SEEMiS

Development Plan 2012 -2013

COSLA Excellence Awards

Strategic Liason Group

PlanningFor Pupils

How IUseSEEMiSIn MyJob

Issue 1 May 2013

A note from the editor...

WELCOME to the first edition of which will be published monthly to keep you up to date with all the

latest developments from within the SEEMiS Headquarters and the wider SEEMiS Community.

SEEMiS Group LLP delivers complete Education Management Information Software to local education authori-ties across Scotland, and has done so for over twenty years. Our Hamilton based company provides softwarewhich offers a complete solution to meet all the daily requirements of Local Education Authorities.

Geared to meet the needs of Scottish Councils, our computer programmes have assisted in making the livesof those involved with education easier on a daily basis, for the past twenty years.

In this issue, read up on Click+Go, the generic name given to our popular school management System.Findout about the Strategic Liason Group from chairman Bob Tennant, discover how our Helpdesk works andcheck out the development plan for 2012 - 2013.

We were pleasently surprised here at SEEMiS by the feedback from our customer satisfaction survey, and wewill continue to strive to improve our customer service.

Meet people within the SEEMiS community in “How I Use SEEMiS in My Job” and discover how our packagesbenefit others.

Lesley Mortimer and James Batterby met with us to discuss the new Planning for Pupils package, and we hearfrom Ian Cassells following the sucess of North Lanarkshire and Angus Councils at the 2013 COSLA ExcellenceAwards.

We hope you enjoy our first edition. Contents

Click+Go .......... 2Strategic Liason Group..... 3

Development Plan................ 4Satisfaction Survey......5

“How I Use SEEMiS in my job”.....6Planning for pupils..........8

Website...............................10COSLA Awards.........................12

1

“Providing Education

Management Information Software toschools and councilsthroughout Scotland for

20 years.”

DESIGNED to be used by teaching, admin and senior management staff, the “Click + Go” package is acombination of different modules that speed up and simplify school administration tasks on a daily basis.

Applications included with this package allow staff to track cases of undesirable pupil behaviour. In suchcases, teachers are able to refer issues to senior staff, and all incidences are logged in the pupils PastoralNotes.

Pastoral Notes assemble confidential information onpupils, this information remains stored on the pupilsrecord throughout their school years and is easily trans-ferred should they move school.

Local Authorities and school staff members are ableto contact parents and pupils by SMS text message. Thisis a highly effective way to send important informationas quickly as possible. Parents are immediately notifiedif a child is absent from school, advised of any importantdates such as parent evenings or alerted to emergencysituations, such as school closure.

All SQA exam arrangements can be made using theSQA Master Timetable which links in directly withSQA.net.

Click+Go also provides a platform for local authoritiesto advertise and manage available rooms to let in schoolbuildings and other council premises to outside organi-sations.

A new intake register also exists in order to ensure all incoming primary one pupils are registered, and tocertify that the schools pupil intake capacity is not breached.

Th skilled trainers at SEEMiS Group LLP provide a range of training courses in the Click+Go package. Training sessions can be undertaken at the SEEMiS headquarters in Hope Street, Hamilton. Alternatively sessions can be arranged to take part at the school of your choice, where all appropriate

training and information will be given.Courses are designed specifically to aid teaching staff and certificates will be provided on completion of

the course.

CLICK+GO

2SEEMiS computer programmes are used in schools throughout Scotland.

BOB Tennant explains the roleand aims of the Strategic Liason Group, and explainsthe recent changes to theSEEMiSDeveopment Plan.

THE SLG meets four times a year and is made up ofmembers from north, south and central authorities.The present group membership is from South Lanark-shire, Glasgow, Perth and Kinross and West Lothian,and Alan Black and Christine Smith from SEEMiS com-plete the group.

The SLG is self-appointed to ensure quality assuranceand its members are all from senior positions in educa-tion.

The group work, together withSEEMiS, on big issues and are well-equipped because of their cumulativeexperience and links with organisationssuch as ADES, SQA and the ScottishGovernment to give advice to the Boardon strategic direction.

They filter the large number of re-quests for development from represen-tatives of LAUG and SUG, as well asindividual councils, and advise theBoard which ones should be taken for-ward.

Relevant papers produced by the Strategic LiaisonGroup are then passed to the Board for approval.

Bob Tennant, is Quality Improvement Manager at Ren-frewshire Council and also chairs the Strategic LiaisonGroup.

He has had long involvement with SEEMiS and is expe-rienced and knowledgeable in its benefits.

Members truly represent the needs of authorities, andwe meet with this in mind. We are there to represent allauthorities, not just our own.”

