1. SIMS User group Secondary
Julie Popplewell

2. SIMS Upgrade Starting W/C 11th December 2017
If you haven’t given us a date yet when you want the upgrade to be run please the helpdesk.
Census Drop-ins to be held 9, 10, 11th January 2018.

3. SIMS Upgrade Changes Census made available for January For leavers:
Addition of the Grounds for Removal Field
Addition of the Destination Institution Field to the Leavers Routine

4. Known Issues Exam Patches
23539 (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) - Update to JC Gradesets for GCSE 9-1 Short Courses We have received a number of calls from customers where importing basedata that includes new GCSE 9-1 short courses have failed. 
We will apply the patch to all schools when we do the SIMS upgrade.
Applying patch will update Exams JC Gradesets JC 40/2 Result and JC 44/2 Result. Ring the Helpdesk to make arrangements for the patch to be applied.
If after applying the patch you still get import errors from Edexcel and OCR, please continue to log a call.

5. Known Issues Office 2010 Support
Capita have been reviewing support for Office 2010 and it is their intention to stop support for this version from the Summer 2018 release of SIMS.
SIMS Installers blocked by Sophos Anti Virus
Capita have been made aware by some schools using a component of SOPHOS Endpoint Security, Intercept X 3.6.9, that is causing a problem installing SIMS via SOLUS 3 or manually running SIMSInst executable.
Solus has been in contact with SIMS and there is a fix for this problem available and will be released between 12th and 14th December.

6. SIMS Assessment - Statutory Analysis Report for KS2
Resources are now available that support the analysis of KS2 outcomes using the revised measures for 2016/17
Adjustment have been made to the KS2 RefDef resource to ensure that attainment and progress calculate correctly for those pupils who got a Scaled Score in Reading and Writing and were Teacher Assessed as PKF, PKG or PKE
Please ring the Help Desk for help with these resources if required and we will download the necessary resources for you.

7. SIMS Assessment - Statutory Analysis Report for KS2

8. CAS KS4 Overview templates 2017 to 2020
These new versions contain additional subjects not present in the previous versions of the mapping tool and templates, such as IFS Level 2 Financial Education, Cambridge and NCFE Certificates in Health and Social Care and Fitness, OCR L1/2 Engineering Qualifications, some Level 2 RSA music qualifications and also some Music grade 6 -8 exams which can count in the Open slot of the P8 calculation.

9. Supporting Subject Access Requests in SIMS for GDPR and DPA
New feature in the SIMS Autumn 2017 to support schools with Subject Access Requests
Powerpoint presentation

10. New Modules available for SIMS

11. Online Options
Students and their parents will enjoy the convenience of selecting their options online, whilst you save hours of time and paperwork.
SIMS Options allows you to seamlessly manage the whole process, it is easy to set up your plan and pathways.
Once students have made their selections these are automatically fed back and classes are automatically created.

12. Options: Video
sims.co.uk/resources?type=121&topic=All&establishment_type=All&author=All

13. The SIMS Parent app
The SIMS Parent app allows schools to easily communicate with parents. Whether it’s sharing information such as attendance, or school reports, or sending reminders for homework tasks, all of the information is easily accessible from the convenience of their phone, tablet or PC.

14. SIMS SchoolView
SIMS SchoolView is a secure, web-based solution that automatically brings key SIMS data to the centre of your academy group.

15. MyConcern
MyConcern is a simple, safe and secure solution for recording and managing all safeguarding concerns for schools and groups of schools. It enables you to evidence the effectiveness of your safeguarding arrangements to Ofsted and drive improved outcomes for children.

16. SIMS Finance
SIMS Finance is a new solution that provides academies and multi- academy trusts (MATs) with a complete picture of their finances from a secure online platform.

17. Online Free School Meals
OFSM - New option to check Free School Meals eligibility
Log in with basic pupil details to check if that pupil is eligible
We will send out information to schools when we know more