End of Year 2011 Secondary Academic

 Check SIMS is the correct version  Check Academic Year 2011/2012 is created  Check Staff initials and teacher roles  Set up a New Timetable Cycle if necessary  Assigning Exam Level

SIMS End of Year 2011 Secondary - Academic

for Northamptonshire

Schools

Table of Contents

Introduction 6

End of Year Procedure Check List 7

1 Check SIMS is the correct version 8

2 Ensure that the Academic Year 2011/2012 is created 9

3 Ensuring Staff Codes Match and Teacher Roles identified 10

4 Setting up a New Timetable Cycle – if necessary 11

5 Assigning Exam Levels in NOVA-T 13

6 Creating a Backup prior to Exporting NOVA-T to SIMS 16

7 Run Database Diagnostics prior to Exporting NOVA-T 17

8 Exporting the Timetable & Curriculum to SIMS 18

9 Curriculum Matching Wizard (NOVA/SQL Transfer Wizard) 19

10 Changing the Academic Year in SIMS 22

11 Editing and Updating Courses 23

12 Update Course Membership 25

13 Assigning Student Curriculum 26

14 Academic Promotional Rules 28

15 Academic Promotion 31

16 Export and Import of Student Group Membership 36

17 Exporting Student Allocations from Options to SIMS 43

18 Adding a User Defined Date Range 45

19 Manually assigning Students to classes in SIMS 48

20 Student Carousel Rotation Wizard 52

21 Derived Years (NOVA-T6) 55

22 Printing Timetables 56

23 Printing Class Lists 63

This is relatively new functionality within SIMS which was previously only available within Nova-T4 63

Since the Spring 2010 SIMS upgrade you now have functionality to print the following lists from within SIMS: 63  General Student List 63

 Class List 63

 Registration Group List 63

And also 63

 Student Analysis Reports 63

A training course is available to explore the full functionality of these new routes but below is a brief description of printing Class Lists 63

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is not currently possible to change the effective date from the initial screen (shown below) In order to change the date forward (to next academic year) you must initially make a selection to enter the class list display and then change the date via the Settings button You can then reselect the required class lists for the correct date range 63

Select the route Reports/Student List/Class List 63

By default all classes are listed and checked for printing Removal of a selection tick will still mean the class will display but will not print 63

You can use the Selection Types on the Left to reduce the number of class lists that get printed 63

e.g double click Classes of a subject and choose English from the list of subjects and click on OK 63

This would filter the list of classes on the right to show all the English Classes for printing 63

Click on OK to view the selected class lists on screen as shown overleaf 63

N.B The Options for All Staff (Curriculum) and All Staff (Timetable) are only relevant in a small number of cases If you have All Staff (Curriuclum) selected then only the Main class teacher would get a list, if you have All Staff (Timetable) selected then all teachers of a class would get a copy of the class list 64

You can move between the selected lists by using the arrows at the top of the screen 64

You can also add other fields of data to your reports using the selection on the right of the screen Once you have found a field you require then click and drag it across to the grid to add it 64

To remove it again right click on the column header and choose Remove Column 64

Various other options are available within the screen: 64

Report Section 64

Option 64 Funtion 64

General Options 64

Save 64 You have the option to Save Report Selections that you are likely to re-use 64

Browse 64

Allows you to recall a saved report selection 64

Sort 64 Allows you to change the default sort of the report from Alphabetical e.g by Gender 64

List 64 Change to look at a different type of list option 64

Settings 65

Allows you to change the effective date or the effective date or the membership date 65

Photo 65 You can print a list of photographs of student for the selected list 65

Print Options 65

Allows printing of all or selected list and allows settings like orientation to be changed and gives the opportunity to Preview the reports 65

Export 65 Allows the export to an output of Excel via the output options 65

Font 65 Font Type 65

Allows you to change the font type for the class lists 65

Font Size 65

Allows you to change the font size for the class lists 65

Report Layout 65

Fixed Column 65

Allows you to select how many report columns would be repeated if the class list was to go over more than one page 65

Row Divider 65

Allows you to specify if a row divider should exist after each line or every two lines etc 65 Print 65

