The release of the online booking system has simplified the actual process of securing the appointments here at College. This week we picked up a handle of new features too.
There is a new extract SIMS Extract Tool so that data can be easily exported from SIMS into the system without having to import and run report files in SIMS. Reducing the admin time but also increasing the importance on SIMS data integrity.
Parent (and carer) attendance can now be recorded.
Significantly for us, the appointment length can be adjusted for individual teachers, and I expect our CORE subjects will request shorter appointments to increase the number of available appointments whereas some of our vocation courses with a heavy class weighting may wish for longer, more in depth appointments.
Evenings for Specific Subjects – I am not sure we will use this but another useful tool, possibly mentor or tutor events.
Evenings for multiple year groups – we ask PEBS added the feature. Thank you. Meetings can now be restricted to multiple year groups at a time.
Template letter and guide to inform parents about the online booking system, plus a guide on how to use the system are available from the Getting Started page (at the right hand side of the administration home page).
Parents and carers can now direct the appointment learning conversation when making an appointment, optionally filling out a short message, allowing staff to prepare in advance of the meeting.
Reports over multiple evenings, allows schools and colleges view students without appointments over more than one evening, useful to see which students haven’t got any appointments over several evenings.
A new ‘Generate Teacher Logins‘ will be useful when getting start of refresh usernames and passwords,
And finally, ‘Multiple Appointments with the Same Teacher.’ Again, this is a rarity here at our school but if a teacher teaches a student for two subjects, the parent or carer can now book a double appointment.
Our parents and carers really find the new system very easy to use. It is currently set up to show parents and carers all the future events and in that sense communicates effectively the event schedule. Teachers, well, we have used this system only twice, and after each event our staff have seemed to appreciate / like it a little more.
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