Hampshire IT Schools Spring 2011 by Hampshire County Council

Hampshire IT Schools formerly

EdICT NEWS

Spring 2011

In at the deep (and crisp and even) end Timely start for new school closure notification system The final issues had been resolved for the new ‘emergency school closures’ page, we had just held the project closure meeting, and then ... it snowed. A most timely end to a project, and what a test of its effectiveness! When it snowed in January 2010, the Children’s Services and Corporate Communications teams could not keep up with the volume of information which needed to be entered to keep the public informed of emergency school closures. So we developed a system to automate the complete

process, and also to include emergency closures for colleges and children’s centres. The resulting site is simple to use. Schools, colleges or children’s centres complete an online form. This automatically sends a notification to County Council distribution lists and to radio stations. It then sends confirmation to the school that the closure has been accepted, and updates the website. Positive feedback has been received from Headteachers, administrators, radio stations and parents who used this system, and the site even made its television debut on BBC South Today.

On 2 December 2010 we suffered particularly heavy snowfall. These are the figures for the school closures page that day: • the page had more than 210,000 page views • ... from around 65,000 unique visitors (50% higher than the equivalent ‘snow day’ in January) • peak periods were 7am-8am (53,000 page views in one hour) and 4pm-6pm (15,000 page views per hour)

www.hants.gov.uk

2 Hampshire IT Schools Spring 2011

Contents 1 2 3 3 4 6 12 14 15 15 15 16

School closure project Staying in the know Fond farewells Phishing warning Winter of Wiz content SIMS Matters HPSN2 New training courses Academies Support and installation Meet us at these events The training calendar

Read previous issues online at www.issuu.com/HampshireIT You can also view and download our new training directory at this site.

Staying in the know New school communications system coming soon The school communications system is under review. We want to make it easier to use, to streamline the process (for school staff and Children’s Services) and to extend the use to colleges. We are running a pilot in parallel with the current system, and would like to thank the schools which have kindly helped us with this. The first pilot communications were released in February. The results will be collated and all suggestions from the pilot schools will be evaluated. Any changes will then be implemented before the system goes live. If everything goes well with the pilot, we anticipate that all communications received from 21 March will be entered into the new system, with the release of the first new school communication planned for later this term. We will of course tell you more about the switchover nearer the time, and offer guidance notes to help you get used to the new system.

Credits (3) hook: sxc.hu/profile/ dannystock (5) flickr.com/psyberartist

Contact For queries specifically about this newsletter, please contact Sue Allen 01329 316100 sue.allen@hants.gov.uk

The new system allows you to filter messages to see those specifically for your role and your school’s phase and location.

Your feedback is always welcome. If you no longer wish to receive a paper copy, please contact the IT Help Desk at 01962 847007 edicthelp@hants.gov.uk © Hampshire County Council

In the meantime, don’t forget the current school communications page: http://www.education.hants.gov.uk/intranet/communications/schools

This publication is available in large print, in Braille, on audio tape or disk. Please contact the IT Help Desk on 01962 847007 if required. http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/ictinschools | IT Help Desk 01962 847007 | edicthelp@hants.gov.uk

Spring 2011 Hampshire IT Schools 3

So it’s ‘goodbye’ from me ...

“

Goodness, doesn’t time fly when you are having fun! It doesn’t seem five minutes ago that local management of schools was being introduced in Hampshire. Representing a pilot school, I attended one of the first IT courses for budget planning held at the newly created IT Centre at Fort Hill school. Before long I was working as an IT training officer at the Fort Hill Centre, training schools in the north of the county how to use their new computers to word process, use email, plan and monitor their budgets and record pupil data in SIMS. Most recently, I have been based in Fareham, leading the main customer-facing teams in EdICT and now Hampshire IT. As I leave Hampshire County Council, IT in schools is still moving on apace. One of the next major offerings from Hampshire IT is the Futureclass Hosted School Service (which provides schools with the infrastructure required for excellent IT delivery but without the time spent managing the IT) but I will leave all that in the capable hands of my colleagues. Best wishes to you all, Sue.