Quick Print 65

Allows a quick print of all the selected reports without preview options A warning is displayed 65

Column Nesting 65

Nest 65 Allows you to merge the contents of two columns together This could be useful if your list is too wide for a page (Also available as a right-click option) 65

Remove 65

Removes nesting on selected column (Also available as a right-click option) 65

Column Options 65

Rename 65

Allows you to rename the default title of the column (Also available as a right-click option) 65

Autosize 65

If you change the font size the some data may exceed the width of the column Using this option would address this (Also available as a right-click option) 65

Remove 66

Removes the selected column (Also available as a right-click option) 66

24 Allocating Curriculum to Pre-Admission Students 66

25 Applying the Timetable in SIMS 67

Appendix 1 69

Introduction

The Year End procedures for Secondary schools have been split into two areas One aimed at the Pastoral promotion and one with the Curriculum and Academic processes This booklet is the Curriculum and Academic area but it is strongly recommended that you work closely with the person who is likely to be completing the pastoral processes if that is not you

This document is designed in the order in which we feel the tasks will need to be

completed

A check list of tasks is included overleaf for your use if required

End of Year Procedure Check List

This section provides a check list of the actions that form part of the end of year process

 Check SIMS is the correct version

 Check Academic Year 2011/2012 is created

 Check Staff initials and teacher roles

 Set up a New Timetable Cycle (if necessary)

 Assigning Exam Levels in NOVA-T6

 Back up

 Run Database Diagnostics

 Export NOVA-T6 to SIMS

 Changing the Academic Year in SIMS

 Update Course Memberships

 Academic Promotional Mapping

 Assign Student Curriculum

o Consider date ranges for the allocation of Year 13 Curriculum

o Academic Promotion Mapping and Academic Promotion

o Export and Import of Student Group Membership

o Export Student Allocations from Options to SIMS (if used)

o Manually assign student curriculum

o Student Carousel Rotation Wizard

o Allocate curriculum to pre-admission students

 Derived Years

 Printing Timetables

 Printing Class Lists

 Apply the Timetable in SIMS

1 Check SIMS is the correct version

Before commencing any of the tasks in this book please ensure that you have upgraded to the latest version of Sims (Version 7.138 or above)

In order to check this, open Sims, login when prompted and take the route

Help | About Sims

 Completed

PLEASE NOTE – All the examples of screens in this book relate to Version 7.138, you may have already moved to a subsequent version, and some screens may have updated as a result

Ensure SIMS is version 7.138 or above

If not then some of the functionality required for the End of Year

Procedures may not be available and you should

Helpdesk on (01604)

824999 before continuing

2 Ensure that the Academic Year 2011/2012 is created

It is essential that the Academic Year 2011/2012 is created in SIMS before the timetable can be exported from NOVA If your school uses Options then it is likely that this process was completed some time ago in order to start work on the Options process

This is part of the Pastoral End of Year processes and is included in that book In order to check that this has been completed before continuing you can check the School Diary Page

Use route Focus | School | School Diary and check that

Academic Year 2011/2012 is listed as shown in the diagram

opposite

 Completed

3 Ensuring Staff Codes Match and Teacher Roles identified

To ensure a successful transfer of data from Nova to SIMS it is important that staff codes match in Personnel, Nova-T6 and Nova-T4 databases

It is also essential that any teacher that has been used in Nova-T6 has a role identified in SIMS and you should liaise with the person responsible for Personnel to check this

 Take route Focus/Person/Manage Classroom Staff

 Use the Search facilities within this screen to see if the member of staff is listed If the member of staff is not listed use the New button and enter JUST the Surname of the member of staff and click on Continue

 This will bring up a list of Matched people where the member of staff should be listed (If you do not get the matched people screen it is important that you do not enter the member of staff again as they should be added via Personnel.)

