the base bands available are for the following academic year Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year Click Browse and explore the other base band schemes Note that there are no memberships in place Change the Type to Any and continue to explore other schemes NOTE: The only schemes with students listed are base band schemes All other schemes have no list of students – this is because students must be assigned to appropriate base bands before they are available to be assigned to block schemes, which serve the respective bands and the classes they contain Step by Step – Allocating Students to Base Bands and Classes Manually Students should be allocated to base bands before they can be allocated to classes in blocks associated with a base band Select Focus | School | Academic Structure | Curriculum Assignment by Scheme Click Search to view all curriculum schemes Select Curriculum Year in the Year Taught in drop-down list, then click Search to view year schemes only Up Level and Down Level switch the browse filter between Band Schemes, Block Schemes and Cluster Schemes (where these exist) Select the Base Bands scheme, then click Open or double-click Set the Named Date Range to Working Academic Year (if applicable) Click OK Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year Step by Step – Allocating Students Manually to Base Bands NOTE: You may right-click to display the same menu as clicking Action To clear a highlighted group of students, click anywhere away from the currently selected students but avoid clicking over a cell as this may edit the contents of that cell Click Max Sizes to display the numbers of students allocated to schemes It is possible to display gender totals at the bottom of the columns by selecting the View Split Totals option from the Action menu The Advanced Mode checkbox controls whether the Filters panel is visible or hidden Select the required band column heading then either:  select cells individually using the mouse or keyboard and click the drop-down to the right of Reg Group, select the required registration group, click Filter to display students from the select group, click Action | Select All Students and then click Action | Tick Selected Cell(s)  or sort on Registration Group and select the students required using Ctrl or Shift and the mouse to highlight individuals or groups of students and click on one of the highlighted cells in the appropriate band column Clicking Action provides a comprehensive list of options which can also be accessed by right-clicking in various parts of the screen Allocate registration groups 7A-7C to band x and registration groups 7D-7F to band y If prompted, click OK to confirm Click Save Activity – Allocating Students Manually to Base Bands  Select Focus | School | Academic Structure | Curriculum Assignment by Scheme  Search to view all curriculum schemes Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year  Select Curriculum Year 10 in the Year Taught in drop-down list, then click Search to view year 10 schemes only  Select the Base Bands scheme, then click Open or double-click  Set the Named Date Range to Working Academic Year (if applicable) Click OK  Select Action  Allocation registration groups 10A-10C to band x and registration groups 10D-10F to band y If prompted, click OK to confirm  Save Step by Step – Allocating Students Manually to Classes Once allocated to the appropriate base band, students can be allocated to classes in blocks which are sourced by bands 8x and 8y Click browse and select 8x Maths If applicable, accept the highlighted Effective Date Range Allocate students to Maths sets by selecting relevant checkboxes It is likely that this would be carried out under instruction from the Head of Department If prompted, click OK to confirm the assigning of students to a class Click Save Return to the browser and select the 8x Reg Groups scheme This is a linear block and will allocate students to a range of classes which are to be taught in tutor or registration groups The most appropriate way to select checkboxes could be to filter by registration group and use multiple selecting techniques described above If prompted, click OK to confirm the assigning of students to a class Click Save Return to the browser and highlight the 8x Reg Groups scheme Click Down Level to access the list of cluster schemes associated with the selected scheme 10 Open a few of the cluster schemes and observe that the students have been made members of all such classes These memberships have been affected by the allocations of students to the 8x Reg Groups scheme 11 Select Browse to return to the list of schemes 12 Change the Year Taught In to Curriculum Year and click Search 13 Make some further allocations to 8y Maths and 8y Reg Groups schemes Save any changes then close the curriculum assignment by scheme browse 14 Close the Curriculum Assignment by Scheme screen Allocating Students to Base Bands and Classes Using Academic Promotion It is likely that many class memberships will follow on from the previous year This is particularly true for year 10 into year 11, that is to say next year’s year 11 classes will be the same as this year’s year 10 classes Nevertheless, each year the new classes should be populated with students There are several routines which make this more efficient Academic Promotion The process follows two stages Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year  