As part of his role as chair of the group, Bob reports tothe Annual General Meeting on the activities of the group

and assists in putting together and ed-iting papers for the attention of theBoard.

Bob explained that the method ofproducing the SEEMiS DevelopmentPlan has changed in the past year.“The Strategic Liaison Group considerall ideas put forward by the SchoolUser Group , the Local Authority UserGroup , SEEMiS and other educationsources.

We held a seminar in October to dis-cuss these ideas and to allow people

to put forward their vision for future development of thesystem.

We feel that this is a useful way to exchange and un-derstand people’s ideas and give the opportunity for peo-ple to discuss those project outlines in greater detail.

The SLG considered all potential projects as well aslooking at the overall plans with a view to interlinkingprojects in a way that will use resources most efficiently.”

Bob says “We get far more ideas than we can source.” Projects are approved under the headings of: Statu-

tory, Curriculum for Excellence, National Examinations,GIRFEC/ASL, Staffing and System Related Developmentsand ideas for development in these areas are more likelyto be approved.

“If you have an ideafor development thensimply pass it to theLocal Authority UserGroup whose repre-

sentative will presentat the seminar.”

Renfrewshire House in Paisley, whereRenfrewshire Council headquarters arehoused.

3

“We try to estimate the resourcesto develop these ideas.

We then match work with re-sources and these projects are priori-tised to go forward as a draft plan tothe Board.

Some projects will be put on thesidelines and may be put through thefollowing year, but this is not guaran-teed.”

It is hoped that these seminars willallow, in future, the SLG to arrangediscussions with a wider group, forexample, including members of Scot-tish Government.

“All the SLG members found the

seminar interesting and informative.

However we have learned some les-

sons from the last one. An example would the issue of the

amount of travelling involved. In thefuture we hope to hold a smaller ver-

sion of the seminar and compress it

into just one day. This is likely to be held at the

Teacher Building in Glasgow. It is thought that representation at

the seminar will include members ofthe SLG, LAUG, SUG and SEEMiS topresent the views of the variousgroups and to bring forward ideas.

“If you have an idea for develop-ment then simply pass it to the LocalAuthority User Group whose repre-sentative will present at the seminar.”

Bob added, “There is a perception

that information is not alwaysshared, and as people do expect tobe consulted, this is an issue thatneeds to be addressed.

A communications group has beenset up in order to combat this.

In the long term and at future sem-inars, we hope to have a showcaseof old and new SEEMiS products withworkshops, focusing on where Scot-tish education is going, and howSEEMiS will support it in the future.We are also looking at the possibilityof new technologies, such as usingGlow meet, which would allow peo-ple to join in and get their pointacross.”

Minutes from the SLG Meetings canbe accessed via the SEEMiS websiteat www.seemis.gov.uk

“The SLG is aboutgovernance, and is a

tremendous source ofdata aimed at satisfy-ing the needs of theScottish education

system.

We make decisionsthat other

people can trust.”

HELP DESK SERVICEBASED in the Hamilton headquarters, the Client Support Team offers a Helpdesk System in order to advise and as-sist our system users with any difficulties or queries.Users of SEEMiS can easily currently generate a call by telephone or email.

Details of the query are then added to the Helpdesk and a log number isgenerated, this number is automatically emailed to the client for future ref-erence.

Senior Training Officers assess Helpdesk calls in the order that they arereceived.

On occasion, a member of the Client Support Team will contact the userfor some further necessary information.

Calls are assessed within 15 minutes of receipt and are then passed to arelevant team to be resolved.

Commonly, the query will be answered at this stage.If the query still stands, the Training Officer will then undertake further

investigation, or pass to a relevant development or infrastructure team fortheir response.

If the user wishes to verify information, they can simply request that thecall remain open until they have confirmed that the issue has been recti-fied.

On resolution, callers are asked to confirm that they are satisfied, andthat their problem has been fully resolved, before the call is finally closed.

On average 90% of calls are resolved within one day.To log a call with our Helpdesk by phone the SEEMiS office on 0169 845

6380 or email letters@seemis.gov.uk .

Help Us To Help You

Passing on any relevant information regarding your

query to one of your colleagues can prove veryhelpful should you becomeunavailable after logging a

call.

This allows our Client SupportTeam to continue to thor-

oughly investigate the issue inyour absence.

Please keep a note of the original call number.

If any further queries shouldarise, your call can simply be

reopened, without the need toraise another call number.

4

SEEMiS Development Plan 2012 - 2013THE CORE projects for the coming year have now been agreed and details onthe progress of these projects can be found on our website. This article aims to give you a brief outline of what these projects aim to achieve.