 Highlight the appropriate member of staff and click on the Open button

 Ensure the appropriate role is ticked and that the staff initials match those in Nova

 In order to be able to save the record you will also have to enter a Cover option from the drop down available

 Save the changes

 Completed

4 Setting up a New Timetable Cycle – if necessary

If your Timetable cycle has no changes from last year to this year then you do not need to create a new Timetable cycle and your periods and session times will continue as normal

If, however, you have made any of the changes listed below then you will need to consider creating a new timetable cycle

There are a few reasons to create a new timetable cycle definition:

 If the number of periods or days in the timetable cycle has changed (including the

addition of Registration periods

 If the timing of periods has changed without alteration to the number of periods SQL can only hold one cycle definition for a particular date, but it can hold different cycles for different dates It might, for example, be necessary to change the timings of the

periods for a new school term, without needing to change the actual number of periods Alternatively, one might need to define a completely new cycle for a new academic year – possibly going from a 40 period single week to a 50 period two week cycle

In the case of either type of change, it is necessary to create a new cycle definition in Nova and transfer it to SIMS with an appropriate start date and a name

Setting up a new timetable cycle using NOVA-T6

The days and periods information can be editing using the cycle screen in Nova-T6 and

periods can be marked as teaching or non teaching

In NOVA-T6 select Data | Export Timetable Cycle to SQL

This shows the state of the routine when opened

The day and period information is automatically read from the cycle window In NOVA-T6

Times need to be specified for each of the periods listed

N.B There is no mechanism here for identifying which periods may not be in use on

particular days For the purposes of sending the new cycle, this is not important

The Fixed week cycle box should only be deselected when the number of days in the

cycle does not match the number of days in session – e.g a 6 day cycle being delivered Mon to Fri

It is VERY important to ensure that the Start Date is set correctly This would normally be the first working day of the new academic year Enter a Cycle Name and click on OK

You will be prompted for your SIMS login details

 Completed

The Start and End times may simply be overtyped for each period on Mon, and

cycle It is possible to overtype any of these times for any day so that ‘odd’ times

may be defined

If, following the definition of the first period a time in minutes is entered

work through the other periods of the day using the same length of period and/or break

5 Assigning Exam Levels in NOVA-T

This information is vital and has a large knock-on effect to the creation of courses in SIMS The successful creation of courses in SIMS is ESSENTIAL for all schools but particularly those with a Sixth Form as this information forms part of the Post-16 Learning Aim

information collected as part of the School Census return Failure to record this

information correctly can have an impact on the funding your school will receive

The allocation of Exam Levels in Nova-T6 is the process which automatically creates Courses in SIMS If an exam level is incorrectly allocated at this stage and an incorrect course created, the only workaround once the academic year has commenced is manual editing of the courses within SIMS

We strongly advise that care is taken at this stage to ensure the accurate creation of

courses and liaison may be required with your Exams Officer

Further management of students assigned to courses or to create courses that exist

outside your School Timetable can be achieved using functionality available via Course Manager in SIMS

A standard set of Exam Levels is available for all schools A list of the standard levels is available in Appendix 1 of this booklet

You will be unable to export your timetable and curriculum unless each class has been assigned an Exam Level

To assign Exam Levels please follow the simple instructions as outlined overleaf:

Exam Levels in NOVA-T6

It is a requirement to assign exam levels to each class This can be done:

 to all the classes in a year

 to all classes belonging to a block

 to individual classes

This is all completed from within the same window:

To assign levels, select Tools | Assign levels to display the following window:

Assign Levels to a Year

If you wanted to assign the same level to the year select Tools | Assign Levels

Click on the cell for

the relevant Year in

the Level column to

display the drop-down

menu

Select the level

required, using the

scroll bar to highlight

if necessary

Assign Levels to a Block

To assign Exam Levels to individual blocks Select Tools | Assign Levels:

Assign Levels to a Class

To assign Exam Levels at class level, simply select Tools | Assign Levels:

Select the Year

Group

All the Classes within the Block will be displayed

Select the level required, using the scroll bar to highlight if necessary, for each Class as required Select the Block