“

Phishing - don’t take the bait! ‘Phishing’ is the term used for email attacks on schools, businesses and individuals - it aims to trick you to reveal your user name and password.

Many readers will know Colin McQueen, our Curriculum Solutions Consultant, who is also moving on to pastures new. Colin writes:

“

The time has come after near 27 years of working with Hampshire County Council for me to pack my bags, turn off my link to Hantsnet, delete my account on Wizkid and move on. That journey has included teaching Science and ICT for 19 years at The Romsey School, three years as a youth leader running the Romsonian Youth Club, travelling cross-county for four years as a HIAS National Strategy ICT Consultant and finally four years with EdICT / Hampshire IT as a consultant for learning platforms. I came to Hampshire to cover maternity leave for just one term but ending up staying for 80! The culmination for me has been Hampshire Wizkid, which is dear to my heart. Isn’t it odd how you can become attached to electrons and magnetic storage posing as something purposeful on screen? I have been amazed at the sense of collaboration and community that has developed around it. I will miss many teaching friends and valued colleagues from ‘good old EdICT’ as I saw it described recently. I wish you all every success and will continue to pray your hopes and dreams will be fulfilled.

“

Sue Allen, our Schools Business Relationship Manager, is taking up the offer of voluntary redundancy and leaves Hampshire IT in the spring. Here she looks back at a varied career serving schools across Hampshire:

... and it’s ‘goodbye’ from him

Never reply - fraudsters can then log into your account and attack personal and school data, also send malicious email in your name! Watch out for email that looks as though it is sent from a genuine work contact (eg the ‘Webmail or System Administrator’ or ‘IT Service Desk’). What action should I take? • Never open any links and DO NOT reply to this type of email. • Make sure you read and follow the guidance in Learn.IT: http://learnit.hants.gov.uk/spam-types-phishing • If you are uncertain about any request that appears to come from the IT Help Desk, please report it immediately by phone on 01962 847007. Remember no genuine organisation will ever ask for your password. So never reveal it to anyone (verbally or in writing). Doing so could place data and systems at risk.

http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/ictinschools | IT Help Desk 01962 847007 | edicthelp@hants.gov.uk

4 Hampshire IT Schools Spring 2011

HAMPSHIRE WIZKID

Winter is a time when animals hibernate and plants shut down to conserve energy over the cold dark months. One may wonder whether this is the case for the sprawling living thing that is Hampshire Wizkid. On the contrary, December and January were two of Wizkid’s busiest months. Take the snow days in early December: teachers were frantically creating snow-themed activities for children to try from home and lots of children were accessing those resources from outside of school. Several teachers commented on the usefulness of the new folder icons, such as the snowman, which were made available on request. (If there are folder icons you think are needed please submit a request to the IT Help Desk.) Looking at usage stats over the Christmas break we came up with some interesting numbers. In those two weeks of holiday 5097 students and 419 teachers logged in. And even on Christmas Day 449 students and 21 teachers logged in. Which begs the question: what were you doing?

If you were one of those 21 teachers accessing Wizkid on Christmas Day we’d love to hear from you! January 2011 was an amazing month too. On average 19% of our users log in each month but in January this figure hit an all time high of 30%! That was 27,000 students and teachers from 349 schools. Looking more closely at the top schools we see that infant schools are starting to use Wizkid more than ever: see the table below (ranked by percentage of students logging on; percentages rounded off). Well done to Oakwood and Kempshott who saw an amazing 98% of their students logging in. We should also mention the vast number of logins by Four Lanes Community Junior School and Westfields Junior School. Both these schools feature in our list every month. It was the first month that phase four and five schools (which did their rollout training about 12 months ago) dominated the figures, which suggests it may take a year for schools to then plan and implement their full school rollout.