Set up academic promotion path rules by selecting Routines | School | Academic Promotion Rules  Apply academic promotion when assigning students to academic schemes in Focus | School | Academic Structure | Curriculum Assignment by scheme NOTE: Before Academic Promotion can be carried out, the new academic year should be created within SIMS and contain the correct curriculum structure More information on this can be found in Curriculum Management using Nova-T Step by Step – Setting up Base Band Promotion Rules Select Routines | School | Academic Promotion Rules Select the academic year to promote into, examples, as shown in the following graphic NOTE: Selecting the academic year here is not influenced by the set academic year routines explored earlier The academic promotion rules window is displayed, as shown in the following graphic It is important to realise that the settings relate to the destination of the class memberships, hence a national curriculum year group (NCYear) is selected, a Scheme Type is selected from Bands, Block or Cluster (classes) and a Mode is selected from Previous Year or Current Year Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year The year group selected determines what will be displayed elsewhere in terms of ancestor schemes and groups Year has no such schemes or groups available in the previous year as there is no year The mode options are applicable to the year-end scenario, where memberships are being rolled forward into a new timetable The alternative is where the current year would be selected, with memberships being transferred from one block to another within the current year The different settings will be explored Select from the NC Year drop-down list, select Bands from the Scheme Type dropdown list, then select Previous Year from the Mode drop-down list  Possible ancestor schemes are base bands in year  Groups for the selected scheme displays 9x and 9y, the year base bands Highlight Base Bands in Year in the Possible Ancestor Schemes field The Groups for Selected Scheme field now displays the Base Bands for Year 8, as linked to base bands in year If these links are correct, click Confirm and Save It is possible to override the suggested link in the groups for selected scheme field by selecting a different group and clicking Link between the two boxes The existing links can be broken by clicking Unlink and re-established manually, as in the preceding text Where the suggested link is not correct, and required links have been manually established, these can be saved by clicking Confirm and Save Activity – Setting up Base Band Promotion Rules  Select Routines | School | Academic Promotion Rules  Complete the promotion rules mapping for all remaining year group base bands Consider any potential issues for promoting the Year 11 and 12 band structures into Years 12 and 13 respectively Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year NOTE: The promotion rules for blocks and clusters follow the same process as those for base bands It is also possible to pick and mix the linking of schemes, for example an English scheme could be linked to a Maths ancestor scheme if this were an appropriate option In general, it is likely that where curriculum structures follow on from one year to another, the suggested links will be appropriate and, where curriculum structures differ substantially, links should be established manually Step by Step – Setting Block Promotion Rules for Year from Year If required, return to the Academic Promotion Rules screen by selecting Routines | School | Academic Promotion Rules (with the new academic year selected as the one to promote into) If this has not already been done, set the promotion rules for bands – select year 9, Band and Previous Year in the settings at the top In Schemes select Base Bands in Year In Possible Ancestor Schemes, select Base Bands in Year Click Confirm and Save Now set up rules for Year blocks Select Year 9, Block and Previous Year in the settings at the top Highlight the top scheme in Schemes (Academic Year…) Observe that the suggested links have automatically been identified and are as desired Click Confirm and Save Work down the schemes for band 9x in turn, accepting suggestions or creating manual links as required 10 Do not create any links for 9x Science NOTE: Link 9x Common Sets for 2019/20 to Year Reg Groups from 2018/19 The staff member in charge of academic promotion will need some degree of familiarity with the structure the timetabler has used when constructing the timetable Activity – Setting Block Promotion Rules for Year from Year  If required, return to the Academic Promotion Rules screen by selecting Routines | School | Academic Promotion Rules (with the new academic year selected as the one to promote into)  If this has not already been done, set the promotion rules for bands - select NC Year 8, Bands and Previous Year in the settings at the top  In Schemes, select Base Bands in Year  In Possible Ancestor Schemes, select Base Bands in Year  Click Confirm and Save  Now set up rules for Year blocks Select Year 8, Block and Previous Year in the settings at the top  Highlight 8xy PSE under Schemes (for the new year) and 7xy PSE under Possible Ancestor Schemes (for the current year) Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year  Observe that the suggested links have automatically been identified and are as desired Click Confirm and Save  Repeat steps