6 Creating a Backup prior to Exporting NOVA-T to SIMS

IMPORTANT NOTE: IT IS ADVISABLE THAT YOU HAVE EXCLUSIVE USE OF

THE SIMS SYSTEM FOR THE NEXT THREE PROCESSES

Backups within NOVA-T itself backup purely the NOVA data It is advisable that prior to sending timetable information into SIMS (especially for the first time for an academic year)

a backup is taken of your SIMS System

It is also advisable that other users do not use the system for the period of time that the backup is being taken and while the timetable transfer takes place so that if a restore is needed they will not have lost any work in other areas

To create a backup you will need to liaise with someone who has System Manager access

to SIMS

From within SIMS open the System Manager Module (System) and take the route Tools |

Create Backup

Enter a Backup Description and click Create

A warning will appear that a new backup will be created Click on OK to continue

This process, depending on your system, may take some time

A message will appear to tell you the backup has been created Click on OK to confirm

 Completed

7 Run Database Diagnostics prior to Exporting NOVA-T

Login to SIMS:

Go to Tools | System Diagnostics | Database Diagnostics and Select Run

A message will be displayed informing you that this

process may take some time Click Yes

This will run checks on your current MSSQL database

N.B This may take some time

Checks are displayed at the top of the screen and by selecting each check you are able to identify any errors:

The text colour of the check indicates as follows:

 Checks shown in Black – no problems are found

 Checks shown in Blue – problems found but fixed automatically

 Checks shown in Maroon – problems found and not fixed

NOTE: If any Maroon errors are encountered please contact the

Capita.ict helpdesk on 01604 824999

Close the screen and then choose route Tools | Validate Memberships

N.B This may take some time

 Completed

8 Exporting the Timetable & Curriculum to SIMS

Once the timetable is at a stage where it is ready to be sent into SIMS for the allocation of students to classes then the following routine should be followed:

Please note that your timetable does not have to be completely scheduled in order to be sent into SIMS for allocating students to classes As long as you are happy with your curriculum plan and have allocated exam levels to the classes and your timetable cycle is correct then the timetable can be sent and further updates sent afterwards

NOVA-T6 to SIMS

Within NOVA-T6 select Data | Export Curriculum and Timetable to SQL

The following window will be displayed:

The Working Academic Year should be used when exporting your Timetable data The

Working Academic Year is the first day that students are in school to the day that they break up at the end of the Summer Term

This is ESSENTIAL for schools that have a sixth form and in relation to the Post-16

Learning Aim date ranges

The Export Band structure only check box should ONLY EVER be selected by schools

that use the Options package and ONLY on the initial transfer of their band structure and for no other transfers

Click on OK when you are happy with the information supplied

If you have not assigned exam levels to all of your classes then you will receive a

message advising you of the classes and advising that you cannot proceed until all

classes have exam levels assigned (refer to section 5 for advice on assigning levels)

Enter your SIMS User Name and Password and click OK

This will also open the Curriculum Matching Wizard (NOVA/SQL Transfer Wizard) as shown on the following page

9 Curriculum Matching Wizard (NOVA/SQL Transfer Wizard)

Click Next to Continue

This screen shows all the

structures submitted by

NOVA-T and compares

them with SIMS

If they are linked then a

record has been found of

them in SIMS, if not then no

records exist and the new

structure would be created

The first time that the Curriculum and Timetable is sent from NOVA to SIMS then there are likely to be few, or no links as most items will be new Options users may have already sent some Curriculum information back (bands) and this should be matched

Subsequent transfers should only entail low numbers of unmatched items and these are likely to be items that have never been transferred to SIMS If there are no unlinked items this shows there have been no changes to the Curriculum Plan since the last export

Please ensure that the

data displayed in this

If you have any Critical

Errors listed you will be

unable to continue with

the transfer

Non critical errors such

as unmatched staff will

not prevent the export

and can be resolved

later and the export

done again

The Submission Summary Screen

Click on the Next button

The Merge Curriculum

Screen

The left-hand side of this

screen shows the data from

NOVA-T

The right-hand side of the

screen shows the data in

Click on the Next button

Further information can

be found regarding the

unmatched items by

clicking onto one of the

headings Further

information will then be

displayed in the panel

to the right of the

screen

The Verify Screen

This screen summarises the changes

that will be made in SIMS

The Curriculum Matching Wizard only

reports on changes made in the

Curriculum Plan and not changes made

to the timetable although these will still

be transferred

This gives you the opportunity to check the impact of continuing and moving back in the wizard to the Merge Curriculum Screen should you wish to make changes

