Autumn School Census - Thursday 1st October 2009

New notes have been added to the SIMS Home Page to support schools through running and uploading the Autumn School Census.

Click on the links below:

Helpline Overview - A concise document detailing what information is collected on Census Day, and how to produce and upload your census file. Available in Word and PDF formats.

Errors & Resolutions - A handy guide detailing all the possible error messages you could receive whilst validating your census, complete with a description of the error and possible solutions.

Validation File - For Central Hosting schools only. This new file will need to be imported to rectify issues with the census summary, detail reports and validation. Click the link to read more.

COLLECT Website - When your census file has been authorised and checked, you can upload the file to this website.

These links and many more are available on the Census Panel on the SIMS Home Page. Secondary Schools will also find items relating to Post-16 and Learning Aims by clicking here.

Good luck!

Updated Validation File for Central Hosted Schools

Attention School Secretaries/Admin CENTRALLY HOSTED SCHOOLS ONLY

Re:- School Autumn Census - 1st October 2009 - Updated Validation File

An updated Validation file has been released to ensure the Summary, Validation and Detailed Reports in the Autumn Census generate correctly. All Centrally Hosted Schools will need to import this file before completing the School Autumn Census.

• Use the SIMS .net route Tools Setups Import Filesets


• The file 0018-SchoolCensusAutumn2009UpdateFileset.mfs should be visible in your SIMS .net Folder. (Central Share, SIMS Share, _SIMS.net & Dinner Money, SIMS.net)


• Highlight the file


• Click Open.


• Click Import Fileset.

If you have any queries, please contact the Helpline.

Scheduled Sunday ICT Service Break 27.9.09

This coming Service Break will interrupt the following services:

• The One system will be unavailable for the whole of Sunday
  
• Biztalk will be unavailable between 8:00 and 12:00
  
• E-forms will be unavailable briefly between 8:00 and 12:00
  
• Internet mapping services will be unavailable briefly between 8:00 and 12:00
  
• Netilla (Corporate and NHS) will be unavailable between 8:00 and 12:00

Remote Access Services
For your information there are two Netilla services operated by the County Council:

Corporate Netilla is used by County Council staff accessing County Council IT systems via the public internet. Access to the system is granted by authentication using a key fob in conjunction with normal County Council network login details.

NHS Netilla is used by NHS staff to grant access to County Council systems from a PC on the NHS network via the secure link between the networks. No key fob is required for this service.

As soon as each service becomes available we will advise the Out of Hours Helpdesk (01223 717333) so that they can answer any queries you may have. Should you have any queries regarding the availability of services, please contact the Business Support Helpdesk on 01223 717333.

Information is posted and updated with details of upcoming Service Breaks on CamWeb. Please follow this link to go directly to the IT Service Break Information page

Latest SIMS and FMS release notes

The release notes for the latest version of SIMS.net and FMS have been uploaded to the SOLUS planet on the SIMS Home Page.

Click on the links below to read these notes now:

• SIMS.net August Release - Version 7.122


• FMS Release - Version 6.120


• SIMS.net Permissions Spreadsheet - Version 7.122

These and other update notices can be found on the SIMS Home Page.

Learning Aims End Dates

It has come to Capita's notice that DCSF Guidance regarding post-16 learning aim end dates states that Learning Aims End Dates must be on or before 31st July and this must be the case for this Autumn's School Census return.

If you have course membership end dates after 31st July (e.g. 31st August) in either the previous (2008/9) or current (2009/10) academic year, you must alter these before you submit your Autumn School Census return on 1st October 2009 to ensure that your post-16 funding is correctly allocated.

To read more, click here.

These and other Secondary Census helpsheets are available on the SIMS Home Page.

New Regulations for Registering Post-16 Students

Summary of DCSF Guidance on Attendance Regulations for Partnerships and Consortia (England Only)

Regulations: The Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006 - It has taken some time to confirm all aspects of the DCSF guidance on these regulations, but we believe that the following sums up the DCSF position. We are continuing to look at how we can help schools implement this new DCSF position and we expect to be able to publish advice shortly.

To read more, click here.

These notes are also available on the Secondary Planet of the SIMS Home Page.

