Frequently asked questions
Question: Why has this Website been developed?
Answer: As teachers ourselves, the management of our time between teaching and the requirement to assess our pupils' progress and our worries that teaching time is starting to suffer, has led us to develop this website as a solution that goes a long way to freeing up time to teach, whilst enabling us to keep a finger on the pulse of how each and every pupil is progressing. It also highlights the need to ensure that assessment is an integral part of planning and teaching. Over the last three years, through discussions with many teachers from varying backgrounds, the need was highlighted to create an ICT based system instead of using an entirely paper based system for assessing pupils' progress. Through testing and responding to feedback from many teachers, this website has been created to address the need to assess progress from the beginning of primary all the way through to the end of secondary.
Question: Is it easy to enter pupil information?
Answer: We like to think it is by far the simplest but most powerful system around. There are many ways to enter the data. You can enter a class pupil by pupil; our tests have shown that a class of 30 can be entered comfortably in less than ten minutes. You may choose to enter your whole school for a given subject all at once from data you have in spreadsheet form. This also is very straightforward to do.
Question: I have entered a figure for a pupil that is incorrect, can I change it?
Answer: Yes. Every detail from the UPN number, name, ethnicity, to assessment figures can be re-edited instantly.
Question: Our school works in partnership with several other schools, is there anyway of comparing our averages against the partnerships averages.
Answer: Yes. There are many reports available within this website. One of which compares your school's averages to the other schools in your partnership.
Question: How quickly can we start comparing say a pupils assessments against the class or the school as a whole or for that matter the whole schools averages for a subject against all schools that use your website.
Answer: Comparisons are available as soon as you have entered your data. This is a live system available for use 24 hours a day. Anything you add or change now is available instantly for comparison.
Question: Can only one teacher login to your system from our school at any one time?
Answer: No. As many teachers as you wish can be logged in and viewing or entering data into different parts of the system at any one time. So one teacher could, for example, be looking at a pupil's assessment result table spanning the last three years, whilst another is adding a new pupil.
Question: We are a large school and already have a system we have developed. We like the way it works, but it would be nice to be able to compare our averages against other schools with the same SEN percentage as ours. Would it be simple to exchange data between our system and yours to access this comparative data?
Answer: Yes. We noted early in our development that data exchange is fundamental to our system. At the click of a button, you can download a complete backup of a subject. There are times when our online graphs are not quite how you need them for a presentation. By downloading and using the cross-tabulation features of excel, our data can be transformed into any graphical output that suites your needs. So with the ability to upload your information, you are able to tap into features of our website such as strong data comparison graphs. You can also download information into spreadsheet form that better suites your needs at a given moment.
Question: I signed up and used your system last year. Do I still have access to last year's information? Also, importantly it would be nice to not have to enter all the UPN numbers and pupil details again for this year.
Answer: Yes you do have access to all your data. There is an identical system to this year's assessments, for accessing and using last year's archive. You can run reports and change records. Also there is a move-up facility for moving pupils up to the next year. The ability to download a subject for last year to spreadsheet enables you to modify the data to suite this year and upload.
Question: Our school likes your system but have had a thought that may enhance it. Would it be possible for our school to have influence on how future releases are developed?
Answer: Yes. We are very happy with new ideas. That is how this website came into existence. If there is enough good feedback regarding any of your ideas, as well as keeping to the principle of keeping the program easy to use, there is every possibility of your idea becoming part of a future release. So feel free to email us.