The Submission Screen

This screen allows you to continue with

the transfer Click on the Submit

button

The time taken to do the transfer

depends on the amount of data to be

updated

The animated NOVA-T logo will rotate

to show that the transfer is proceeding

This screen will then change to the Finish screen and will inform you of how long the

transfer took

Click on Finish as prompted to close this screen and complete the submission of data

A list of any unmatched staff will appear, if any This should correspond with any

unmatched teachers listed on the initial screen of the Curriculum Matching Wizard The classes will have been recorded in SIMS but the teacher will be missing from the class You may also receive a list of unmatched rooms You will need to ensure that the codes match in SIMS and in NOVA-T for the rooms affected

A final message will appear in NOVA-T to tell you that the Curriculum, Timetable and

Backup have been successfully submitted Click on OK

 Completed

10 Changing the Academic Year in SIMS

At this time of year it is likely that you will need to switch from this academic year to the next academic year to work on Student Memberships to classes

Before being able to switch to the new academic year to commence this work you need to check that the tasks below have been completed:

 The New Academic Year has been created as discussed in Section 2 of this

booklet

 Pastoral Promotion has taken place to ensure that the students are in the correct Year and Registration Group for Next Year This is covered in the Pastoral End of Year Documentation Please liaise with the relevant member of staff

 The Curriculum and Timetable

have been sent back from

NOVA-T as described in the

previous section

To switch to the new Academic Year

take the route Tools | Academic

Management | Set Academic year

This screen will list all the academic

years available

Highlight the year you require and click on OK

You will then get the message displayed opposite

confirming the year you are in

Now when using either of the Academic routines you should be presented with data for the correct academic year

Note: If you change the Academic year this only pertains to you as a user You can

work in the Next Academic Year without affecting the work of anyone else in SIMS

 Completed

11 Editing and Updating Courses

The export of Classes and associated Exam Levels from Nova-T6 into SIMS creates associated courses

e.g A Year 12 Maths Class (12x/Ma1) associated with a GCE Advanced Subsidiary level (GCEAS) exported from Nova-T6 into SIMS would create the class 12x/Ma1 in SIMS in order to allocate student membership to and would also create a course in Course

Manager called Maths GCEAS

In addition to holding information on the automatically created Courses from the Export of Nova-T6, Course Manager allows further editing and creation of courses which is

ESSENTIAL for schools with a Sixth Form to explore Information on the Post-16 Learning Aims collected in October and May as part of the Schools Census return is collected from data held in Course Manager for each Post-16 student

As a result of this schools will need to consider if all the courses that the school offer will exist in SIMS as part of the automatic creation of courses from the Export of Nova-T6 For example you will need to consider:

 Courses that exist for which no formal, timetabled classes are provided, such as the

 Courses taught across the curriculum (e.g Key Skills)

The theory is that for each Exam Award that the school enters students for, there should

be an associated Course in Course Manager

Course Manager can be accessed in SIMS via Tools/Academic Management/Course

Manager/Maintain Course This route will:

 Allow you to view courses created via the Curriculum Matching wizard based on subjects and exam levels

 Allow you to view/edit classes and individuals assigned to the courses

 Allow you to create additional courses

 Allow you to make courses active or inactive

Courses are available on these subjects that focus on all aspects of Course Manager and its relationship with Exams, Academic Management, School Census and the Performance Suite

Further information related to the Post-16 Learning Aim collection will be available along with the usual Census Preparation Documentation

 Completed

12 Update Course Membership

Once Exam Levels have been assigned in NOVA or changes have taken place on the Curriculum Plan and this information sent back to SIMS, it is important that Update Course Memberships is run

Within SIMS go to Tools/Academic Management/Course Manager/Update Course

Memberships

The message shown opposite will appear

Click Yes to continue

Please note this may take a few minutes to complete

Once complete the following message will appear

Click on OK

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is good practice that this routine is run regularly, particularly if

any changes are made to membership of students classes as this may impact on the Course Membership and this route ensures that they are synchronised

