The DfE recently released the latest, September 2013, list of pupils in your school who qualify for pupil premium funding. The list is available as a spreadsheet that you can download from a DfE website. Once downloaded you can input the details into SIMS and Assessment Manager. Here’s how…

• Log on to the Key to Success website at https://www.keytosuccess.education.gov.uk/schools/
• Your school will have its own password and user ID. Login.
• Tip: The user ID and password for the Key To Success website are the same as those for the S2S website. Someone in your school office will probably know what they are!
• You will be offered a CSV file for download.
• Download it to a secure location (remember it contains sensitive pupil information)
• Open it in Excel
• You’ll see that the file is a list of pupil names.
• Sort the spreadsheet in surname order (this step is optional but you’ll find data entry easier if the pupils are in order)
• Print the spreadsheet
• Open SIMS
• Go to Routines | Student | Bulk Update (or Routines | Pupil | Bulk Update)
• Set the Group Type to Year Group
• Set the Group to Any
• Choose Pupil Premium from the Data Item drop down.
• Leave the dates to their default date (i.e. today)
• Press search. You screen should look like this:

• Tick the ‘yes’ column for each pupil in the Excel file. Leave the ‘no’ column unticked (SIMS doesn’t save this column).
• Finally, press the save button.
• Your pupil premium pupils now are available to use in assessment manager as both an extra column that can be displayed alongside pupil name, and as a group filter. I’ve blogged previously on how to use the Pupil Premium filter with SIMS Assessment Manager.