applicable to 6.90 onwards

Setting up Domestic Exams in Examinations

Organiser

Mini Guide

Capita SIMS, Franklin Court, Priory Business Park, Cardington, Bedfordshire MK44 3JZ Tel: 01234 838080 Fax: 01234 832036 Email: info@capita-sims.co.uk Web: www.capita-sims.co.uk

Revision History

Version Change Description Date

6.90 - 1.0 Initial release. 16/02/2012

6.90 - 1.1 Rebranding of front cover. 23/07/2014

6.90 – 1.2

Updated the list of additional supporting documentation in the Accessing Help and Additional SIMS Documentation topic of the Introduction chapter.

06/03/2015

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Capita Doc Ref: ExamDom690/HBK/060315/FT

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C|Contents 01| Introduction .................................................................. 1

Introduction ................................................................................... 1 Accessing Help and Additional SIMS Documentation ...................... 1

02| Setting up Domestic Exams ........................................... 3 Establishing the Framework ........................................................... 3 Defining the Data ............................................................................ 4 Using the Data ................................................................................ 4 Candidate Numbers ........................................................................ 5

Index ................................................................................. 7

01| Introduction

Setting up Domestic Exams in Examinations Organiser 1

01|Introduction

Introduction .................................................................................... 1 Accessing Help and Additional SIMS Documentation ....................... 1

Introduction This guide has been produced in order to assist you in setting up Domestic Exams in Examinations Organiser. Examinations Organiser uses information provided by the Examination Boards to enable Candidates to be entered for examinations and the results to be subsequently received. However, schools often have a need to manage internal assessments of a kind that involves a formal structure of Elements and Components. The purpose of introducing Domestic Exams into Examinations Organiser is to allow users with this requirement, access to the full range of functionality that is available for public examinations. GCSE mock exams might be a prime candidate for such treatment. Entrance examinations might also be administered for pre-admission groups. These facilities include recording entries and results at Component and Element level, seating, clash detection, and at a later stage, review in Assessment Manager and Performance Analysis. Many of the structures provided for the management of public exams (e.g. distinctions between options, and the entire Award layer) will frequently be felt unnecessary for internal assessments; but they form part of the domestic structure for two reasons:

They are available if required – the Maths department might feel that tier-specific Components are appropriate, for example.

Their presence means that the landscape within which the Exams Officer is operating for domestic exams, once the basedata has been defined, is identical to the environment of public examinations.

Accessing Help and Additional SIMS Documentation A complete on-line help system for Examinations Organiser is available with this release. To obtain help from within the module, either press F1 or click the Help button. A wide range of documentation is available from within SIMS via the Documentation Centre and can be accessed by clicking the Documentation button on the SIMS Home Page. The range of documentation includes handbooks, tutorials, mini guides and quick reference sheets. Once open, click the appropriate button (e.g. Handbooks), then navigate to the applicable option.

01| Introduction

2 Setting up Domestic Exams in Examinations Organiser

The following additional handbooks for Examinations Organiser are available from the Documentation Centre:

Preparing Examinations Organiser for an Exams Season Guide to Importing and Structuring your Basedata Administering and Registering Candidates for Exams Using the Seating Wizard in Examinations Organiser Guide to Importing and Analysing Examination Results Processing Results and Calculating PI Data in Examinations Organiser.

02| Setting up Domestic Exams

Setting up Domestic Exams in Examinations Organiser 3

02|Setting up Domestic Exams

Establishing the Framework ............................................................ 3 Defining the Data ............................................................................. 4 Using the Data ................................................................................. 4 Candidate Numbers ......................................................................... 5

Establishing the Framework It is strongly recommended that, before any data is entered for the management of domestic exams, an implementation plan should be agreed between the Exams Officer, Heads of Department and curricular managers. In order to arrive at useful conventions (see below), particular attention should be paid to the potential scope of the use of the domestic exams functionality within the school. The elements of this plan should include:

an agreed scheme of assessment at Element level. An element normally corresponds to a subject examination. The options available are a Grade (Result type 1), assigned to a gradeset defined in Assessment Manager, or a mark (Result type U), the latter with the option of an OCR-style Equivalent Grade.

NOTE: When creating gradesets, please ensure that they are of 10 characters or less. Any gradesets defined that exceed 10 characters in length will fail to be recognised in Examinations Organiser.

an agreed examination timetable, with component dates, sessions/times (note that mid-morning and evening are available), durations and assessment patterns – again, marks or grades.

an agreed system of naming Awards and Elements. These should indicate the examination framework (e.g. GCSE Mock), the subject, perhaps the level (FC or SC), perhaps the year group, etc. with these elements arranged in a pre-determined order.

an agreed scheme of notation for Element and Component codes, conveying in abbreviated form a similar range of information as above.

02| Setting up Domestic Exams

4 Setting up Domestic Exams in Examinations Organiser

Defining the Data Once the framework is decided, the data can be entered. The first job is to create a Season Pattern for each timeframe in which domestic exams are planned, e.g. January for mock exams, July for end of year exams, etc. You do not have to declare a Season Pattern as Domestic either at the point of creation or at the point of activating it for the current year. When you first go into the basedata tree for the first instance of a new season pattern, all boards in use (domestic and public) are available. However, as soon as you import a series from a public UAB, or define a series for domestic use, the affinity of the season pattern is fixed. When you define a new domestic series, note that the month part of the code must conform to the month(s) declared for the Season Pattern. Please note that there are a number of sub-menu items attached to the different nodes in the basedata tree. Also, items that have been (and remain) read-only in the context of public examinations, are editable for domestic examinations. A series that has been set up in July, to give year 10 students a simulation of the following summer, might look similar to the following graphic.

Using the Data With the exception of the Submissions menu, most of the Examinations Organiser functionality operates in the same way as for public examinations. A number of the reports are irrelevant for a domestic examination season, such as the Linear Progress Check and the Candidate Award Claim Validation.

02| Setting up Domestic Exams

Setting up Domestic Exams in Examinations Organiser 5

Candidate Numbers The use of Examinations Organiser for domestic or entrance exams means bringing into the scope of Exams Organiser, many students previously excluded. This is achieved using Tools | Allocate UCI & Exam Numbers and assigning numbers in the normal way.

Select one registration group at a time, define a starting point, and assign the numbers, save the allocation of numbers and then move on to the next registration group. This allows you to leave a little headroom for each group to allow for the addition of late arrivals. UCIs should not usually be assigned until Year 10. Please ensure that you do not manually select the Exam Number Used check box. This is not checked until the Candidate is submitted to an examination board in an entry file. Until that point, it is generally advisable to leave them unprotected so that they may be easily re-assigned each year. Their only purpose as far as domestic exams are concerned is to provide the primary index key for the Seating Organiser. Candidates without numbers are not presented for inclusion in Component Sittings.

02| Setting up Domestic Exams

6 Setting up Domestic Exams in Examinations Organiser

I| Index

Setting up Domestic Exams in Examinations Organiser 7

Index A assigning

candidate numbers ............................. 5

B basedata tree

new sub-menu items........................... 4

C candidate numbers

assigning ........................................... 5 creating a season pattern ....................... 4

D data

defining ............................................ 4 using ................................................ 4

defining the data ................................... 4

E establishing the framework ..................... 3

F framework

establishing ....................................... 3

I implementation plan .............................. 3 introduction .......................................... 1

M menu items

new in basedata tree .......................... 4

R reports

unused ............................................. 4

S sub-menu items

new in basedata tree .......................... 4

U unused reports ...................................... 4 using the data ....................................... 4