It is also useful to note that the Academic Year that you are in will have an impact on the courses that get updated i.e if you need to update course memberships in May to ensure that the previous academic years courses are up to date then you will need to run this process twice, once in each academic year

 Completed

13 Assigning Student Curriculum

There are a number of ways of assigning students to classes for the following year

Academic Promotional

Mapping

The ability to map academic membership from this year to next, i.e member of 7xMa1 can be mapped to 8xMa1

Section 14

Academic Promotion This uses rules set up when using the

promotion mapping and/or Transfer Curriculum in NOVA – previous route

Section 15

Export and Import Functionality to export classes to Excel,

work on the membership and import again Or export class membership from this year into corresponding class for next year

Section 16

Options Schools that have used the Options

package will be able to import membership directly into SIMS

Section 17

Academic Management Assign student to next year‟s classes

manually

Section 19

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR SCHOOLS WITH A SIXTH FORM:

When allocating students to classes for the new academic year the date range will default

to the working academic year The working academic year is created when your

timetabler exports the timetable to SIMS It is important that the timetabler uses the

working academic year (the actual date range the classes exist i.e 02/09/2011 –

20/07/2012) and not the whole academic year (i.e 01/09/2011 – 31/08/2012)

This date range forms the Planned End date of a course in Course Manager and is picked

up as part of the Post-16 Learning Aim information If classes have been set up to exist

until 31/08/2011 then the Learning Skills Council now known as YLPA (Yo ung People’s Learning Agency) will refuse to accept your return until this has been rectified

Another issue related to class end dates is to do with Year 13 students Year 13 students tend to be given a date of leaving which is prior to the end of the working academic year (i.e last Friday in June) This can cause an issue if the software thinks the student should

be in the class until the end of the working academic year and can cause the student to be withdrawn from the course

The safest way to deal with this is to create an appropriate date range to use when

allocating Year 13 students to classes Please refer to section 18 for details on creating a date range An alternative way of dealing with this is in relation to Dates of Leaving which

is covered in the End of Year Pastoral book

14 Academic Promotional Rules

The purpose of the academic promotion functionality is to copy band or class

memberships from the current academic year into the new academic year This

functionality can be particularly useful for Year 10 students going into Year 11 and Year 12 into Year 13 where they may be studying two year courses

The promotion rules are setup using SIMS, select Routines | School | Academic

Promotion Rules It is important to note that this routine purely creates the rules but does

not allocate the student to the class; this is completed when running the actual promotion routine covered in Section 15

Initially you will be presented with a screen that asks you which year you want to promote

into Select 2011/2012 and click on OK

This will open the following screen; this window holds all the detail needed to allow the mapping to take place, the following is a brief breakdown of the different areas:

Please note that the screen holds the structures for next year on the left and for the current year on the right (this may be different to what you would expect)

Select the required Scheme (Band, Block or Cluster)

This Lists the curriculum sent

from NOVA for the New Year This Lists the curriculum from Previous

Year (Ancestor Schemes) and will attempt to match, if possible the scheme selected on the left

Lists the groups within the

selected Scheme above and

will attempt to suggest

mappings Once Confirm

and Save is clicked the Status

will change to confirmed

Links the ancestor groups to the new group opposite

Confirms the link status and Saves the current selection

Links and unlinks the relevant

selections

Select the required

Year Group

When a Scheme and an Ancestor Scheme are highlighted, the Groups for Selected

Scheme panel and the Possible Ancestor Groups panel will be populated

Using the example above, 10xy PSE has been selected from the Schemes (Academic

Year 2011/2012) panel, the software has matched a plausible scheme being 9xy PSE in

the Possible Ancestor Schemes (Academic Year 2011/2012) panel

Once the relevant Scheme and the possible Ancestor has been identified the groups both within the selected Scheme and the Ancestor Scheme will be displayed in the lower part of the window, as shown below:

