Important Scomis Update

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Scomis Newsletter Special Edition

Issue 100

scomis.org

Welcome to this special edition of our newsletter which is intended to provide you with helpful information during these unprecedented circumstances. We would like to reassure all of our customers that Scomis will try our very best to continue to deliver services where feasible whilst following government guidelines and ensuring the safety of our customers and staff.

We hope that you and your families stay safe and healthy and if there is anything further that you think we could be doing to be of assistance to you, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Scomis Update - COVID-19

Details about the availability of our services can be found below. The same information can be found in a News Bulletin here or in the Latest News section on the Scomis home page. We will keep this information up to date as the situation unfolds.

Scomis Education Service Desk

Our Service Desk will aim to deliver a continued service to you. The team is now working remotely from our office with access to our systems which means that you can continue to contact them in the normal way.

Scomis Hosted Applications Service

If you subscribe to our Hosted Applications Service this will continue to be operational as normal. In order to support continuity planning for your school, please find below some useful information to circulate to your staff about how to access SIMS and FMS securely from any location with an internet connection and across a range of devices. Note all of your staff can use the service under your existing contract with no additional charges for adding new users:

Customers with SIMS on Local School-based Servers

If you would like to be migrated to the Hosted Application service so that your users can access SIMS, FMS and Discover remotely, please contact your Scomis Account Manager in the first instance via the Scomis Service Desk. To find out more about how the service could help you, click here.
Please note that migrations to the platform are performed remotely as standard.

ScoLearn Training Course Update

All Scomis classroom training courses for the remainder of the academic year have been cancelled, however we are pleased to offer alternative options should staff require training:

• ScoLearn Digital Learning provides access to online courses from any location:
For a list of courses click here
To see a video on how to book a course click here

• Webinars will be available on a range of topics including SIMS Admissions, Summer Census, End of Year Primary, End of Year Secondary. Click here to see the schedule. These can be accessed live on the scheduled date or viewed as a recording.

• Remote one-to one training can be delivered by arrangement and tailored to your needs.

Please continue to contact us using our standard Scomis contact details below:

01392 385300
scomis@devon.gov.uk

Don't forget for regular Service Status Updates, you can also subscribe to http://status.scomis.org/

FAQs for Exceptional Circumstances:

Government Guidance about recording attendance can be found here

Registration should NOT be taken in the normal way using SIMS but by completing the spreadsheet and uploading it through the link included in the bulletin post. This has to be done by 12pm each day.

Please see below useful FAQs for exceptional circumstances and recording school closures in SIMS:

How else can Scomis help?

Your Account Manager

Your Scomis Account Manager is currently continuing to perform their role remotely from our offices. Please do get in touch if there is anything we can help you with regarding our services or any help you need beyond that provided by the Service Desk relating to SIMS or ICT more generally.

Please contact us as normal on 01392 385300 or scomis@devon.gov.uk if you require any help or guidance.

Consultancy Services

Our School Improvement Partners are available to provide consultancy to your school. The work that we are doing with many customers with regard to assessment will continue remotely and may become more pertinent in the coming weeks as more guidance emerges about Exams and Key Stage tests and how to record teacher assessments.

Please get in touch if you require any help.

Onsite Technical Services

Our technical team are providing support remotely and can be contacted via the Service Desk.

Our customers with network installs scheduled for Easter have all been contacted and not surprisingly have decided to postpone them. Going forward if you do have a requirement for any work that needs to be done onsite, please contact us and we will review these requests on a case by case basis and in accordance with government guidelines for COVID-19.

Managed Reporting Service - NEW

The introduction of our new Managed Reporting Service will currently continue as planned as we have several Multi Academy Trusts wishing to take advantage of the consolidated dashboards that the service will provide.

The service is a web-based solution which gathers data overnight and combines it into a ready to use dashboard for your academy group. The dashboards make it easy to understand the data, combining key performance measures and useful pupil demographic filters for a consolidated view. Being automated, your academy group will have data at their fingertips without having to put demands on the schools.

Launching 1st of April.

If you would like more information please click here or contact your Account Manager.

Online Safety Guidance

Visit NSPCC Learning's webpage Undertaking remote teaching safely to access resources which help schools keep children and young people safe while teaching in remote or unusual settings.

