Attendance Reports for use during Schools Closure - IMPORTANT PLEASE READ

You may find the following reports useful for entering/producing attendance data during the schools closure:

Bulk Entry of # Code

Please click here for step by step instructions for bulk entry of the # code in registers.

User Defined Group for Key Worker Pupils/Students

Please click here to access step by step instructions for producing a user defined group to be used for entering attendance marks specifically for key worker pupils/students via the Edit Marks routine.

Chosen Code Report

Please click here for step by step instructions to produce a report to show all pupils/students in school on a specific date or date range.

SimsforSchools Arrangements during Schools Closure

In light of the decision to close schools in England from Monday 23rd March 2020 for the foreseeable future, we wanted to update our customers on our plans to ensure we continue to provide as normal a service as possible:

Operating Hours

The SimsforSchools helpdesk will be available as usual between the hours of 8am - 5pm during term time and from 9am - 4pm during school holidays.  Our contact details remain unchanged as below.

SIMS Courses/User Group Meetings

All courses and User Group meetings have been suspended with immediate effect.  We will provide an update regarding the availability of notes for the Summer School Census and End of Year Procedures in line with any directives issued by the DfE.

In the meantime, we hope that you all stay safe during these uncertain times.

Parents Email Report

Parents Email Report Design

Please click here to access the routine to design a report to show parent email addresses for use in case of emergency.

SIMS User Group Meeting – 26th March 2020

SIMS User Group Meeting

Date:    Thursday 26th March 2020

Time:    2.30 pm - 4.00 pm

Venue: St Martin’s Primary School, Rowan Road, West Drayton UB7 7UF (Tel: 01895 717701)

The SimsforSchools team would like to invite you to join us for our next user group meeting where we will give an update on new and planned developments in SIMS. We would also welcome any SIMS related topics that you would like us to cover during the session.  Please forward any suggestions to the SimsforSchool team and we will endeavour to include these on the meeting agenda.

We look forward to seeing you at this terms session.

Refreshments will be provided.

**If you are planning to attend this meeting, can you please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. as confirmation**

SIMS Newsletter - December 2019 - Issue 12

Please click here to access the December 2019 issue of the SIMS Newsletter.

School Census Spring 2020 Return - Known Issue: Query 1849

Please see below, advice emailed to schools in relation to Validation Query 1849 which is a known issue on the School Census Spring 2020 return:

Dear Colleague

This is to advise that the incorrect generation of Validation Query 1849 – Please check: Pupil aged 3 or 4 eligible for early years pupil premium and recorded as post looked after arrangements would be expected to have reason ‘EO’ or ‘EB’ is a known issue with the school census spring 2020 return. 

Fileset 1404 is due to be released imminently to resolve the incorrect generation of this query, however, Capita have provided the following explanation/advice:

“Unfortunately, the DFE did not fully correct validation query 1849 in version 1.2 of its validation file, which we made available via Fileset 1403.  However, the DFE has provided version 1.3 of its validation to complete the correction of query 1849.  This gives two ways forward for schools who are receiving the query after applying fileset 1403.

1. They can ignore the query on the grounds that it will not occur when their return is uploaded to COLLECT.
2. They can wait for Fileset 1404, which includes version 1.3 of the DfE validation, to be made available.”

At this late stage schools can choose either option but will still need to create a new census return on Thursday 16^th January.

In the meantime, we plan to deploy this new fileset to all our schools as soon as it is available.

Best regards

SimsforSchools Support Team

Spring 2020 School Census - 16th January 2020

Please login and select the School Census Category to download the relevant preparation/production notes for your school.

SIMS User Group Meeting Presentation – December 2019

Please click here to view the presentation slides from the SIMS User Group meeting held on 5th December 2019.

Admin Officers Network Meeting - SIMS Presentation - 17th October 2019

Please click here to view the SIMS presentation slides from the Admin Officers Network Meeting held on 17th October 2019.

Attendance Report for Local Authority Monthly Return

Please see below the routine for producing the required information for the whole school session attendance section of the monthly return spreadsheet:

Attendance whole school: from start of academic year to current month

This can be obtained via route: Reports | Attendance | Group Reports | Group Analysis by Attendance Category Report then:

1. Enter the required date range
2. Select Group Type of Whole School
3. Click Search
4. Click Print and OK