You can read Suffolk County Council's statement on our website.
![Councillor Peter Gould](/image-library/peter-gould-ws-hr-1.xb6cb8b20.jpg?width=470&height=256&fit=crop&quality=75&format=webp)
You can read Suffolk County Council's statement on our website.
Find advice or technical support relating to SIMS in the list of FAQs below.
You can either press F1 on your keyboard to gain information from an area you have open in sims or select the Documentation link from the home page in sims.
The home page is the page that sims open’s to when you login, if you have closed that page down you can open it again by going to Focus | Home Page or press Ctrl-Q when sims is the active window. Selecting the Documentation link will take the user to the Sims 7 Documentation Centre home page. From Sims Documentation Centre then has links to handbooks, tutorials and quick reference sheets.
The DFE FSM Ever6 report definition files have been released to all schools via Anycomms. Once imported into SIMS.net this report provides a list based on the method used by the DfE to calculate eligibility for the Spring Census 2024.
To import the report, extract the .zip file from your Misc Anycomms folder: S | Other | In | Misc. Next go to Reports | Import and browse for the report definition file.
Please note that this report can only be used as an approximation of FSM Ever6 as used by the DFE for allocation Deprivation Pupil Premium. For example, the DFE knows the year taught in reported for pupils in the School Census when pupils attended a previous school but that is not available to the current school.
If you have any issues importing or running this report, please log a call with the IT Service Desk on 01473 265555.
All secondary schools can set their working academic year in SIMS.net. This will need to be set at the start of each academic year to avoid potential issues.
To set the academic year go to, Tools | Academic Management | Set Academic Year, choose 2023/2024 and click on ok.
Please record the following for any carers/family members that you need on the system:
If in doubt, please contact the SIMS team through the IT Service Desk on 01473 265555 or ITservicedesk@suffolk.gov.uk.
No, unfortunately the Local Authority will only have sight of clashes between yourselves and LA maintained schools, so if there is a clash between yourselves and another academy this would remain hidden from them.
As you will be aware unresolved clashes mean that the DfE will not fund the pupil/student at either establishment, so it is in your interest to resolve the issue with the other establishment, and check that it has been resolved in the COLLECT Website the following day.
The Duplicate reports for "same person different UPN" and "Same UPN different person" are available on the COLLECT website, and whilst we appreciate that the DfE issue a deadline for submitting your census, that deadline does include completion of resolving enrolment status clashes, and any other amendments the DfE request, this is why it is essential to have your Census submitted within a week of Census day to ensure no loss of funding is incurred.
We run these reports repeatedly throughout the census period, due to the late uploads or changes that can affect the reports in adverse ways. If census are uploaded late then this shortens the period in which resolutions need to take place. If there is no resolution by the time the census period shutters, then a school could miss out on funding.
No, the correct method of preparing for the next pupil intake is to create a pre-admission group within SIMS.net, where an admission file can be imported, and additional pupils/students added. These are left with an application status of accepted until the pupil/student attends, at which time it is altered to admitted.
The reason this method must be used is that frequently the pupil/student never arrives for various reasons, and where it is possible to delete them from your SIMS system, you will already have created a "ghost student record" within the central education system via B2B exchange, this is distorting the overall attendance figures.
This sometimes has gone unnoticed in sims until census point, when they appear in DfE reports as two schools indicating that they have attended.
Should you have any issues, please log a support call with the IT Service Desk on 01473 265555.
Where a pupil is registered with both a mainstream establishment and a Pupil Referral Unit, they must be dually registered. This is recorded in SIMS.net and will be returned in the DfE Statutory Returns.
The Local Authority have issued the following guidance to ensure the correct registration is recorded. Regardless of Key Stage, the Mainstream establishment should record the pupil as Dual Main Registration whereas the PRU should record the pupil as Dual Subsidiary Registration.
The only instance where this could be different is if a pupil has been permanently excluded from mainstream education, then attends the PRU. In this case the pupil is taken off roll at the Mainstream Establishment and the PRU registers the pupil as Single Registration.
Where a pupil is registered with both a mainstream establishment and an alternative provision, they will not be dual registered. This is recorded in SIMS.net and will be returned in the DfE Statutory Returns.
This is recorded in the student details registration panel, panel 2.
Alternate provision data to include for DFE validation checks. Include just the URN if this is known or include just the UKPRN if known and URN is unknown. Include just the Company Number and Postcode if neither URN nor UKPRN is unknown.
Companies house number can be obtained either from the alternative provision or from the .gov site:
The Unique Pupil Number (UPN) is a number that identifies each pupil in England uniquely. A UPN is allocated to each pupil according to a nationally specified formula on first entry to school (or perhaps in some cases earlier), and is intended to remain with the pupil throughout their school career regardless of any change in school or Local Authority (LA). Please find DfE UPN guidance here.
You assign a UPN to a new pupil if you are absolutely positive that the pupil has not attended another school even in a nursery class.
If you are in any doubt, please log a call with the IT Service Desk on 01473 265555 or ITServicedesk@suffolk.gov.uk asking the SIMS team to check to see if your new pupil already has a UPN.
From the Help menu at the top of your Sims .Net home page, choose 'About SIMS.net' this will open a window giving you the version and database build, to close the window click inside it.
Alternatively, click on Help as before but then ‘System Information’, this will be listed as Sims .Net version. This will also provide information for your ICT or third party software support as to the name of the server, SQL instance and database name etc.
Download 2023 to 2024 Date of birth year group table (Word, 76KB).
When you start to prepare your School Census you may find that you are unable Calculate All Details or save the return until you have updated the Funding and Monitoring screen.
This would be indicated in the bottom left corner of the census.
Go to Tools | Statutory Return Tools | Update Funding and Monitoring.
Once you have added the new cumulative hours in the column headed Cumulative Hrs at Sum Census and saved the changes you will be able to start work on the Summer School Census.
For further information about our products call the IT Service Desk on 01473 265555 or email itservicedesk@suffolk.gov.uk.
The end of year guidance can be obtained from access the ‘Documentation’ link on the Sims home page.
This should take you to the Sims7 Documentation, there are both word versions or PDF’s for the end of year procedure. This should be your primary guidance for the end of year procedure as it explains the order and the processes involved. This includes creating a new academic year, creating the new pastoral structure for the new academic year, promoting your students and making students leavers who leave for other schools.
We have created extra guidance as single documents for:
Class sizes are dictated my central government and require a maximum limit of 30 pupils per teacher, legislation link.
Exception can be made to this upper limit in certain cases that are beyond the control of the school, these codes are defined in the DfE guidance to be used in the Spring Census on the 18th January 2024.
The Spring Census require an activities code for the schools designated period, this can be found from the DfE guidance for the activity code.
The DfE dictate the period of the day of the Spring Census, 18 January 2024, that the school should report on. This period depends on the last digit of the school DfE number that the school has, the following link is to the DfE guidance on activity period.
Attendance codes are changing, and they come into effect on the 1 August 2024. This means for the academic year 2024/2025 the codes will have changed.
Some codes are being retired, some codes are coming in new and some have been changed. A list of the changes can be obtained from the document below:
For further information about our products call the IT Service Desk on 01473 265555 or email itservicedesk@suffolk.gov.uk.