CFE TRACKING

The CfE Tracking project brings enhancements to those parts of Tracking &Monitoring aimed at supporting a ‘broad general education’. This develop-ment brings the ability to customise the curricular area and organisernames to suit local models for delivering CfE. On the tracking front, it of-fers the new option to track CfE Level only, or expand this to ‘Developing,Consolidating and Secured’. It is now possible to also report on Trackinginformation in Secondary schools, prior to transition from Primary. CfETracking provides separate course descriptions for reporting and customis-able data areas based on the existing ‘Authority Questions’ concept, but iscontrollable down to individual class level. Another exciting facility aims toallow searching and selective printing across multiple reports, this allowsyou to simply pull out just the Science pages from a whole set of previ-ously stored report cards.

SENIOR TRACKING

The Senior Tracking aspect of Tracking & Monitoring supports working withstudents who are studying for exams. It is an established product and isaimed at making it easier to manage and report from the system. Facilitiesfor drilling, filtering and highlighting the data have now been extendedacross many of the reports. A long-sought ability to have a ‘Next TargetGrade’ in the subsequent academic session is provided, as is the ability foran administrator to carry forward tracking data from the previous trackingperiod in bulk, rather than just one class at a time. A new concept provid-ing default configurations for the teacher’s view, should result in teachersspending less time configuring their view, and more time working with thetracking data. Parents will also benefit from the new changes, as there is anew facility to log in and retrieve reports directly via Glow.

CfE TOOLKIT

The new CFE toolkit development will allow teachers to plan their lessonsaround the new CFE structure. Teachers will be able to divide Experiencesand Outcomes into smaller blocks of Intended Learning, plan the resourcesrequired for that learning and decide the success criteria for individualpupils. Teachers will be able to plan that learning through the school year, trackhow pupils have covered that learning and assess how well they haveachieved the success criteria set. The development will fully replace astandalone system called On Track With Learning and be fully integratedinto the SEEMiS product family, with all the advantages that will bring.A working group consisting of Angus, City of Edinburgh, Glasgow, NorthLanarkshire and West Lothian have met over four fairly intensive days inorder to formally gather the requirements. SEEMiS are now in the processof producing a set of deliverables, which once agreement has been re-ceived from the group will start to be worked on.

Online Satisfaction

OUR recent customer satisfactionsurvey found that respondents opinions regarding thewebsite are generally very high,peaking at 72% of those respond-ing.

The log in process was rated goodor very good.

70% of customers considered the information on thewebsite to be good or very good. The most visited areas of the web-site are the help pages, trainingcourse and rollout information.

SATISFACTION SURVEY

RESULTS of the first Lowland Market Researchsurvey have proved pleasantly surprising to

staff at SEEMiS.

We appointed the research company to carry out a six month sur-vey of callers to our Helpdesk, in order to measure our user satis-faction levels, and to identify any areas that could be improved.

The main objective of the Customer Satisfaction Survey was to de-termine a better understanding of user experience when interact-ing with SEEMiS LLP and to inform possible future improvement of

the service.

Results showed...

91% of respondents stating that the helpfulness

of staff is either good or very good.

97% of customers agreed that they had received

a friendly, courteous and helpful service when contacting SEEMiS

Helpfulness of the staff was scored as good and very good, by

90% of users.

81% of help desk callers felt the speed of response

to calls was good or very good.

The accuracy of information received was rated as good or very

good by 82% of customers.

79% of customers agreed that their enquiry was

resolved to a high standard.

These results are pleasing, however we do recognise that there isalways room for improvement, and we will continually strive to bet-

ter our service for our customers.

5

How I Use SEEMiS in My Job

MORAG Skilling, the Team Leader for Support Services at Burnside Primary, Rutherglen in Glasgow,has been using the Click+Go system for around twelve years.“We use SEEMiS every day and we use almost everything available to us. When I first came to Burnside, they used the old blue screen, known as DMR.

Click+Go really has come a verylong way since then. I would advise that when learningto use SEEMiS products, just don’tbe frightened of it. As long as youhave some notes, then I’d saySEEMiS is relatively easy to follow. I had a 2 day training course onClick+Go and I now don’t feel Iwould need to leave my desk for aday.Just don’t be scared to touch thebuttons, you really can’t do toomuch wrong! Dabble with it andtry to find the time to educateyourself.

“I use Click+Go for every-thing.

It has much more information available, it isso much better, it is moreaccessible and up to date.I would say it was a very

good move”.