Topics include:

Consent
Contacting children at home
Child protection concerns
Online Safety
Mental health and wellbeing

FREE Online events and activities for children and young people!

Commonsense Media has compiled a list of activities for parents, carers and families all in one place. Includes:

Storytime
Free lessons
Drawing lessons
Living room concerts
Online museum tours

Check out the list here

Cloud based Resources for Distance Learning

As many schools are now closed, a growing number of educators are looking for ways to deliver distance learning. Scomis is working with our partners Getech and Microsoft to offer a number of resources that can help.

Please see the articles below for further information.

If your school has not yet made the move to the cloud we can help you with every step of that journey and can get you started remotely. Please contact us for more information,

G Suite

An increasing number of UK schools are exploiting G Suite for Education, a free range of productivity tools to enable teaching and learning. These cloud-based tools (which include Google Classroom, Gmail, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms) are currently used by more than 100 million teachers and students, and can be accessed anywhere and from any device.

Google Classroom is an intuitive and streamlined teaching tool that allows teachers to manage coursework. With Google Classroom, school staff can create classes, distribute assignments, grade and send feedback, and see everything in one place regardless of where they are working.

Find more information and resources here.

In conjunction with our Google partner (Getech Education) Scomis customers can sign up for free weekly training videos via email using the following link:

https://teachercenter.withgoogle.com/gettingstarted/partners#getech

Microsoft Office 365

A large number of UK schools have already signed up for Office 365. However, a significant number of these schools are still only using Office 365 for email access and are not fully exploiting Office 365 as a distance learning and collaborative teaching tool.

Microsoft Teams for Education is the digital hub in Office 365 that brings together conversations, content, assignments, and apps in one place with collaborative classrooms.

Find more information and resources here.

Schools Virtual Training Event

Hele's school are currently running a free event for schools in conjunction with Microsoft on Wednesday 22nd April 2020 between 16:30pm and 18:45pm.

This event will be delivered as a remote webinar and schools can sign up online using the following link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/100293081306

Capita Webinar Schedule

From the 24th March, the Capita SIMS Customer Success Team will be running daily webinar sessions. These will cover a range of SIMS and education related topics. Please click here for the latest schedule and links to register.

Access to Quality Home Learning Resources

During the COVID-19 outbreak, the British Educational Supplier's Association (BESA) LendED service is here to help schools get the most out of their existing resources, and provide teachers with easy-to-use home learning materials.

You can search resources from trusted suppliers, read teacher reviews and request free access during school closures.

https://www.lended.org.uk/

Scomis Events

User Groups

The User Groups that we had scheduled for the summer term have now all been postponed to the Autumn with new dates below. We are currently reviewing whether we may schedule further online events and will keep you informed through future issues of this newsletter or specific invitations.

User Group	Revised Date	Venue
North Somerset	18^th November 2020	Clevedon Hall
Oxford	24^th November 2020	Kassam Stadium
Portsmouth	25^th November 2020	The Marriott Hotel
Devon	2^nd December 2020	Exeter Racecourse
Cornwall	3^rd December 2020	The Pavilion, Royal Cornwall Showground
Virtual	1^st December 2020	Online webinar

Dear Grace,

How do I report a school closure?

Y and # codes cannot be entered through the register, a member of admin staff will need to follow this routine:

Go to Focus>Attendance>Exceptional Circumstances (or Focus>Lesson Monitor>Exceptional Circumstances)
Click new
Enter the dates you require
Select group type (e.g Whole School if the school had to be closed or Individual pupil if someone was off for an undefined reason)
Select the correct Code
Add a description and highlight those that you wish the code to apply to and then click apply
- If you need to select multiple pupils, you can use control on the keyboard to select the pupils you need.

If an absence code has already been entered into the register such as C or I, the exceptional circumstance will not overwrite this, you will need to delete out the absence marks and then enter an exceptional circumstance.

If in doubt as to which code to use please consult your school's Education Welfare Officer.

Find the FAQ here.

Phone: 01392 385300

scomis@devon.gov.uk

scomis.org

Scomis, Great Moor House,
Bittern Road, Sowton,
Exeter, EX2 7NL

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