hantsweb

This page provides essential information for teachers concerning the roll forward of Wizkid each year.

Wizkid takes data from SIMS to create classes and user accounts. It is essential that teachers and SIMS administrators understand the implications of making changes in either platform to avoid major roll forward issues.

On 31 August each year, SIMS rolls forward data for all schools to the new academic year. School administrators need to update all their data in SIMS to prepare for the new school year. Then Wizkid needs to update its data to reflect changes to the school, teacher, pupil and class structures.

However, pupils are not allocated into their new registration classes in SIMS until they first register, which can be two weeks or more into the new term. Until this occurs, any roll forward of Wizkid is rather a pointless exercise and leads to almost every school requiring further updates in the same term.

The 2012 roll forward will take place in the last week of September.

Important information on the roll forward plan can be found under the roll forward 2012 tab on this page. This does have implications for schools wanting to run INSET days focused on Wizkid before students return to school. Please ring the IT Help Desk for the latest advice.

Roll forward plan Autumn 2012

This autumn we will be rolling forward Wizkid schools to the new academic year.

• Every school will have to confirm via email that they are ready for roll forward having completed the SIMS end of year routine and Wizkid roll forward guidance.
• A school will not be rolled forward if during the roll forward process, ANY PUPIL is found to have a temporary UPN.
• Hampshire Wizkid will be unavailable from 00:01 on Monday 10 September 2012 until 08:00 on Monday 17 September 2012 to facilitate roll forward.
• Hampshire IT cannot specify when a school will be rolled forward unless they are ready to roll forward during the specified period having successfully completed the guidance procedure as specified.

We would like to stress how IMPORTANT it is that schools adhere to and follow the roll forward guidance and procedures as set out in the documents below. Schools must confirm they are ready to roll forward by emailing schools.projects@hants.gov.uk

The email must confirm the following:

1. The school has completed its SIMS routine and added all the new intake of pupils onto the school roll on SIMS
2. The school can confirm that no pupil has a temporary UPN in SIMS
3. The school can confirm that teachers have completed their Wizkid roll forward guidance routine as specified.

Roll forward schedule

To make sure that schools are prepared for Wizkid to roll forward, we will issue a series of communications and ask schools to complete a series of tasks. These are detailed below.

• April

  
  

  SIMS end of year guidance issued

  Wizkid roll forward guidance published

  
  

• 23 July

  
  

  Schools must have completed the actions in the SIMS end of year guidance notes

  
  

• 31 August - 2 September

  
  

  SIMS rolls forward to the new academic year 2012-13

  
  

• 3 September

  
  

  Schools start to intake new pupils onto roll in SIMS

  
  

• 7 September

  
  

  FINAL DEADLINE for schools to confirm by email that teachers and admin staff have completed their Wizkid roll forward guidance routine

  
  

• 10 September

  
  

  Wizkid closed down to roll forward schools at 00:01

  
  

• 17 September

  
  

  Wizkid go live at 08:00 following roll forward

  
  

Roll forward 2012 guidance notes

We've produced separate guidance for primary schools and secondary schools.

It's essential that the Wizkid roll forward procedures for teachers are completed by 23 July 2012.

• Wizkid Essential End of Year 2012/2013 guidance notes for teachers - primary version  2mb
• Wizkid Essential End of Year 2012/2013 guidance notes for teachers - secondary version  2mb

Studywiz website.

Feature requests

As we are dependent upon a third party to develop the software, we make every effort to collect suggestions for changes from schools feedback these suggestions to the Studywiz developers.

There is also a folder of activities called 'Have your say …' specifically for collecting your ideas in the Wizkid Information global group and we sometimes arrange polls using the Wizkid 'Vote' activity before we make changes to settings within Wizkid that affect more than just one school.

If you have any suggestions for improvements either feed them back via the 'Have Your Say ...' folder detailed above or contact the IT Help Desk.