If the groups in the new Academic Year are named differently to the Ancestor Schemes and Groups, even though they are actually the same For example, 9y Science is split into Biology, Chemistry and Physics in year 10 (although the groupings remain the same) hence group 9ySc1 will become 10yBi1, 10yCh1 and 10yPh1 If this is the case, no

mappings will be Suggested and you will have to resolve this manually For the given

example the situation would be resolved by selecting 10yBi1 then clicking on to 9ySc1 and

clicking Link, the Link Status will change from Suggested to User Linked

To unlink groups linked in error, highlight the relevant Schemes within Groups for

Selected Scheme and the software will highlight the mapped Possible Ancestor Group

for which you want to remove the promotion path and click the Unlink button The Link

Status will change to Removed

This example displays that

9A/Ps has been mapped to

10A/Ps

If all the suggested mapping is

correct press the Confirm and

Save button which will change the

Link Status to Confirmed

Any row in the Schemes (Academic Year 2011/2012) panel whose Ancestor Scheme column is populated and has a Status of 5 of 6 has already been linked to an Ancestor

Scheme and some of their groups have also been linked In the example below, the

Status displays 5 of 6, this means that of the six groups associated with 10xyPSE, five

would be populated from 9xyPSE, leaving one group yet to be confirmed and saved

Once all of the promotion paths for the selected NC Year have been defined, click the

Confirm and Save button to ensure all changes are saved and close the screen

 Completed

Once all classes within the scheme have

been mapped either Confirmed or User

Linked within the Status header the Scheme

panel will change from None to Full,

indicating that academic mapping for that scheme has been completed

If the Status is None the software is

stating that no classes have been linked

15 Academic Promotion

Ensure you are in the correct Academic Year (2011/2012) as shown in Section 10

IMPORTANT NOTE: The Academic Promotion process must be run for EACH

Scheme containing groups you wish to promote You MUST promote band schemes prior to promoting block schemes

It is not possible to promote all of the required Schemes at the same time The reason why there is not a single promotion routine for all Schemes is because of the problem in

dealing with any exceptions that might arise It is important to promote the Schemes in a logical order, starting with the band Schemes and progressing down to the block schemes and non-singleton cluster schemes

The Curriculum Promotion Wizard can create a group membership in the new academic

year for a student only when certain conditions are fulfilled There may be individual

students who do not meet these conditions These will be reported and dealt with manually

on an individual basis Such exceptions might be missing National Curriculum Year

memberships or multiple or missing memberships within the Scheme in the previous

academic year

The promotion process can be repeated as many times as you want for the same Scheme, until the promotion is performed to your specific needs For example, a promotion could be performed based on a Reference Date of 10th June and then repeated for the Reference Date of 18th July, which is nearer to the end of the Summer Term This would be

particularly useful if there is a change to the student population

Select Focus | School | Academic Structure | Curriculum Assignment by Scheme to open the Find Curriculum Scheme browser

Enter search parameters and click the Search button or press Enter without entering any

search parameters to display all of the Schemes in the curriculum plan

It is only possible to run the promotion routine for schemes that show Promotable

in the last column as shown

Highlight the required Scheme (remember to do bands first) and click the Open button to

Select Effective Date Range dialog.

Select the Effective Date Range you wish

to use for the Academic Promotion and

click the OK button to open the Tick Grid

The selection defaults to the Working

Academic Year of the currently selected

academic year, which will usually be the

appropriate option for this purpose

Select the mode in which you wish to work, either Relaxed Mode or Strict Mode

Click the Relax button to suspend the eligibility rules so that students can be allocated to

groups for which they are ineligible Once you have clicked this button, the background on the button will change to indicate that Relax mode is selected

Alternatively, if you want to ensure that eligibility rules for student class memberships are

enforced (Strict Mode), make sure that the button does not appear selected Strict Mode is

the default

Start the Academic Promotion process by

clicking the Allocate button and selecting

Curriculum Promotion Wizard from the

pop-up menu

The Curriculum Promotion Wizard screen will appear

Click the Next button to open the Confirm

Dates page.

