Many assessment systems have grown ‘like topsy’ over the years, often containing thousands and thousands of marksheets that can make finding the right marksheet very difficult. Here’s how to set up your marksheets for the new academic year so that your teachers just see most recent marksheets.
You’ll find that marksheets based on whole year groups work fine at the start of the new academic year. That’s because SIMS promotes pupils from one year to the next as part of the end of year routines.
But registration groups and teaching classes are different: they are usually re-created new each year. So last year’s marksheet no longer show any pupils after the start of the new academic year and you need to delete them are create the new marksheets for the new year. In this post, I’ll show you how…
Identify the template behind the marksheet
Marksheets names are made up of two elements separated by a colon. The part before the colon refers to the underlying template from which the marksheet is derived and the part after the colon refers to the group of pupils it represents.
For example a marksheet called KS2 Maths Y6: 6R is based on a template called KS2 Maths Y6 and is populated by pupils in a reg group called 6R. A marksheet called Year 11 English : 7x/Sc1 is based on a template called Year 11 English and a teaching class called 7x/Sc1
Open the template and delete the old marksheets
- To the template go to Focus | Assessment | Templates and locate your template
- Go to section 3 ‘marksheets’
- Each marksheet is identified by the group of pupils that it contains.
- Highlight the marksheet to be deleted and click the red cross to the right hand side of the marksheets box.
- Repeat as necessary. You can use shift and click to select multiple marksheets
Create the new marksheets
- Open the templates as above.
- In section 3 ‘marksheets’ click on the new button and choose the relevant registration group, teaching class or year group.
- When you create a marksheet, SIMS will take care of granting access to the right people. So the member of staff who teaches the class will get automatic access to any marksheets based on the class. The heads of year will get access to the marksheets based on courses, and the heads of year get access to marksheets based on year groups.
Alternatively, delete the lot and start again
This may sound like drastic advice, but when it comes to marksheets it makes sense. Many systems contain legacy marksheets that a) no-one remembers what they are for or b) don’t contain any pupils. You can bulk delete marksheets using Tools | Performance | Assessment | System Utilities.
Finally, don’t be scared…
If you delete a marksheet you do not delete any results. The pupil’s results remain in SIMS. If you ever delete a marksheet in error you can always recreate it from the template.
No results are harmed when you delete a marksheet!
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Can ypu set up new marksheets first then delete old ones
Hi Lynda, yes you can – although marksheets based on teaching classes often need to be be created at the start of the new academic year.
This is really useful David, however the marksheets seem to have been set up correctly, but there are no students displayed. I checked course manager and the classes and students are present. What have I done wrong?
When you choose the classes, check the group membership date above. Usually these two dates should reflect the current academic year, but sometimes they get stuck on the previous year.
Having made marksheets, and templates how do I turn the marksheet info into the progress check template for parents?
Not quite sure I understand the question? Do you use SIMS Learning Gateway or the Teacher App? There’s usually a tick box in the template that published the marksheets.
Hi I am struggling as new to this, I have successfully made all my templates and am now attaching the classes to this to create the Marksheets, all years are ok apart from Year 7. I’m thinking this is possibly due to the fact that I can promote all years from previous years but not year 7 as there is nothing to promote from. Can anyone help?
I’ve looked everywhere I can think of, but it must be something I’m doing wrong or just not doing
The year 7 classes probably won’t be available for you until the new timetable starts. Put a couple of hours to one side at the start of September to create marksheets for every class. Meanwhile marksheets created fir year groups and subject departments should be fine.
Good afternoon
I am trying to set up a year 10 marksheet but it has been assigned to the entire year group rather than a select group of individuals. I deleted the old marksheet but my only option for a new one was again, an entire cohort list.
Check the way the year group is set up in pastoral manager (focus | school | pastoral structure). Navigate to year 10 and check who the supervisors are (right click) – it sounds as though all staff have been added. Remove all members of staff except the one who have responsibility for Y10.
Hi David,
I have setup new marksheets for all classes, but these are not available to view in Lesson Monitor. I get an error message to say Marksheet not created. Any suggestions?
Hi Mukesh, sounds like a problem in Course Manager or the timetable rather than assessment manager Probably best to log a call with your SIMS support team. David.
How do I get a Deputy Head of Department to see all of the subject marksheets in SIMS? My Head of Maths wants her deputies to see the same marksheets as her, so should I add them as Supervisors in Course Manager or do I need to do this somewhere else?
Yes – add them as joint supervisors. They will then see their own classes, plus any marksheets that list all the pupils on the course.
How can i save a mark sheet created into a template to be able to amend the fields / formulas
staff have created marks sheets from previous years but only saved to mark sheet entry not as template so i cannot see the mark sheet when finding to amend? any help greatly appreciated
Hi Debbie,
You should be able to find the relevant marksheet in Focus | Assessment | Templates – every marksheet must have a template so they should all be listed there. In the template you will be able able to amend the columns and rows UNLESS the template was originally provided by Capita or imported from another school. If that’s the case you can make a copy of the template and amend the copy.
Hello, The marks in our marksheet aren’t displaying. If I right click on a cell and select view history, I can see all the attainment marks history. Any ideas how to display the current marks? Thank you
Check the resultset that the column is using. The resultset is the second line of the column heading. The resultset needs to match the resultset that you see when you look at the result history.
Hello. How do we change the grade set on the marksheets to go from the old, alphabetical way of A-G, to the new, numerical way of 1-9 please? Many thanks in advance!
Hi Samantha,
To change the grades you’ll need to create a new gradeset with the 1-9 grades, then create new aspects from the gradesets and finally add the new aspects to a new template and create the marksheets as above. It’s not hard, but its beyond what I can show in the comments! You could try my online course here: https://courses.simstraining.net/p/sims-assessment-key-skills/
Hi David,
What is the best way to give my trainee teacher access to the Marksheet for the class she is currently teaching?
All I can think to do is either add her as a Supervisor in Course Manager, or ask the Assistant Head responsible for the timetable to change her to be the teacher assigned to the class. Neither of these options are very appealing .
Thanks
Kelly
Hi Kelly,
Adding her as a joint supervisor in course manager is probably best. If your trainee treacher leaves school then her account will be removed anyway and access will be revoked automatically.
Hi David,
Do you have a similar guide about setting up your own templates? I have used SIMS for assessment in previous schools who had a borough-wide grading system so this was done for us.
My current school does not use SIMS for assessment (although we do for pupil details etc) – we use our own tracking system which we have set up in another online program – and I want to investigate how easy it would be for me to set up templates with our own bespoke grading system. I can’t find anything online that tells me how to do this.
Thanks,
Joe
Hi Joe,
I don’t have a mini guide (there’s too much involved!) but I do have online courses at https:courses.schoolanalytics.co.uk. The Assessment Manager training bundle is probably the best for a full picture, or maybe start with Assessment Manager Key Skills.
Kind regards,
David.
Given staff absence, I’m on a steep learning curve with using assessments within SIMS. I’ve set up the marksheets correctly but, on these, I’d like be able to pull the class teacher’s name through so this can go onto the printed report. There is an aspect called ‘ year 11 teacher’ that appears on the templates but is then blank on the marksheets when I assign classes to the template. How do i set it up to pull the teacher name into the marksheet?
Hi Andy,
If you are using SIMS to create the report using the Pupil Reports option (most schools do) you will be setting up a word document for the final report to parents. In the word document you can include a tag for the teacher name.