Published 22 March 2020Last updated 28 May 2020 see all updates

From:

Department for Education

Enforced Closure

The # Code (Enforced Closure) should be applied to all pupil records from Monday 23rd March to the date immediately prior to that on which more groups of pupils begin to return to school. Schools may need to first delete any period of # or Y code enforced closure which falls outside of these dates.

Deleting Exception Circumstances

Focus | Attendance | Exceptional Circumstances

1. Select the date range to search for the Exceptional Circumstance to delete. 2. Click Search 3. Highlight the exceptional circumstance and click delete.

To add the Enforced Closure please see the process below:

Adding Exceptional Circumstances

Focus | Attendance | Exceptional Circumstances

1. Click the “new” button 2. Enter the dates to apply the attendance mark on (If your school opened on the 10/06/2020 the date range needs to be 23/03/2020 AM - 09/06/2020 PM) 3. Select group type whole school at the top right to select which group you want to apply the mark to 4. Select the # attendance code from the drop-down box 5. Enter a description for the exceptional circumstance (i.e. Enforced Closure) 6. Click apply at the top to confirm the exceptional circumstance 7. Carefully read the warning about what you are about to do and check the dates If the enforced closure is entered incorrectly – you will overwrite any attendance marks during the period of its application.

Published 22 March 2020Last updated 28 May 2020 see all updates

From:

Department for Education

Identifying Groups

The DfE is keen to know the attendance patterns of groups of pupils: Children of key workers Children with an EHCP Children with a Social worker Children who are otherwise vulnerable

Your SEN Records should allow you to identify pupils with EHCPs, but other groups will need to be identified using a User Defined Field (UDF) in SIMS.

Setting up user defined fields

Tools | Setups | User Defined Fields

1. Click the “new” button2. Name the UDF for the group that you are creating (i.e Keyworker, Children with

Social Worker)3. Field type will be a “True/False”4. Set the data domain as “Person” and the Data Area needs to be set to “Student

Details” and then select the panel to be Basic Details.5. Click “Save” and repeat the process for Vulnerable and Social Worker

To see these changes, you will need to restart your SIMS system.

Once restarted you will have 3 new tick boxes on the Student Details page of any student, tick appropriately.

Whilst you can click the tick boxes on individual records, it is much quicker to use the SIMS Bulk Update facility.

Routines | Student | Bulk Update.

1. Select the Group of Pupils you wish to deal with (to select all, choose Any from the Year Group option)

2. Select the Data Item you wish to update – the User Defined Fields will appear at the bottom of the listing

3. Use the Resulting Tick Grid to indicate which records have the selected characteristic and Save.

Published 22 March 2020Last updated 28 May 2020 see all updates

From:

Department for Education

Using Houses to manage groups of pupils

There are various reasons for creating alternative groups of pupils – from applying attendance codes in bulk to taking registers whilst normal registration groups are not in use. There are other ways to group pupils in SIMS but we recommend the use of Houses in the Pastoral Structure as the most efficient. If your school already makes use of Houses, ask yourself if they are to be used in the current situation and consider the use of User Defined Groups to do the same thing

Setting up a house

Focus | School | Pastoral Structure | Current Structure

1. Note the effective date and click Go – note that any House you create will only be available for use after this date

2. Expand the tree until you see the word House3. Right Click on the word House and Select New House4. Enter an appropriate name for the House which will be the pupil grouping –

suggested examples include:

Code X – a House which will be used to group pupils ineligible to attend to which we need to apply an X Code using the Enter a Code Over a Date Range function

Code C – a House which will be used to group pupils ineligible to attend to which we need to apply a C Code using the Enter a Code Over a Date Range function

Published 22 March 2020Last updated 28 May 2020 see all updates

From:

Department for Education

Room 1, Room 2, Mrs Jones, Class A and so on – Houses which will be used by classroom staff in to take registers – name these Houses according to how pupil groupings (bubbles) are to be named in your setting

To manage membership of Houses, set the Effective Date as the date you want memberships to start and click Go

Right click the word House in the tree and select Members

Published 22 March 2020Last updated 28 May 2020 see all updates

From:

Department for Education

You will see a tick grid to allocate records to Houses. Use the tick grid to move pupils as appropriate

Add pupils not eligible to attend to the Code X group (those in year groups for which the school has not yet opened except children in priority groups)

Add eligible pupils which have declined the offer of a place to the Code C group Add pupils expected to attend to the appropriate register House

A running total of pupils allocated to each House will be maintained at the bottom

Click the OK button to save

The Houses are now available for use across the SIMS Attendance function

Once X and C Codes have been applied to attendance records, it is then best to maintain this information individually through the Edit Marks routine.