I deal with staff records and ab-sences, Turnaround, Enrolmentand ScotExed, and I use pupil At-tendance daily. We use Data Facillities and FirstAid, but not on a daily basis. I amconstantly accessing pupil recordsalmost all day, whether it’s just for

parent’s phone numbers, or updating the existing pupil records. I use the Finance package in Click+Go for ordering and for supply staff payment, and payroll, andteachers can also check your payslip on there.It’s a great way of accessing any information quickly.”

SEEMIS is used by a variety of people in a variety of different ways. This month we hear from Morag Skilling, Team Leader at Burnside Primary, and AlanScott, Depute Head Teacher at Greenwood Academy. Here’s what they had to say...

Morag Skilling, Team Leader Burnside Primary, Glasgow.

6

Greenwood Academy in Irvine is a large school with a roll of 1600 pupils, so an

integrated management information system is essential.

Alan Scott, depute Head Teacher at the school has been using the Click + Go package for al-

most nine years and mainly uses Registration, Pastoral Notes, Reports,Behaviour, SQA, and-

Timetabling. Using the timetabling service alongside registration makes SQA so much easier to

manage. All pupils can now be entered into their SQA courses at the click of a button.

“I could not livewithout

Click+Go”.

One of the main benefits of using

Click + Go at this school is that staff log

straight into their class registration and

if a pupil is absent an automatic email

is sent directly to the Pupil Welfare Offi-

cer and will be dealt with within in

seconds.

The Pupil Welfare Officer uses the SMS service as a tool to alert guardians and trace the absent

children immediately,using this system helps to increase pupil safety greatly.

The SMS service will soon be open to other year heads at the school and it will then be possible

for them to use it as an aid to send reminders for concerts, parent’s evenings and other important

events.

Alan said, “The text message service is great, it is an economical and fast method of sending im-

portant information but it is only as good as the kids allow, as some of them have been known to

put down their own mobile number rather than that of the parents!”

“I could not live without Click+Go. As a year head, once a fortnight I check for any anomalies in

pupil attendance or behaviour. The Pastoral Notes have also proved helpful in preserving pupil

and staff relationships. There are eight guidance teachers within fourth year alone, Pastoral Notes

allow teachers to quickly communicate through the use of Click + Go. In such a large school if one

guidance teacher adds something in pastoral notes it is immediately visible to all other people who

have access to view it, therefore communication is greatly improved. Staff also use the system to

track pupil behaviour, and can add merits and demerits to a pupil record.

This proves as useful evidence to show parents and highlights any patterns of particularly good

or challenging behaviour.”

Alan, a member of the Local Authority User Group and the School Users Group found the train-

ing for the Click + Go programme easy to understand, “I don’t consider myself IT literate, and I

wouldn’t say that anyone needs IT skills to use this system. I can use it now, because I know what

to do”.

“I have to commend highly the Helpdesk and staff at SEEMiS. When I have ever had an issue

the staff has been great. The help and support we received from SEEMiS, I could not fault.”

How I Use SEEMiS in My Job

Alan Scott, Depute head teacher,

Greenwood Academy.

THE NEW Planning forPupils application hasbeen developed to replace thecurrent Pupil Plans functionality.

The system will be avail-able, from September, topilot in those authoritieswho formed part of thegroup working withSEEMiS to produce a de-

tailed specification.

The application has beendeveloped with sufficientflexibility to enable councilsto produce plans individualto their own authority butwith the added advantageof being easily transferredand shared with others.The timeline for respondingto requests and drawing upa Co-ordinated SupportPlan where one is requiredis included in the software.

Lesley Mortimer, LookedAfter Children Co-ordinatorfor Glasgow, explains therationale for making thechange, “We, in Glasgow,had been creating pupilsplans using the originalSEEMiS system and wereaware that, with nationaldevelopments influencingour thinking, it was be-coming a bit dated.Sandy Cunningham or-ganised a meeting inStirling and invited allother councils along. Itbecame apparent, at thatmeeting, that councilsneeded a way to shareinformation with eachother.

James Battersby, SEEMiSDevelopment Manager,added, “We needed tomove on from what wehad, as we wanted some-

thing more up to date. Westill have eight differentplans or more, and there

never will be one unifiedplan.. Previous systems didwork well, but in order to

transfer information be-tween the different author-ities, we needed an agreed

set of fields. We startedwith around 600 fields andwe have gradually worked

this down to around 300,and this took a long time.

It has been a chal-lenge, to work withall these authoritiesand for everyone toagree, but the flexi-bility of this packagewill reflect the differ-ent authorities.”

James outlined someof the advantagesPlanning for Pupilshas, “There is astronger work flowcompared to the

previous application, asthere is a specific order in-

which people are expected

Planning For Pupils

“The well-being wheel (SHANARI) will

also be available at the click of abutton. It really enables teachers to

know their classes and tries to captureeverything the plan writer needs to be informed of in these areas, making it

much more user friendly.”

