New Functions in SIMS Summer 2022
Summer 2022 SIMS Update
New Functionality
New functionality has been provided in SIMS, enabling the setup and maintenance of personal pronouns. This functionality is accessible (via Tools | Setups | Pronoun Setup) and can be accessed by School Administrators and System Managers.
Personal pronouns can be chosen by pupil/students, applicants, contacts, staff members and agents and applied to their SIMS record. Once applied to an individual in SIMS, a suffix of their specified personal pronoun is displayed in bold text at the top of their record.
A number of enhancements have been made to various areas in SIMS to incorporate this new functionality.
Personal pronouns are not collected in any statutory returns at present, there is no requirement to report this information to the DfE.
Please see links for ESS videos for some updates below:
Pronoun(s) in the Person Records in SIMS
Reporting on the Assessment Result Owner in Design Reports
Updating the ‘Private’ / ‘Public’ Status of a Custom Report
Reporting on the Emergency Alert function in SIMS
STUDENT RECORDS
Personal Pronouns – Enhancements to Student and Contact Basic Details
The Gender field has been renamed to Sex in the Find Pupil/Student browser and the Find Contacts browser, and in their respective Basic Details panels. Additionally, you can now select the pupil/student’s or contact’s chosen personal pronoun from the Pronoun(s) drop-down list.
A suffix of the pupil/student’s or contact’s chosen personal pronoun is displayed in bold text at the top of their Student Details or Contact Details page
ASSESSMENT
The following can now be displayed as additional student information columns on a marksheet:
Pronoun(s)
Sex (previously named Gender)
An additional column now enables you to identify the result set Owner when viewing or editing the result set history in a template column cell.
Routines | Data In | Assessment | Import from Spreadsheet
If a comment aspect contains more than the maximum of 1000 characters, a warning message is now displayed advising that it will be truncated on import. It is possible to revisit the spreadsheet to modify the comment aspect so that it can be imported correctly.
This release includes a fix in the following area:
When viewing marksheet Summary totals (via Focus | Assessment | Marksheet Entry), the Mean Grade total is now calculated to the correct decimal place
ATTENDANCE
Personal Pronouns – Additional Columns in Attendance and Lesson Monitor
When the header of a read-only column is right-clicked, the list of additional column options now includes Sex (previously Gender) and Pronoun(s), e.g. They / Them / Their / Theirs / Themselves.
Attendance Subcodes – Attendance code X is no longer to be used for COVID-19 related absence therefore, the following subcodes have been set to inactive:
X01-Non compulsory school age
X02-Self-isolating – Covid-19 symptoms
X05-Quarantine Self-isolating
X06-Clinical Advice not to attend
X07-Government advice not to attend
X08-Director of Public Health advice not to attend
X09-Self-isolating – specific group required by NHS test and trace.
Please note that subcodes related to code I are still available for use.
COURSE MANAGER
Facility to Add a Programme for Students Studying a T Level Transition
An Add Programme button now enables a second record to be added for a student who has completed a T Level Transition programme in 2021/22 and is starting the T Level programme in 2022/23. The start and end dates selected cannot overlap, only one programme can be studied at a time.
EXAMS
Enhancements to the Candidate Statement of Results Report – Tools | Examinations | Candidate Statement of Results Report
It is now possible to click the Upload button to export the data from the report, as a Microsoft® Word document, to the Document Management Server.
Subject Grade Analysis Report Provided in SIMS – Tools | Examinations | Subject Grade Analysis Report
The Subject/Grade Analysis report is now accessible from SIMS.
PERSONNEL
Personal Pronouns – Enhancements to Staff Basic Details
The Gender field has been renamed to Sex in the staff browser and in their Basic Details panel. Additionally, you can now select the staff member’s chosen personal pronoun from the Pronoun(s) drop-down list.
A suffix of the staff member’s chosen personal pronoun is displayed in bold text at the top of their Personal Details page.
Change to the Staff QTS Route Lookup Values – Tools | Lookups | Maintain
An amendment has been made to the QTS Route lookup in SIMS. The value of GTPR – Graduate Teacher Programme has been made inactive
SCHOOL CENSUS AUTUMN
Exclusions Terminology
Because Fixed Term exclusion is no longer used the following changes have been made to Exclusion Type values:
– The Fixed Term exclusion type has been set to inactive.
– The description for Reinstated from Fixed Term/Suspension has been changed to Reinstated from Suspension.
Funding and Monitoring
– Cumulative hours for the Autumn term are collected for the first time in the School Census Autumn 2022 return.
– For clarity, the labelling of the previously named School Led Tutoring column has been changed to Tutoring. The rules for this column have been expanded to include externally provided tutoring as well as school led tutoring.
This change has also been made in the Funding and Monitoring census panel and the associated detail report
Post Looked After Arrangements
The following changes have been made to codes and descriptions:
– The codeset for Post Looked After Arrangements (PLAA) has been extended to include ‘O’ (Adopted from state care outside of England and Wales). The code can be used from the start of the 2022/2023 academic year, for collection in the Autumn school census onwards.
-The descriptions of all ceased to be looked after options have been revised:
Adoption from England and Wales
Adoption from state care outside of England and Wales
Special guardianship order (SGO) from England and Wales
Residence order (RO) from England and Wales
Child arrangement order (CAO) from England and Wales.
SIMS REPORTING
Personal Pronouns – Additional Fields for Student List Reports
Additional data fields have been provided to enable schools to sort, filter and report on the pupil/student data currently held for Sex and Pronoun(s).
Provision of Sex and Pronoun(s) Fields
When designing reports based on pupil/students, applicants, staff, contacts and agents, the Pronoun(s) field has been added to the Basic Details node. A Sex field has also been provided.
Add Closure and Assignment Cover Notes
When creating a School based report and incorporating the Room Cover node, you can now include Closure Cover Notes and Assignment Cover Notes to the report output.
Staff or room cover replacement options
When creating a Staff based report and incorporating the Staff Cover node, you can now additionally view the details of replacement options for a conflicting staff member in the report output.
When creating a School based report and incorporating the Room Cover node, you can now additionally view the details of replacement options for a conflicting room in the report output.
Reporting on Assessment Result Owner
When creating a Student based report which includes the Assessment results node, it is now possible to incorporate the name of the staff member who originally recorded the assessment results by including the Result Owner field.
Ability to Specify Accessibility on Custom reports – After highlighting an existing report in any of the folders displayed in the Open panel, you can now right-click and select Set As to change the visibility of the report from Private to Public and vice versa
Emergency Alert report
When designing a Communication based report, additional Emergency alerts fields
have been provided:
Sender
Date
Time
Receiver
Class
Room
Message
Read Status
SYSTEM MANAGER
Enhancements to System Security (Sysman Password)
To enhance system security, it is now a requirement that the password assigned to the
‘Sysman’ login is changed to a strong password. The replacement strong password must:
– contain at least eight characters
– contain at least one alphabetic character
– contain at least one number
– contain at least one special character ! * @ # $ %.
Select the Change Password check box on the login screen to change the password