December News Blog Post 2023

SIMS ID is a single sign-on login for all your cloud-based SIMS products.

This allows all users to log into any SIMS online service such as Parent App, SIMS Next Gen, SIMS Connected, Product Admin, using just one login, allowing seamless access to these services, from whichever device they choose to use.

User permissions can be managed effortlessly. All accounts are created automatically from the data in SIMS, with a simple set-up of permissions for both new and existing users, ensuring correct access levels across different systems. Users also have the ability to manage and reset their own passwords, saving valuable time for your technical staff.

Tables to chart update

Arbor have released the functionality to create charts straight from any table with numeric values in Arbor, including in custom reports. This feature gives you the ability to create data visualisations, reducing the need to export your data out of Arbor for further analysis. This included creating graphs in your chosen colour and style and export them to add to presentations or share with others. See full details in Arbor’s Article here : Charts and graphs of Arbor data

What else is new in tables?

• Column Border and Cell Colour styling controls are now an icon with a text label, rather than just text.
• On all tables, there’s now better formatting for stacked column headers, plus you can cut and paste, and delete several cells at once by selecting a range of cells and pressing the backspace or delete keys.
• Extra columns have been added to a few pages for example: a Registration Form column to the Students table in an Internal Exclusion session, a Type column to the Internal Exclusion statistics table, and an Event column to the Emergency Alert Report table to see where the alert was triggered.
• In the Census Summary Inspection, the table header and cell text is wrapped rather than cut off, the column size now adapts to the content, and you can scroll to the right if there’s not enough space to fit everything on-screen.
• The option to Create Ad-Hoc Intervention on all tables where you can already add an intervention using the Bulk action button.

Arbor now integration with the National Foundation for Educational Research’s free online analysis tool means you can now see assessment data in Arbor MIS and MAT MIS, giving you the full picture of student progress across your trust. Standardised assessments are a great way to ensure consistency and validity of progress and attainment judgements across the schools in your MAT.  Take a look at our blog post to see how using standardised assessments could benefit your MAT.

• The integration with National Foundation for Educational Research’s Assessment System automatically sends student data to NFER, removing the need to manually remove leavers or add new starters to both systems and reducing the potential for error.
• In addition to this, student results for NFER assessments are sent back to Arbor and displayed on our School and MAT MIS dashboards. These dashboards allow you to analyse all your core student data in one place at both an individual school and whole MAT level.

For more information see Arbor’s full article here : NFER and Arbor Integration

Update – The Total Outstanding figure on the homepage lets parents know how much they owe the school across all top up accounts, Trips and Clubs. They can click on the figure to view a breakdown, and to see accounts that are running low. See how this looks or share this article with parents: Payment accounts and topping up on the Parent Portal or Arbor App.

If as a school you decide this feature isn’t something you wish to use it can be switched off is needed via Students | Parents and Guardians |Parent Portal Settings:

Do you have Parents struggling with Navigation and use of the Arbor Parent Portal and Arbor App?

Share these useful links and Articles in your next parent newsletter:

https://support.arbor-education.com/hc/en-us/sections/201716749-Parent-Portal-and-Arbor-App-Getting-started-and-logging-in

https://support.arbor-education.com/hc/en-us/sections/12209476383517-Parent-Portal-and-Arbor-App-Payments-School-Shop-Meals-Clubs-and-Trips

https://support.arbor-education.com/hc/en-us/sections/4409013168273-Parent-Portal-and-Arbor-App-Profiles-messages-and-meetings

• Three new bulk actions for the Enrolled Students table in Programmes of Study. You can now easily change the Planned Start Date, Planned End Date and Actual End Date for multiple students at once
• Arbor will now automatically flag to you if your automatic workflows can’t assign students to detentions correctly. Out dated detentions in workflows now appear in your To Do list You’ll need either the Behaviour: Behaviour Policy or School: Action: Behaviour: Administer permission to fix this issue.
• Custom report writer updates include Improved formatting for date fields in the Custom Report Writer, so you can output them as dd Mmm yyyy (25 Oct 2023), dd/mm/yyyy (25/10/2023) or dd/mm/yy (25/10/23).
• You can now also Create a report about Suspensions in the MAT MIS Custom Report Writer.

As long as your new academic year has been created, you can add your new Intake Seasons via Students > All Students > Applicants.  This will take you to the Applicants Dashboard which will show all of the Intake Seasons created on the MIS. Click on the green +Add sign at the top of the dashboard.

In the slideover, add a name for the season and the acadmic year it’s linked to.

Once the Season has been set up, you can add your Buckets and Intake Groups if you use them.

For more help with this, please call or log a ticket:

School ICT Customers: –

• Contact: 0345 222 6802 Option 1, helpdesk@schoolicts.co.uk
• Customer Portal: my.schoolicts.co.uk

turn IT on Customers: –

• Contact: 01865 597620 Option 2, mis.support@turniton.co.uk
• Portal: https://portal.turniton.co.uk

Although you won’t be able to access your Census in Arbor until January, you can check some of your data in advance.

To do this go to School > Data > Data Quality Dashboard, select Students from the left, then Demographics, and Bulk Update Basic Details.  In here, you’ll be able to complete any missing information which will save work later on.