Scheduled Sunday ICT Service Break 13.9.09

This coming Service Break will interrupt the following services:

• Corporate Netilla and NHS Netilla will be unavailable between 8:00 and 12:00
• Wisdom will be unavailable between 8:00 and 12:00
• Aspire, Corvu, EMS, Estart, Enurseries, Extranet, and Planapps will be unavailable between 8:00 and 12:00
• Browsing the web on the internet will be disabled between 8:00 and 12:00
• Email will be unavailable due to essential maintenance between 8:00 and 12:00
• Email archives will be unavailable due to an upgrade to the service between 8:00 and 18:00
• If you are usually located at Amundsen and Speke House's you will be unable to access the network between 8:00 and 18:00
• E-forms will be unavailable between 8:00 and 18:00

Remote Access Services

For your information there are two Netilla services operated by the County Council:
Corporate Netilla is used by County Council staff accessing County Council IT systems via the public internet. Access to the system is granted by authentication using a key fob in conjunction with normal County Council network login details
NHS Netilla is used by NHS staff to grant access to County Council systems from a PC on the NHS network via the secure link between the networks. No key fob is required for this service.

As soon as each service becomes available we will advise the Out of Hours Helpdesk (01223 717333) so that they can answer any queries you may have.

Should you have any queries regarding the availability of services, please contact the Business Support Helpdesk on 01223 717333.Information is posted and updated with details of upcoming Service Breaks on CamWeb. Please follow this link to go directly to the IT Service Break Information page

School Workforce Census - Staff Qualifications

The School Workforce Census requires qualification information for certain members of staff. Click on the links below to read how to add this information, available in two formats:

• Staff Qualifications - Word


• Staff Qualifications - PDF

These and other SWC notes are available on the SIMS Home Page.

Admissions - Proof of Legal Names and Dates of Birth

Please ensure that Birth Certificates or Passports are seen for Students entering the education system for the first time, whether Foundation Stage entrants or from overseas or independent schools or out of county etc.

It is extremely important that Legal Forenames and Surnames and Dates of Birth are entered in the relevant boxes in SIMS .net. Where students and/or parents wish the student to be known by other names, these can be entered into the preferred name boxes. There is a tick box on the Basic Details panel to confirm that legal proof has been seen.

Phishing e-mails - Bank Account Schools

No bank or Government Department (eg. HM Revenue & Customs) will ever ask you to log onto a website to change or update details and, in this context, a bank is unlikely to suspend your account facilities because you haven't checked your details lately.

Any e-mails requesting this are almost certainly a phishing scam aimed at gaining access to accounts. If the school has an account with the bank, then contact them in the usual way to verify that all is OK. They may require you to forward the e-mail to their security department. You might also like to forward it to Trading Standards as notification of the scam.

School Autumn Census - Thursday 1st October

The School Autumn Census this year is on Thursday 1st October. It is necessary to be on version 7.120 (June) of SIMS .net in order to generate this return. Please ensure all new admissions have been entered into SIMS .net.

Run a dummy census as soon as possible and check all the reports thoroughly. Secondary Schools with post 16 students will be reporting on Learning aims as a part of this census.

The DCSF Preparation and Guidance notes for 2009 give detailed information on what information is required—these are the same set of notes that were used for the Spring and Summer Censuses.

The DCSF notes together with Capita Manuals and Helpline Notes are all available for download from the Portal.

Post 16 Learning Aims - For Secondary Schools with 6th Forms this part of the School Autumn Census is EXTREMELY important. The funding your school will receive is calculated using the Post 16 Learning Aims data from your School Census. It is ESSENTIAL that the detailed report on Learning Aims from within the School Census is checked by your Curriculum Manager/Timetabler.

School Workforce Census - Autumn Pilot - 1st October

All schools in Cambridgeshire will be participating in this pilot. The ONEVision Team will be submitting most of the data on behalf of schools in Cambridgeshire but some data can only come directly from Schools.

Over 100 schools have now activated B2B Personnel. Notes for maintaining SIMS Personnel Details once B2B has been activated can be downloaded from the SIMS Home Page on the Portal.