Rank School name

Total logins

Number of student accounts

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

661 794 5388 3061 351 820 1184 5944 1999 236 1685 1035 443

172 179 326 321 222 81 157 413 300 236 207 209 114

Oakwood Infant School Kempshott Infant School Four Lanes Community Junior School Hythe Primary School Belle Vue Infant School Amport C E Primary School Northern Junior Community School Westfields Junior School Mill Rythe Junior School Merdon Junior School Bishopswood Junior School Greenfields Junior School All Saints C E Primary School

Logins per student account

Percentage of students logging in

3.8 4.4 16.5 9.5 1.6 10.1 7.5 14.4 6.7 9.7 8.1 5.0 3.9

98% 98% 98% 97% 96% 94% 92% 92% 89% 87% 87% 85% 85%

http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/ictinschools | IT Help Desk 01962 847007 | edicthelp@hants.gov.uk

HAMPSHIRE WIZKID

Spring 2011 Hampshire IT Schools 5

If you are an infant school looking for ideas why not contact other infant teachers through the Wizkid Information and Shared Resources global groups? To get you started, Emma Goto describes some of the ways in which she uses Wizkid with Year Two children. Emma teaches at Kings Copse Primary School and was formerly a seconded teacher at EdICT.

“

My Year Two class love Wizkid. Most of the children can log on now without having to look at their log on cards. We have a reading roundabout session in class every day. Those who aren’t doing guided reading with me undertake a different reading-based activity. I always have a group accessing a range of reading activities in Wizkid. We also use it as a place where we pull lots of links in together. In ICT this half term we are developing our internet research skills researching animals. We have a folder in Wizkid with lots of relevant links to sites like the Marwell animal encyclopaedia, the NEN gallery and various children’s search engines like Yahoo Kids. It’s easy for children to access all these sites from Wizkid and the good thing is they can use these links to access the sites at home. I send homework out on paper and children can choose how they would like to submit it. I provide a discussion forum in Wizkid to allow children to respond in this way if they’d like to. Recently children were asked to submit different number sequences they had created along with the secret rule the sequence followed. I created a discussion forum in Wizkid. About half the class chose to respond in this way, several returning to the forum over the week to add more. I marked their work by editing their reply and adding a comment. I could also set challenges where they needed to crack the code. The homework became more of a conversation. You could see children’s ideas developing as they read the responses from the other children and from me.

January also saw our trial of the Widgit Point and Insite symbols integration come to an end. These tools serve up Widgit symbols on demand within the Wizkid desktop interfaces. Point is best suited to emerging readers and those who don’t have English as their first language. It can also provide people who find reading difficult with a useful prompt for understanding unfamiliar words. Insite on the other hand is for teachers, enabling them to create content using symbols to support text. There was a mixed response from teachers to these ground-breaking tools. After the initial fascination some found Point a distraction. It was commissioned to support children from special schools and those of infant age in mainstream. Not surprisingly these schools found the tools more useful. But this doesn’t mean they are not applicable to junior or secondary age pupils. For example, a senior teacher at a junior school in Farnborough said “This is a brilliant tool for weaker readers and SEN pupils. We use Widgit with SEN pupils all the time.” In an ideal world these tools would be provided for free but unfortunately the servers which deliver them all need funding, so the suppliers need to get a return by licensing their symbols. Any school interested in buying in the Widgit option should contact the IT Help Desk.

Our Wizkid support pages have moved.

See www.hants.gov.uk/wizkid

“

http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/ictinschools | IT Help Desk 01962 847007 | edicthelp@hants.gov.uk

6 Hampshire IT Schools Spring 2011

SIMS MATTERS

What’s new in SIMS? Since the last newsletter the Autumn 2010 upgrade has further enhanced SIMS and, in particular, SIMS Learning Gateway. Here is a flavour of some of the new functionality that will make the software more useful and help schools to get best value from their investment: > Attendance History for parents In the latest upgrade to SIMS Learning Gateway, parents can now view detailed attendance history for their child by clicking the Attendance History hyperlink in the Today’s Attendance web part. It displays a calendar where parents can view attendance marks and lesson information. > Publishing pupil reports online The pupil reports functionality will enable users with the appropriate permissions to publish SIMS Profile and Assessment reports online. These reports can be made available to teachers, students and parents. Besides the obvious benefits of accessibility and more effective online communication with parents, this means that schools will be able to post reports onto a shared site without printing each piece and collating all the reports. Substantial savings can be made on printing costs, maximizing investment in the software. We are currently working with pilot schools to evaluate and test this new feature, along with assessing the impact on space requirements of uploading to, and storing reports in, SIMS Learning Gateway.

