A great day with a consultant! (How many times does Google find that phrase “consultants are wonderful” compared with “consultants are a waste”?)
Phil Filer was very helpful – and encouraging, which surprised us! Despite having several thousand aspects (an aspect is a field which contains a particular set of data, for example KS3 English Level would be an aspect) and several hundred marksheets, we are making good use of SIMS! – it was certainly good to hear someone with a wealth of experience in supporting schools use of SIMS say that. Often we seem far more aware of where we can still improve rather than acknowledging our success in using SIMS for:
- attendance
- personnel
- finance
- recording positive rewards (yellow checks)
- recording particularly poor behaviour (red checks)
- collecting assessment data
- timetabling
- exam management
- organising cover
- planning events with the diary
Are next few planned improvements are:
- improving internal communication
- making information more easily available to parents and staff
- recording, monitoring and supporting students with SEN (including G&T)
- improving our reporting systems
Comparing those two lists, we could well be over half way there! 
Anyway, today; we were encouraged by how much we can already do. It was particularly useful for our data manager who is rapidly getting a good understanding of how we can use SIMS better. Well done Kate!
One outcome was a draft copy of a new half termly progress check. Below are tries numbers 1 & 2. Thanks to Farlingaye for the inspiration!