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.