Capita accreditation We are pleased to announce that Hampshire IT has retained full Capita accreditation for its range of SIMS Core and Curriculum services to Hampshire schools. Capita (the supplier of SIMS) undertook the reaccreditation process (our equivalent of an Ofsted) last term, essential to which was a voluntary online schools’ questionnaire covering the full range of Hampshire IT SIMS services including support, upgrades, training and documentation. Capita also introduced a new framework to the process, the Local Authority Self-evaluation review, which allows local authorities to self-assess the quality of their services objectively. The findings are then confirmed and challenged by Capita using the evidence supplied. This enabled us to focus on how, why and when we deliver the service to schools. Overall we are pleased with the accreditation findings and look forward to making a good service even better. Where the process identified potential shortcomings, we are addressing them. We would like to thank all schools that took part. Those schools which completed a survey were entered into a prize draw to win a digital camera, and we’re pleased to announce that Limington House School are the lucky winners.

Rollout of Centrally Hosted SIMS and SQL 2008 Over 2011 we worked to roll out Centrally Hosted SIMS and SQL 2008 to Hampshire schools. The rollout to Hampshire primary schools was completed by the end of October, two months ahead of the original schedule, which itself seemed a tall order when the project started in April 2010.

The Fareham and Winchester Hampshire IT teams have been working together to ensure that the consolidated rollout schedule remained on track and that the central environment was ready to host the management information system for over 400 schools, and ensure quality of service to more than 2000 users of SIMS across the county.

http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/ictinschools | IT Help Desk 01962 847007 | edicthelp@hants.gov.uk

SIMS MATTERS

Spring 2011 Hampshire IT Schools 7

In response to the government budget cuts, schools are focusing on the areas where savings can be made and how they can maximise on investments in IT. One way of achieving this is to consider how management information systems can be used to encourage more efficient and effective ways of working. When it comes to saving money, it pays to work out where spending in one area of your budget can save money in another. Primary schools have more opportunity to achieve this with remote access services to their MIS using Centrally Hosted SIMS and secondary schools using SIMS Learning Gateway. Consider using SIMS Profiles This can be used to create pupil profiles (reports) using the functionality of a word processor and pupil data already held in SIMS. It is included in the existing SIMS licence so there is no extra cost. With SIMS Learning Gateway or Centrally Hosted SIMS you are able to create Profiles reports in a browser from home or in school. Invest to save Allow teacher access to update marksheets in SIMS and write pupil reports from home with SIMS Profiles. This lets teachers update and view pupils’ attendance records, learning targets and assessment grades. Take SIMS into the classroom More and more schools are making SIMS available in the classroom for taking the register and recording assessment, behaviour and rewards data.

Eliminate repetitive tasks Free up skilled staff by automating or simplifying their routine and unproductive tasks such as manual register taking, letter writing and gathering pupil progress data for parental reports. No more double data entry is required: information on a child or a family only ever needs to be entered once and can be viewed by the leadership team. Rejuvenate school management ... with access to individual pupil and cohort information on performance. Improve flexible working for staff Improve flexibility to work from home or elsewhere through secure internet access to school systems. Enrich parental communication Improve parental engagement and reduce the time taken to communicate with parents by using SIMS Learning Gateway. The latest upgrade (see page 6) will let schools securely publish SIMS reports online for parents, saving up to £3000 per year on printing and postage costs in a typical secondary school. Support learning inside and outside of school Enables pupils to take responsibility for their progress by giving them access to their learning targets and achievement data through SIMS Learning Gateway from school or from home.