Secondary Schools will have to run the Curriculum part of the School Workforce Census within SIMS .net. To this end the Licence activation patch was released to these schools along with the June upgrade. Instructions will be sent to Secondary Schools shortly on how to run this part of the SWR.

All Schools are also required to enter qualification data for some staff members. Please look out for the next SWR Briefing and Guidance Notes which should be arriving in schools by e-mail during the first week of the new term.

Updated DCSF Guidance and reminders are available from the Portal - Resource ID 4465.

Staff Leavers

A reminder to remove accounts for all Staff leavers. Central Hosting and/or e-mail accounts should be removed by your nominated Account Administrator if you have one.

If not, please e-mail the Helpline as soon as possible with a list of staff to be removed and added. SIMS .net, FMS and Local network accounts all need to be closed for staff leavers.

Attention Exams Officers - Basedata for 2009/10

Please do not dowload any basedata into the new Academic Year, until after the next upgrade (i.e. version 7.122) or above has been installed.

SIMS .net Primary Calendar

An updated version of the SIMS .net Primary Calendar has been uploaded to the SIMS Home Page on the Portal.

Primary School Secretaries and Administrators may find this Calendar useful as it provides reminders of specific tasks that need to be carried out during particular months of the year.

It also suggests monthly tasks that if followed can help ensure your data is accurate and up-to-date. Click here to read the calendar now.

Central Hosting using Apple Mac

The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) document - available from the Central Hosting Home Page has been updated during the summer holidays.

Click here to read these notes now.

Publishing Scam

A Cambridgeshire school was recently approached by an organisation called 'The Yellow Pages 24' who wanted to confirm an advertisement in their next directory at a cost of £499.

Please approach with extreme caution and refer to Trading Standards. Schools, libraries and children centres may be at risk.

Sims June Upgrade - Version 7.120

The June SIMS .net Solus upgrade has been released to all Schools. (This upgrade has already been carried out for all Centrally Hosted Schools and schools that pay for the remote upgrade service).

This upgrade included a number of changes to permissions in SIMS. Particularly concerning access to Personnel Details new categories of access have been introduced - the latest Capita spreadsheet of System Manager Permissions is available for download from the Portal.

Any SIMS user with class teacher or similar permissions will by default see the Student Teacher View when they click on the Student Details Icon.

Exam Organiser is now able to access SIMS User Defined Groups for a number of reports.

To see full details of all the fixes and improvements, please see the June Release Notes which are available for download from the portal.

User IDs and Passwords

Do not allow anyone else use your ID and Password to log into Central Hosting, SIMS. net or FMS.

Your ID will appear in the Audit Trail and should any irregularities ever come to light, it will be you in the frame and not the person you allowed to use it.

Key Dates Sept - Nov 2009

• FMS6 for New Users - 8th & 17th Sept (WB)
  
• FMS Refresher Workshop - 16th Sept (WB)
  
• RAISEonline—Question Level Analysis - 17th Sept
  
• eyeProfile Getting Started - 10th (WB), 22nd (WB) 29th (G) Sept
  
• ToPP Autumn Marksheets and Grids - 29th Sept & 1st Oct (WB)
  
• ToPP and Target Setting using Primary Target Tracker - 15th Sept (WB), 19th Oct (G)
  
• FMS Equipment Register - 23rd Sept (WB)
  
• FMS6 The Next Step - 1st Oct
  
• SENCO - 7th Oct
  
• Managing Student Data — Basic SIMS - 5th & 9th Oct (G)
  
• RAISEonline Data Management - 8th, 12th Oct (G)
  
• SIMS Reporting (Primary Schools) - 22nd Oct (WB)
  
• Budget Adjusting & Profiling - 30th Sept (G), 14th & 21st Oct (WB)
  
• Impulse Conferences - 17th (BMC), 18th (OC), 25th (CPDC) Nov

(G) = Godmanchester; (OC) = Oliver Cromwell, March; (ML) = March Library; (CPDC) = Cambridge Professional Development Centre; (WB) = ICT Service Waterbeach; (BMC) = Buckden Millennium Centre; (OV) = Over Community Centre.

To book on a course listed in Key Dates, telephone 01480 376670