and for 8x Maths, 8x Technology, 8y Maths and 8y Technology Step by Step – Setting up Block Promotion Rules based on Current Year Ancestor Schemes NOTE: In Year 7, English was taught as part of a linear block In Year 8, English will be taught in sets The membership of the Year English classes will be based on the Maths memberships If required, return to the Academic Promotion Rules screen by selecting Routines | School | Academic Promotion Rules (with the new academic year selected as the one to promote into) Select Year 8, Block and Current Year Note that both schemes and possible ancestor schemes display the same data  Highlight 8x English in Schemes  Highlight 7x Maths in Possible Ancestor Schemes There will be no suggested links, and these will need to be created manually Highlight 8X/En1 in Groups for Selected Scheme and 7x/Ma1 in Possible Ancestor Groups Click Continue to link the classes and select Confirm and Save The screen should look similar to the following graphic Repeat steps to for 8y English Close the Academic Promotion Rules screen Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year 10 Step by Step – Using Promotion Rules to Make Curriculum Assignments Select Focus | School | Academic Structure | Curriculum Assignment by Scheme and filter Year Taught in to Curriculum Year Click Search Where promotion rules have been created, schemes will be shown as Promotable Select Base Bands in Year and, if applicable, accept the Effective Date Range Click Allocate and select Curriculum Promotion Wizard from the menu displayed (this is now live for this scheme) The Curriculum Promotion Wizard will open, click Next Check the Effective Date Range and Reference Date If these are correct, click Next Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year 11 Check the groups to be included in the promotion and deselect any which should be excluded Click Next If a screen similar to the following graphic is displayed, click Yes to continue Review the promotion settings Click Next Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year 12 10 Click Finish Ticks are put into the grid based on the promotion rules created earlier There may be warnings associated with some students 11 Click Save Unassigned students can be identified in a number of ways They will have been given a flag in the Flag column 12 Right-click the Flag column to display a menu 13 Sort the column to bring flagged students to the top of the list Ticks can be manually entered as required Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year 13 14 Continue to use the Curriculum Promotion Wizard to populate Year 9x schemes The same principles can be applied to other academic promotion scenarios Step by Step – Allocating Students to Classes Using Export and Import Routines It may be appropriate to use allocations from previous years to inform this year’s allocations or to provide subject leaders with empty tick grids for completion To this end it is possible to export the allocations in the form of a Microsoft Excel file that enables them to be imported Group memberships from the last academic year can be exported to a spreadsheet, or an empty tick grid can be exported for the head of subject to make their allocations This can then be imported when complete Year Science allocations are to be gathered from the head of subject It is possible to export an empty tick grid as an Excel file and give this to the head of subject or print it out and ask for it to be completed, either electronically or manually The resulting completed file can then be imported into SIMS From the Academic Management Routines select Focus | School | Academic Structure | Curriculum Assignment by Scheme, then click Search Select the Year 9x band and the Science block (9x Science) Ensure the effective date range is set to Working Academic Year Click Allocate and select Export Curriculum Membership Wizard from the menu displayed (the Curriculum Promotion Wizard is not available) The Export Curriculum Membership Wizard will open Click Next Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year 14 Accept the default Reference Date (normally the first date of the next working academic year) and click Next Select Empty on the Choose Level of Detail screen and click Next Click browse and export the Symbolic Link (SYLK) file to a suitable location On training, select the Desktop The default filename can be accepted Click Next 10 Review the settings and click Next 11 Click Finish Step by Step – Editing the SYLK File Minimise SIMS and locate the exported file on the desktop Double-click to open the file in Excel The layout of the file can be adjusted as long as the header row is left untouched and the columns remain in the same order Make some entries in the file using a T or t to indicate a tick Make some incorrect entries using other letters or TT and add a student to more than one class Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year 15 Click Save – respond Yes to the query about formats Close Excel – there is no need to resave the file as prompted Step by Step – Importing the SYLK File Select Focus | School | Academic Structure | Curriculum Assignment by scheme Select the Year 9x Band and the Science Block and accept the Effective Date Range, if necessary Click Allocate and select Import Curriculum Membership Wizard from the menu displayed The Import Curriculum Membership Wizard will open Click Next Check the