OVERLEAF: The centre pages show how senior leaders and class teachers can use the SIMS home page and Teacher Pupil View; these provide an overview of the key information already held in SIMS. You can also download and print this primary school copy and a secondary version at http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/sims-help (under ‘Help sheets’)

☞

http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/ictinschools | IT Help Desk 01962 847007 | edicthelp@hants.gov.uk

10 Hampshire IT Schools Spring 2011

SIMS MATTERS

SIMS Address Tidy and Merge (secondary schools only) Key features and benefits Some schools have had issues linking pupils to siblings and contacts. This has led to the creation of multiple instances of the same address in the SIMS database. The Address Tidy and Merge routine will correct most of these discrepancies (some minor manual adjustments may be required), which will result in all residents at the same address being linked. Any subsequent change to the address will automatically be made for all associated residents. Deleting unused and duplicated addresses will also reduce the size of the database and therefore free up additional hard drive space. Procedure Please download and print the instructions from: http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/sims-address-tidy-merge Read through them completely before attempting to begin work. The routine requires careful attention, and may be time consuming. It is also particularly important to ensure that a reliable SIMS backup is available should there be a need to restore the data.

Microsoft Office support in SIMS

Policy templates for schools The South West Grid for Learning (SWGfL) helps schools in its own area, but has kindly agreed to share useful information with schools across the country, ensuring that other schools don’t have to reinvent the wheel. One area that is covered is e-safety. They have created a number of policy templates for schools to use covering topics such as: • student/pupil acceptable use policy template • staff/volunteer acceptable use policy template • school personal data handling policy template • e-safety template • school filtering template • password policy template • ideas for schools to consider template • e-safety - a school charter for action template All these templates are based on national policy and best practice. Find them at: http://www.swgfl.org.uk/Staying-Safe and click ‘Creating an e-Safety Policy?’ under ‘Projects & Initiatives’.

Please note that Capita are not planning to support Microsoft Office 2010 until the Spring 2011 release of SIMS at the earliest. Capita have not yet fully tested Office 2010 with SIMS. Therefore any workstation running SIMS should only have Office 2003 installed or you may experience difficulties running reports. Although we will evaluate Office 2010 after Capita have announced the results of their testing, we regret that we cannot support schools having problems using Office 2010 at this time. In the meanwhile, we would urge you to purchase licences for MS Office 2010 when buying new machines but install Office 2003 if the equipment will be used for SIMS. These licences are still valid for Office 2003 and this will ensure you are prepared for future changes in your school.

See the latest SIMS known issues list at http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/ictinschools/sims-help http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/ictinschools | IT Help Desk 01962 847007 | edicthelp@hants.gov.uk

SIMS MATTERS

Staff cover

Staff absence

Centrally Hosted SIMS

Finance

Capita are field trialling this deployment tool which will assist with the automatic delivery of SIMS Client software onto computers. During testing, Capita has encountered a wide variety of infrastructure environments in schools that affect the way in which SOLUS³ can be deployed and operated. As a result, they will now be staggering the release to local authority support teams rather than doing a full rollout. Capita has yet to publish the end of support dates for the current version of SOLUS³ and so this should allow time for us to evaluate SOLUS³ before we can confirm it can be delivered to Hampshire secondary schools with no adverse results.

Payroll

Email School Workforce Census

Budget planning

Over the course of the next few months we will notify secondary schools with locally hosted SIMS how they can obtain and apply SOLUS³ (SIMS Online Upgrade Service).

