Data can be slippery – it’s easy to spend fruitless hours searching for the right piece of data, or attempting to collate individual data sets to get a sense of the whole picture. We know that – and we can help.
The SIMS School Report can help to quickly analyse whole school headline data, giving a breakdown information by key pastoral groups, which provides key information for Senior Leaders and Governors.
The data is anonymised and only produces top level figures, hence why it is so useful for Governors and Senior Leaders.
While you can run this report for other SIMS areas, including conduct and exclusions, this blog focuses on attendance.
Attendance report
To produce a whole school report for attendance, first:
- From your SIMS home screen, navigate to Reports | School Reports
- Select the data you want to include in the report (in this instance our focus is attendance. Deselect all options other than ‘pupil numbers’ and ‘session attendance summary’)
- Set the start date for the period which you want to look at attendance data
- Use the ‘show long data’ option when running the report for attendance, as it creates more detailed analysis
- Click ‘generate’
Please note there is also the ability to exclude non statutory school age children by including the date of birth ranges of the children you wish to include in the report, such as Years 1-6 or 7-11.
When loaded, the report opens into a pdf file. Structured by year group along the top, there are then various breakdowns down the left-hand side. At the very top, information is included about the school, including headteacher, governance, local authority, and other information.
Scrolling down, you will find information which includes data for all the years across the school, in addition to an amalgamated total at the end. This is very useful for final attendance figures.
Scrolling down further you will find a summary of attendance data, including authorised absence; unauthorised absence; persistent absence; authorised education activities; session attendance; and lates. These are all presented with similar functionality.
You can then review and share data.
Next steps
- Run this report within your own school
- Set the SIMS Home Page to show attendance graphs for regular analysis
- Use SIMS Discover to support the School Report data in a graphical format
Do you want to know more?
Further information can be found within the Running the SIMS School Report tutorial which can be accessed via the SIMS Documentation Centre – Tutorials page. You will also find a range of other useful handbooks, tutorials, and quick reference sheets relevant to your role.