Although Ofsted won’t usually ask your school to do any formal preparation ahead of an inspection, it’s good to know how quickly and easily you can access your data when needed. For more information on inspections, take a look at their Education Inspection Framework (EIF).

We’ve gathered together some of the questions they usually ask, and how to use ScholarPack to help prepare for each of them below.

Attendance

You’ll need to be able to provide up to date attendance figures. They may ask for both your whole school figures, as well as attendance figures for special cohorts and specific groups of students, such as:

–         Individual Year Groups

–         Pupil Premium

–         FSM

–         EAL

–         SEN

–         A bespoke group of students, such as those in a Dynamic Group

–         Comparative figures for special groups

This is by no means an exhaustive list of what Ofsted inspectors may ask to see regarding attendance. Below is a collection of our commonly requested reports that are worth being familiar with, via Reporting > Reports > Attendance (red tab):

• The Custom Attendance Report
• The Percentage Attendance Between report
• Persistent Absence Reports
• The Code Count Reports
• For guidance on our other Attendance Reports, click here.

Enrolment and Student Demographics

Ofsted may ask for details about the number of students on roll, as well as any students that have been taken off roll. The following reports can be found via Reporting > Reports > Students (blue tab).

• On Roll By Date
• Admissions and Leavers
• Student Custom Report
• School Summary
• Special Cohorts

For further guidance on reporting on Student Data, click here. For further guidance on reporting on Student Demographics, click here.

Behaviour and Conduct

Ofsted may ask to see records of specific types of behaviour and incidents, or a record of exclusions and suspensions. The following reports can be found via Reporting > Reports > Conduct (orange tab).

Please note:

Schools have the option to rename many of the conduct categories in the Admin > Config > Custom Relabelling area. If your school has renamed them, the names of your conduct reports may be different to the guidance. The icons however will still match.

• Incident Report
• Exclusions Report

For further guidance on Conduct Reporting options, click here.

Renamed Categories:

We recommend checking the reporting and recording capabilities of a category before renaming it, or using it to record a different type of conduct than it was intended for. Recording serious conduct events in a category designed to record events of a less serious nature may limit your ability to fully record and report on information for Ofsted.

Attainment and Progress

Ofsted may ask to see records of student attainment and progress, as well as how they compare to previous years. This will all depend on how you record school assessments in ScholarPack, and whether you use the STEPS or Simple Assessment setup.

STEPS Assessments

STEPS Assessment reports can be accessed via Reporting > Assessment. This article has a summary of all the STEPS reports, however below are a few commonly requested ones that may be particularly useful.

• Checkpoints Report
• Progress Between Checkpoints
• School Overview Report
• By Student Report

For further guidance on STEPS reporting, click here.

Simple Assessments

Simple Assessment reporting can be accessed via Reporting > New Reports. This article has a full summary of how to build reports in this area. The most commonly used ones are the Attainment Report, and the Progress Report.

• The Attainment Report
• The Progress Report

For further guidance on Simple Assessments reporting, click here.

Intervention groups

Ofsted may ask to see evidence of how you track and monitor students who have been identified as needing extra support. The easiest way to do this is through the Interventions area (Workspace > Interventions).

Reporting on Intervention Groups

Useful tip:

Whilst we have specific reports available in the Interventions area, you can also use many of the reports in our Reporting > Reports area with Intervention groups to find out a wider range of data, much the same as how you would report on a Dynamic or Static group.

Formative Markbooks

These can be used to demonstrate how far along in the curriculum students are, and their level of understanding across different components of a subject.

Reporting on Statements

For further guidance on using the formative markbooks, click here. Alternatively, this guide has a handy section on how to analyse your data.

Safeguarding

Ofsted will require access to safeguarding information. This may include looking at the Single Central Record (Central Register).

Central Register

• Tracking Daily Attendance

Other safeguarding requests:

Ofsted may also ask to see information about the complaints process, and any safeguarding and social care referrals. We currently don’t have a specific place to store that information on ScholarPack – please speak with your school’s safeguarding team who will be able to tell you how and where your school records that information.

 Staff

Ofsted may have questions about staff wellbeing, as well as how you support their professional development. The below reports are accessible via Reporting > Reports > Staff (green tab)

• Custom Staff Report
• Staff Training

Administration

• Online Access Arrangements dropdown has been updated for the 2023-24 academic year onwards.
• After sending SMS/Email and Quick Letters to Students and Staff – the selections in the list will be cleared.

Analysis

• The Attainment Estimates table has been updated with the latest DfE Scaled Score Estimates for KS2 for 2022/23 and 2023/24.

Census

• The 2024 CES Census file has been updated.

Finance

• Ability to create and edit multiple forecasts.

MAT Finance

• Standardise URLs across MAT Finance.

More details via this link: https://whatsnew.bromcomcloud.com/en

Our event schedule has now come to a close for this year and we’re in the process of planning our event attendance for 2024.

To ensure we’re attending key events, we’d love to find out which events you’ve attended recently and would recommend (or any that you wouldn’t!).

Please get in touch by e-mailing: marketing@schoolicts.co.uk