New Features in Assessment Manager Due in Spring 2012

Capita have confirmed the changes to assessment manager due in the Spring 2012 release. There’s several very welcome improvements, some of which we have been waiting a long time for!  I’ve put Capita’s wording in quotes and added my comment alongside. First, assessment:

• “Drop-down filters have been added to the Marksheet, which show only pupil/students with certain results.” – Hopefully this will allow users to select just the users with grade or levels above or below a certain value.
• “A new utility which produces a report that lists any missing results in the marksheets.” – Secondary schools will find this very useful.
• The improved group filter used in the Marksheets has been added to each Analysis screen.” – An overdue change which will breathe new life into the Analysis module.
• “Updated Primary Tracking Progress Grids for England to show P-scales alongside NC levels” – This is overdue but will be very welcome for primary and special schools.
• “Enable scaled printing of tracking grids” – Useful for larger primary schools without access to an A3 printer.

For SIMS Discover:

• “5 circle Venn for the English Baccalaureate” – I can’t image what a five circle Venn looks like, but I welcome its inclusion!
• “Drill down through Bar graphs: Year Groups to Registration Groups to Pupils and Course graphs to Classes to Pupils” – This is one of the most important improvement to SIMS Discover that will finally make Discover a must-have tool for school improvement. The ability to go from the a whole school ‘big picture’ down to an individual pupil in three or four mouse clicks will be invaluable.