Published 22 March 2020Last updated 28 May 2020 see all updates

From:

Department for Education

Bulk Entry of X and C Codes

Pupils not eligible to attend (those for which the school is not open on a session) should have an X code recorded.

Pupils who are eligible to attend a session but decline to take up the offer should have a C code recorded.

Schools can make use of regular Edit Marks routines to enter these codes, but it is more efficient if we can Enter a Code Over a Date Range for groups of pupils. Whilst there are a variety of valid ways to accomplish this in SIMS, for the purposes of this guidance we will assume that Houses have been set up to help to manage this task.

Open Focus | Attendance | Enter a Code Over a Date Range

1. Enter an appropriate Date Range2. Click the Preserve Button to change it to Overwrite to replace any marks already entered

for the selected date range3. Set the Mark Code to X, C or – as required4. Change the Group Type to House5. Select the House containing the required pupil grouping (note that the marks will be

applied between the selected dates for all pupils who are members of the House today)Click the Apply button.

WARNING: The most important step

Review the warning message and make sure that you are entering the correct code for the correct group of pupils over the correct dates – if any of these are wrong you run the risk of deleting attendance marks.

Taking the register

As pupils are not to be registered in their usual groupings, the school will have created new groups, known as Houses, for the purpose.

To take the register for a House, select Focus | Attendance | Edit Marks, Change the Group Type to House and click the Search button to display a list of Houses. Double click the appropriate House name to display the register.

Published 22 March 2020Last updated 28 May 2020 see all updates

From:

Department for Education

Make sure to select the correct session and take the register in the usual way and click the Save button to write the information back to the SIMS database.

Should you need to - you can also record attendance for an individual pupil using the same menu route.

It is normal that classroom staff will record present, Late and No Reason for Absence (N) codes only and that support staff will deal with unexplained absences.

It is the spirit of the DfE guidance that, where no other reason for absence can be identified, a code C is recorded for the session.

In line with DfE requirements, schools should start to take registers when more groups of pupils / students begin to return to school and identify absences using the following coding:

Code I should be recorded when a pupil cannot attend school due to illness which is not related to Covid-19;

• Code 7 should be recorded when a pupil cannot attend school due to having symptoms of Covid-19 - Code 7 is a subcategory of the I code for Common Basic DataSet purposes

• Code Y should be recorded for pupils who have an EHCP and their risk assessment says that their needs cannot safely be met in school

• Code 8 should be recorded for pupils who are self-isolating due to Covid-19 and is a subcategory of the Y code for CBDS purposes

• Code 9 should be recorded for pupils who are shielding due to Covid-19 and is a subcategory of the Y code for CBDS purposes

• Code C should be recorded when a pupil is eligible to attend but their parents are choosing to keep them at home

• Code M should be recorded when a pupil cannot attend school due to a medical appointment

Published 22 March 2020Last updated 28 May 2020 see all updates

From:

Department for Education

• Code B should be recorded when a pupil is attending a host school on a temporary basis

The host school should keep a record of pupils’ attendance for safeguarding purposes and include them in the daily totals reported on the DfE educational settings form

The host school should inform the home school of their pupils’ attendance on a daily basis

• Code D should be recorded when a pupil is dual registered and attending another school or provision

• Code L should be recorded when a pupil arrives after the registers have closed considering staggered arrival times

• Other authorised absence codes (R, T, J, P, H etc) should be used if appropriate

• Schools should not make use of unauthorised absence codes (U, G and O)

Using the Report

1. Download the latest version of the report from and save it to a known location2. Open Reports | Import – browse to the rpt.def file and import the report3. The imported report definition will now need to be edited to pick up information

from your User Defined Fields4. In Reports > Design Report choose Open an Existing Report and select the imported

report (it will appear in the Student Focus and be named beginning with a 1)5. Step through the wizard to the Select fields to be included in the report screen6. You will see here the information extracted by the report including three blank

columns – using the green arrows replace these fields in the report definition with those from the UDF tree in your SIMS system

a. It doesn’t matter what you have called your UDFs but it is critical that the columns appear directly below the SEN column in the order

b. Key Workerc. Vulnerable Pupild. Social Worker

7. Check to make sure that you have added your UDFs in the correct order below the SEN Status Code, that you have removed the placeholder columns and that no other columns have been added (this would break the report)

8. Click the Save As button at the top of the screen and give your report a new name

You can now check your report by clicking the Run button at the top of the screen or run it from Reports > Run Report and providing a date for which you would like the calculations carried out

Published 22 March 2020Last updated 28 May 2020 see all updates

From:

Department for Education

The report will produce an analysis of pupils with numbers ready for submission to the DfE via the online form

If you have changed the names of Year Groups on your SIMS system you will need to edit the table on the right to generate the numbers correctly.