Personnel

Pupil census

Update on SOLUS3

This is important for various reasons including the creation of user names and passwords for Hampshire Wizkid, Centrally Hosted SIMS and SIMS Learning Gateway. There is some inevitable data duplication between SIMS and the staff information schools already input into SAP, and we are also aware there are other systems in use where yet again schools have to record the same basic personnel details. We investigated further to see if this situation could be improved. The first step was to work with schools and the SAP team to identify the extent of the problem. Last term, a focus group from the SAP Schools Development Group met with Hampshire SAP and SIMS colleagues and between us we produced a hefty list of processes and systems where this duplication occurs: Identity management

Schools are reporting how beneficial it is to provide teaching staff with live browser access to SIMS data. SIMS Learning Gateway is now complementing, and in some cases replacing, the SIMS desktop in the classroom. The rollout has strengthened home/school links with parents as they can now access live data about their children. And because the children themselves are most important of all, the system is now being delivered to older pupils, providing a view of their own information including learning data, timetables, behaviour and achievements. The infrastructure is set up in our data centre in Winchester and all the support and training processes are in place. If your school is interested in the service please call the IT Help Desk for more information and our consultants will be pleased to advise. Please note, there are a strictly limited number of licences available.

As we mentioned in the last newsletter, it’s essential that, as a minimum, basic details of employees are entered into the SIMS Personnel module.

MIS Timetable

Since the launch of the hosted SIMS Learning Gateway service last September, many secondary schools are now reaping the benefits.

Data, data everywhere

Professional development

Benefits of the SIMS Learning Gateway service

Spring 2011 Hampshire IT Schools 11

VLE

Classes Identity management

SIMS Learning Gateway

Single Central Record Wizkid

We now aim to investigate if it is possible to reduce this burden on schools. We hope to report back on progress in the next newsletter. Our thanks go to the schools that took part - and if you know of any systems we missed, please let us know!

http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/ictinschools | IT Help Desk 01962 847007 | edicthelp@hants.gov.uk

12 Hampshire IT Schools Spring 2011

In the Autumn 2010 issue of this newsletter, we gave you an overview of HPSN2, the successor to the schools’ current data network, SWAN. HPSN2 is now being rolled out to schools across Hampshire and you are being contacted by email with details of the rollout schedule and a copy of the HPSN2 School Agreement. We’d be grateful if you would respond promptly to the email, and return the acceptance form within two weeks. This will help keep the rollout on schedule - as you can imagine, it is a complex operation.

Many of you were able to attend the HPSN2 roadshow, and we thank you for your questions and feedback at those events. We’ve created an FAQs page based on your questions. You can find this and lots more information about HPSN2 at http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/hpsn2-schools These pages are updated regularly, so be sure to check them for the latest news.

http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/hpsn2-schools

Much more than just an internet connection ... HPSN2 gives schools increased network capacity, greater value for money and more flexibility to choose the services they need. • The HPSN2 line capacity is at least twice that of the SWAN line it replaces, at no extra cost to schools. • Free installation and upgrade to HPSN2 • Connect securely to anyone else on HPSN2 to share services and resources. • The HPSN2 fibre connects to the resilient (no single point of failure) 10 gigabit (Gbps) core. • The HPSN2 core connects to the internet via two feeds, one of which is a JANET link capable of 1 Gbps. • Managed router and switch to provide security and flexibility. • Capable of delivering 100 megabits per second (Mbps) in the future.

If you have any questions about HPSN2, please email us at HPSN2.Schools@hants.gov.uk or call 01962 846477

Services included at no extra cost: • Direct, secure access to Hampshire County Council SAP: financial and HR integration in an industry-standard enterprise solution. • Direct link into JANET and the National Education Network; this is only provided through local authorities and higher education institutions, and is not available through commercial providers. • Flexible Web Filtering allows central management or school control to block or unblock sites or categories. From Blue Coat, one of the industry leaders, and developed in partnership with schools, Flexible Web FIltering is coming in the summer term of 2011. • Managed firewall protection against spam, viruses and trojans, denial-of-service attacks and hackers • Central internet caching. • Direct secure access to the Children’s Services intranet with pupil performance (eg, Fisher Family Trust data, e-safety guidance, HR guidance and much more). • OWL: secure email service for school managers. We would be delighted to have the opportunity to come to your school to meet the management team, or answer questions at a governors’ meeting.

http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/ictinschools | IT Help Desk 01962 847007 | edicthelp@hants.gov.uk

Spring 2011 Hampshire IT Schools 13

SCHOOLS

Migration to HPSN2: the expected timetable

2010 Dec

2011 Apr-Jun Jul-Sep

Jan-Mar

2012 Oct-Dec Jan-Mar

Planning Communications Design, build, test Site surveys Digs and cabling Pilot schools School rollout

The timetable for installing HPSN2 in a school depends on a number of factors: location is just one of them. However the diagram below should give you an indication at least of the order that work is being done across the county. These timings are subject to change, and some individual schools will vary. Check http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/hpsn2-schools to see the exact and latest details for your school.