effective date range and click Next Choose to import a Curriculum Membership File and click Next Browse for the Science SYLK file and click Next If a screen similar to the following graphic is displayed, click Yes to continue Clicking No and closing the import wizard would allow for the editing of the SYLK file before attempting another import If there are any students in the SYLK file for whom there are no ticks, a screen similar to the following graphic will be displayed Select the required option For the purposes of training choose Leave memberships for these students unchanged and click Yes to proceed Clicking No and closing the import wizard would allow for the editing of the SYLK file before attempting another import If there are any students with multiple ticks (ticked for more than one class), a screen similar to the following graphic is displayed 10 For the purposes of training click Yes to proceed Clicking No and closing the import wizard would allow for the editing of the SYLK file before attempting another import Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year 16 11 The class memberships will be imported There may be warnings about incorrect entries or missing entries These may be edited manually Save any changes It is possible to transfer memberships from one year to another in this way by altering the column headings from an exported file of a previous year, so that they match the column headings of the new year, although this is more efficiently carried out using the academic promotion tool NOTE: Pre-admission students who have been allocated an admission status of Accepted can be edited in Academic Management and allocated to bands and classes Courses and course memberships Having made allocations to classes as indicated in the above procedures it will be necessary to use the routine update course memberships by selecting Tools | Academic Management | Course Manager | Maintain Course to ensure the same data is available to courses and the structures that use them Courses and Autumn Census The Autumn Census will require detailed information on course memberships to complete the annual return for Post-16 students taking courses in the school In most cases this will be catered for by transferring the timetable to SIMS from Nova-T having assigned level codes to all classes (the transfer cannot be made if level codes are not assigned) There are new level codes available for two-year A Level courses The level codes of the class and the subject define the courses which will be created Placing students in classes creates the course memberships which census requires Further census related work will be necessary to ensure all the information required by the Department for Education (DfE) is present The one day course, Course Manager and Post-16 Learning Aims, provides a detailed insight into the management of a course manager to aid the collection of post-16 learning aims in the autumn census Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year 17 02 Printing Timetables and Class Lists This chapter contains: Chapter Introduction 18 Step by Step – Printing Student Timetables from SIMS 18 Step by Step – Printing Individual Staff Timetables from SIMS 19 Step by Step – Printing Class Lists from SIMS 19 Chapter Introduction In SIMS, the menu route Reports | Timetables provides access to timetable printing routines to print both student and staff timetables Student timetables can only be printed when students have had their curriculum allocations outlined in the previous section completed Staff timetables can only be printed when a complete timetable has been sent from Nova-T to SIMS This is normally undertaken by the school timetabler Step by Step – Printing Student Timetables from SIMS Select Reports | Timetables | Student Timetable(s) to display the Student Selection screen Change the Effective Date to a date after the start of the new academic year, for example 04/09/2019 then click Refresh Click Registration Group(s) and select 9A Click OK This selects all of 9A to the Selected Students screen Highlight the majority of the students, then click < to leave a small number of students Click OK Printing Timetables and Class Lists 18 The Student Timetable screen is displayed Amendments to the cell contents can be made with the Cell Settings options and Layout Settings controls the font and layouts Page Layout and Page Margins options are at the top of the screen Experiment with changing the settings Print sends the displayed timetables to the printer Click Close to return to SIMS Step by Step – Printing Individual Staff Timetables from SIMS Select Reports | Timetables | Staff Timetable(s) to display the Select Staff screen Make appropriate selections, then click OK The Staff Timetable screen enables similar options to the Student screen above Step by Step – Printing Class Lists from SIMS Student lists and analysis reports are available in SIMS They are looked at in detail in the Academic Management course, but the following options are available Printing Timetables and Class Lists 19 Select Reports | Student list | Class List Ensure the Effective Date is correct Make the requested selection of classes and click OK The selected class list(s) will be displayed and can be printed Select Reports | Students Analysis Reports to display the list of menu routes available for analysis Printing Timetables and Class Lists 20 03 Other Associated Activities This