The Effective Date Range selected is

displayed together with an editable Reference

Date (the date on which student memberships

are read in order to populate group

memberships in the new academic year)

If the effective date range is incorrect then you must exit the wizard, reselect the date from the tick grid and re-enter the wizard The reference date can be edited from this screen

The Reference Date defaults to the last date of the previous Working Academic Year If your school completes its „normal‟ curriculum early in the year (e.g the end of June) and the rest of the year students are placed into different groups for a special project and you ran the promotion process and accepted the default Reference Date, there is a danger that the promotion would not find the student memberships to promote Instead, editing the Reference Date to the day before these short-term groups came into effect would ensure that the original curriculum is promoted

Click the Next button to open the Select Groups

page

The groups affected by the Academic Promotion

will be displayed for review These will be the

groups associated with the selected Scheme in

the Tick Grid on the Memberships of Groups of

a Scheme page

Select the groups you wish to include as part of

the Academic Promotion by selecting or

deselecting their associated check boxes

It might be necessary to remove groups from the promotion process if for example, you wish to reduce the number of Maths classes in the following year This could be due to a shortage of teachers in the new academic year, resulting in a required reduction in the number of classes that can be taken This would mean that the students in the third maths

class would need to be evenly distributed to the two remaining classes (10x/Ma1 and

10x/Ma2 in the previous graphic) to ensure they still get taught maths this year After the

wizard has assigned students to 10x/Ma1 and 10x/Ma2, you can assign those that were in

10x/Ma3 to either of the other two remaining groups manually, using the Tick Grid

When the groups have been selected, the system can identify the students whose group

memberships next year will be affected by the promotion process The students are those

who appear as editable in the Tick Grid (i.e are listed, with a white background) and were members of corresponding groups in the previous year, on the Reference Date

Click the Next button to continue

A warning will be displayed if a student is known in the new academic year, but was

unknown in the previous academic year This might occur if for example, a student joins your school at the start of the new academic year

Click Yes to continue (the selected students will be included as part of the promotion

process)

The number of students who were members of groups in the previous academic year, but

do not appear in the Tick Grid for next year will be displayed

IMPORTANT NOTE: Students who were members of a group in the previous

academic year, who are not eligible for the next year group, or have been filtered out of the Tick Grid, cannot be promoted A student who is displayed in the Tick Grid with a read-only row (yellow background) can only be promoted if you have clicked

the Relax button The number of students who could potentially

be promoted, but have no membership of the appropriate group

in the previous academic year will also be displayed This is very unlikely to happen, unless you have selected an

inappropriate reference date, and no students have a membership on the date you selected

Click the OK button to continue

The number of students who could have been promoted, but were filtered out of the Tick Grid will be displayed

Click the OK button to continue

The number of students who, at the Reference Date in the previous academic year, are members of more than one group belonging to the Scheme will be displayed This is

possible, although highly unusual Such students‟ memberships will not be promoted If you want to assign such students to a group, you must do this manually

Click the OK button to continue

The number of students, whose row in the Tick Grid is read-only on entering the Academic Promotion wizard, will be displayed Their class memberships will not be promoted to the new academic year To enable these class memberships to be promoted to the new

academic year, close the wizard and relax the eligibility rules by clicking the Relax button

You can then run the wizard again and the students will not be displayed in this list

Click the OK button to continue and open the Current Settings page shown below

This page displays a summary of the

information that will be used when

promoting academic data to the next

academic year and is based on the

options previously selected in the wizard

Click the Next button to continue

Promoted memberships are displayed on the Tick Grid, but are not yet saved to the

database The changes can still be rejected by clicking the Undo button once the wizard

has been closed

Once the Academic Promotion process has been completed successfully, the final page of the wizard will be displayed, informing you that the process has been completed

Click the Finish button to close the wizard and return to the Tick Grid

Those students that could not be promoted (i.e because of their status in the Tick Grid, or not having a membership on the reference date, etc.) will be tagged

To display any tagged students at the top of the Tick Grid, right-click anywhere in the Tick

Grid and select Sort by | Tagged from the pop-up menu This facilitates the subsequent

manual assignment of students to their new classes

Click the Save button to save the changes of the Academic Promotion process Only after clicking the Save button, will the changes made by Academic Promotion be saved to the

database

 Completed