Please note: these areas relate to how schools are currently connected to SWAN, not to Hampshire County Council regions or local offices. All months are in 2011, unless otherwise indicated.

Basingstoke Andover Surveys: March - July Cabling: September - October Migration: December

Surveys: Feb - Sept Cabling: Aug - Nov Migration: Oct - Jan 2012

Winchester

Aldershot Surveys: March - July Cabling: July - October Migration: Aug - Nov

Surveys: May - Oct Cabling: Aug - Dec Migration: Oct - Feb 2012

Southampton Surveys: February - March Cabling: May - August Migration: June - Sept

Bournemouth

Marchwood

Surveys: March Cabling: April - May Migration: June

Surveys: February - March Cabling: April - August Migration: June - Sept

Havant Surveys: February - June Cabling: July - September Migration: August - Oct

Portsmouth

Surveys: February - May Cabling: June - Sept Migration: Sept - Oct

http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/ictinschools | IT Help Desk 01962 847007 | edicthelp@hants.gov.uk

14 Hampshire IT Schools Spring 2011

New courses For primary schools

• School census workshop - lets centrally hosted schools work on their own live SIMS data

For secondary schools

• Assessment Manager - getting started • Lesson Monitor analysis and reporting

For all schools

• Admissions (applicants) workshop • Really basic reporting • Getting the most out of Hampshire’s internet services • Excel - level 1 • Excel - level 2

New directory

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TRAINING FOR SCHOOLS

TRAINING DIRECTORY 2011-2012

the right). o l for e right. and

In addition to the published courses we also offer the following: Closed courses

Bespoke training The training team can also deliver training specifically developed for the needs of individual schools. This can be one-to-one or one-to-many and can take place on-site at the school or in our training room at The Parkway, Fareham. To find out more about closed courses or the bespoke training please call the IT Help Desk. Our course calendar for the spring and summer is on the back page of this newsletter. Please share with any fellow member of staff who may be interested in improving their skill set.

oad. area k. ce. ces. or

Full details can be found in the new training directory which should recently have arrived in your school. If you don’t have a copy, see below. We continue to offer our traditional, long-standing courses, which enable newly appointed staff, or staff with a changing role, to benefit from formal training at a reasonable cost. We try to offer these courses at times appropriate to schools’ business processes so that training is available just prior to time-sensitive activities. For example, the Secondary Options courses are offered in January and February when many secondary schools start their options procedures. Our training room was updated last year and we now train on high-specification, up-to-the-minute desktop workstations with widescreen monitors.

If schools have enough staff to attend one of our scheduled courses then the courses can be closed to just staff from that school. Useful for inset days.

ay.

arkway -

The Hampshire IT Schools Training team is proud to offer new training courses and workshops for the next financial year.

For a copy see

Hampshire IT Schools www.hants.gov.uk/itschools

issuu.com/hampshireit/ docs/directory-20112012

or call the IT Help Desk

http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/ictinschools | IT Help Desk 01962 847007 | edicthelp@hants.gov.uk

Spring 2011 Hampshire IT Schools 15

Is it academic to say Hampshire is open for business? We are pleased to confirm that Hampshire IT will continue to offer services to all schools, including those which become academies. We are already working with schools who have been through or are planning conversion. Along with Children’s Services and other Hampshire County Council departments we will be launching a complete catalogue of services to academies later in the spring term. This will provide an overview of the services on

offer throughout Hampshire County Council. It will also explain how services are charged and provide a summary of the consistent approaches to customer service. This may result in new or revised services and these will be made available to all schools, not just academies. We feel this provides us with the opportunity to challenge ourselves and demonstrate to all schools the value we can offer in supporting your school with effective IT.