chapter contains: Chapter Introduction 21 Step by Step – Adding Classroom Staff Known to SIMS 21 Step by Step – Applying the Timetable within SIMS 22 Chapter Introduction This chapter looks at other activities related to the end of year preparation, including staff and housekeeping routines Recording Changes to Teaching Staff Staff leaving the school are given a leaving date by selecting Focus | Person | Staff When new staff are added to the database in either system they should also be made available for use as classroom staff, using the manage classroom staff routine in the Focus | Person menu This has been introduced to enable employees except teachers to be made available for matching via the curriculum matching wizard, where they have been allocated to classes in Nova-T Step by Step – Adding Classroom Staff Known to SIMS This step by step makes available members of the non-teaching staff to be used for assignment to classrooms The actual assignment is carried out in Nova-T A current member of the non-teaching staff called Donna Daylow will be added to the classroom staff Select Focus | Person | Manage Classroom Staff, then click Search to populate the browser The browser is populated with staff who satisfy the defaults in the filters (who are already considered to be classroom staff) Click New to add a new individual to Classroom Staff Fields for entering Surname, Forename, Gender and Date of Birth are available NOTE: This screen is effectively a search tool – it will search for existing people on the database whose details match those entered Enter as much or as little information as necessary to locate the individual required In the Surname field, type da and press Enter, or click Continue A window is displayed offering any individual student, contact, member of staff or agent whose surname begins with da Highlight the first member of teaching staff displayed and click Open (located on the right-hand side) The Classroom Staff screen will be displayed partly populated with the select member of staff’s details A Staff Code (required) will have been generated This can be edited if required Other Associated Activities 21 A role may be added by selecting the required checkbox in the Roles as at field A cover option may be added by selecting one of the options from the Cover Option drop-down list Subjects may be added if required by clicking edit (located on the left) and selecting from the list and clicking Ok Click Save NOTE: The effect of this change will only be detected in Nova-T if the option to refresh basedata from SQL is used Step by Step – Applying the Timetable within SIMS The process of associating cycle days with calendar days is called Applying the Timetable Cycle Definition and is deployed in SIMS by selecting Tools | Academic Structure | Apply Timetable It is not necessary to run this process in order for student curriculum assignments to be made, but it is necessary in order to display correct student and teacher timetables for a calendar week, and to use Lesson Monitor and certain routines in Attendance NOTE: This routine would normally be undertaken by the timetabler in school as part of year end procedures To be able to complete this task, the required academic year needs to have been created within SIMS and the correct timetable information submitted from Nova-T to SIMS In SIMS, select Tools | Academic Management | Set Academic Year Highlight the required academic year, for example Academic Year 2019/2020, then click OK A message is displayed Click OK Once you have selected the academic year for which you wish to apply the timetable, select Tools | Academic Structure | Apply Timetable A message will be displayed (similar to the following graphic), click Yes Ensure that the correct Timetable Model is selected and check the Date Range is correct NOTE: For schools operating a multiple week timetable where the order of week and may change part way through year, for example after a school holiday, the date range may be edited to ensure that the correct timetable days are mapped to the correct parts of the academic year Under Method, Select start point is only required if staff wish to map a timetable day to a different day from the one listed under maps to Timetable day Ensure that the date maps to Timetable day: is correct, particularly if the school is running a two-week timetable Other Associated Activities 22 The relevant timetable days are displayed on the right-hand side of the screen These dates are derived from the creation of the academic year in SIMS and the first date showing with a status of Full should represent the first day staff and students are due in school Once the selections have been made click Apply Once the application of timetable days has been made and the allocations are correct, click Save Other Associated Activities 23 ... Working on Academic Structures in the New Academic Year Some worked examples Step by Step – Setting the Academic Year As the data in SIMS is date-related and the focus of a year? ??s data is by default... automatically when the date changes to a date in the new year If not already done, set the academic year to the year you will be working on Select Tools | Academic Management | Set Academic Year. .. Students to Base Bands and Classes Manually Students should be allocated to base bands before they can be allocated to classes in blocks associated with a base band Select Focus | School | Academic