Technical support and installation - who, what, why? In previous newsletters we’ve mentioned how IT within Hampshire County Council has undergone a major reorganisation. The Corporate Services Review made changes in the way IT support and installation are delivered to our departments, partners and schools, with a view to making efficiencies without affecting service provision. Before the review, these teams were within EdICT: • Installation • Technical Support • Technical Development • SIMS Support • SIMS Development • Communications • Consultancy • Training • Projects Following the review, the technical and installation teams became part of Hampshire IT’s Service Operations section. More recently the SIMS teams also moved into Service Operations. The remaining

teams are part of IT Children & Schools. As part of a larger section, the technical staff gain access to a larger pool of skills and experience. Now all these teams have a hand in providing technical support to schools: • Second level (remote support) • Regional teams based in Winchester, Eastleigh, Fareham and Havant • Security and Access controls • Technical Design However, this transformation is vast and we’ve been careful not to push through changes too quickly. Some things remain the same: you still gain access to the expertise of these teams by signing up to the Hampshire IT Service Level Agreement, and then by contacting the IT Help Desk. Over the course of 2011 there will be several exciting developments such as HPSN2 (see page 13) and the Futureclass Hosted School Service. The technical and installation teams will be at the heart of delivering and supporting these new services, and look forward to working closely with you.

Meet Hampshire IT at these events 16 March 17 May 15-16 June 24 June

Primary Headteachers’ Conference SIMS User Forum School Administrators Conference ICT Conference

City Cruise Terminal, Southampton The Parkway, Fareham City Cruise Terminal, Southampton Ashburton Hall, Winchester

For the latest news on upcoming events, see www.hants.gov.uk/schools-events http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/ictinschools | IT Help Desk 01962 847007 | edicthelp@hants.gov.uk

Training calendar ED103 ED104 ED095 ED112 ED102 ED116 ED105 ED107 ED099 ED100 ED110 ED108 ED114 ED109 ED127 ED099 ED136 ED137 ED128 ED131 ED120 ED121 ED138 ED139 ED140 ED141 ED145 ED149 ED146 ED147 ED148 ED143 ED142

Assessment Manager - getting started - primary Assessment Manager - getting started - secondary Getting started with SIMS (three days) SIMS reporting workshop Implementing SIMS special needs SIMS Attendance Assessment Manager - tracking your pupilsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; progress KS1 HCC Tracking Package Preparing SIMS for the academic year end - primary Preparing SIMS for the academic year end - secondary Office skills for SIMS reports KS2 HCC Tracking Package Really basic reporting Assessment Manager - reporting to parents Using Course Manager effectively Preparing SIMS for the academic year end - primary Examinations - importing results and basic analysis Examinations - analysing exam results Academic management SIMS Cover 7 workshop Implementing SIMS Profiles - primary Implementing SIMS Profiles - secondary Managing Wizkid in your school Supporting the use of Wizkid in your school Using Wizkid as a tool for learning Getting the most out of Hampshireâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s internet services Microsoft Publisher Building and using an Access database Excel - level 1 Excel - level 2 Tucasi Cash Office software Advanced features of Word Mail Merge with Word

April - July 2011 APRIL 27

MAY

JUNE

JULY

3 4, 11, 18 23 17 26 8 14 15 16 20 21 5 28 29 6 7 12 13 14 20 21 9 23 13 28 13 24 9 22 30 11 26

To book, call the HTLC Course Booking Line on 01962 844288, email htlc.courses@hants.gov.uk, or use the online booking system at htlc.hants.gov.uk We can also deliver tailored training sessions to meet your specific needs. These sessions are delivered in our training suite in Fareham or onsite at a location of your choice. This service can be purchased by individual schools, groups of schools or even cluster groups. See www.hants.gov.uk/it-training-schools. For more details about each course, see our training directory. Download a copy from issuu.com/hampshireit/docs/directory-20112012