Planning For Pupilsto create long and shortterm goals.

The long term targets areset when the plan becomesactive and there are alsoshort term targets associ-ated with each. It inte-grates with different partsof the system and informa-tion on attendance, behav-iour, pastoral notes and therisk matrix is available tothe person writing theplan.. It is interesting andexciting that to the user itlooks like they are workingon the actual form , what you seeis what you get. Questional prompts will beshown alongside com-ments, so it will be clearwhat the comments are inrelation to. It will begreat.”

Lesley agrees, “The currentPupil Planning means thatyou need to continually goin and out of the pupil pro-file to gather information,we wanted to make this

easier for the user. Plan-ning for Pupils will also betied in with the new atten-dance module, the pupilseating arrangements willallow the teacher to checkat a glance for any safetyissues, or help them toidentify the level of need ina class. It is also time saving for

our teachers. When youopen up a plan, it popu-lates all the informationfrom the pupil’s existingprofile. The majority of in-formation is already therebecause it self-populates.Having this informationpulled through automati-cally is a huge plus. Whenpeople who will be writingthe plan see how easy it isto access the information, Ithink they will be con-vinced. It is so easy com-pared to before, you don’tneed to keep shutting theplan down to get to theprofile.”Planning for Pupils has alsobeen designed to enablethe education of foster chil-dren to be tracked. Lesley

explained, “There arearound 800 children lookedafter by Glasgow CityCouncil who are in fosterplacements throughoutScotland. This poses theproblem of how exactly doyou track the progress andattendance of these chil-dren. If the children are inplacements with access toplanning for pupils thenthis would allow us toshare their information andmonitor how they are get-ting on.” James said, “Pupils willhave one main plan at atime, and it is estimatedthat around 20% of chil-dren who have barriers tolearning will be on a plan.It is an excellent package.It has been an excellentteam and everyone hasworked very hard, I am ex-cited that Planning forPupils has the potential tobe very good.”Lesley explained how Plan-ning for Pupils will berolled out in Glasgow, “Ini-tially, three learning com-munities will pilot and then

we plan to introduce it toall the others. This in-cludes primary and earlyyears as well as ASNschools. One of the chal-lenges we face is thatschools coming back in Au-gust will be starting theirplanning, but the pilotwon’t start until Septem-ber. There is no fixed timefor the pilot, it will run aslong as necessary.”Lesley concludes, “It hasbeen really good to worktogether with other localauthorities. I have to say,James, John, Michael andWalter have all been veryaccommodating. A hugepart of the developmenthas been between the soft-ware developers and thepeople in education ex-plaining what we actuallymean, with our technicalterms and jargon! I appre-ciate this more now than Idid at the start.The pur-pose of Planning for Pupilsis about supporting chil-dren to do as well as theycan.”

Planning for Pupils will support children in schools across Scotland. 9

The new SEEMiS website offers clients unrestricted ac-cess to a number of interesting and helpful areas.

The recent survey found that the two areas of thewebsite people were least likely to visit were the Blogand the Forum area.

Rather than using the forum as an alternative to thehelpdesk, why not join a discussion group?

Here you can have a chat, make a suggestion for anew topic for discussion, find the latest news and infor-mation, or you are welcome to just have a browsearound.

To promote the forum area theclient support team have pro-duced a timetable of ‘live forums’where a Senior Training Officerwill be available for a day, to dis-cuss pre-publicised topics.

We also welcome any of yourideas into our “Suggestion Box” toallow us to improve this area andmake it work for you, to suit yourneeds.

To see how well we are doing tofulfil our client’s needs, view theresult of our recent Customer Satisfaction Survey on thehomepage.

The web site also provides a short description of theproducts we offer, as well as areas of interest inClick+Go.

Everything you need to know about our integratedschool management systems is in one place.

You can find out more about Click + Go, SEEMiSTransport, Clothing Grants & Free School Meals, EMA,ASN, Risk Matrix, Supply Staff Booking, NAMS and NAMS2.The training tab contains all information you wouldwant to know about the training unit, including costsand booking conditions and all forthcoming courses. Anintroduction to our training programme and a full list ofthe training courses is available at our Hamilton HQ andcan be viewed online. The 2012/2013 catalogue is nowavailable.

Help is at hand, with just the click of a button you canaccess help pages for Click + Go, ScotXed, and variousother system pages, with help and advice regarding allof our packages.

You will find a range of subheadings with available pdfdownloads which can be viewed or printed.

The survey showed that these pages are the most vis-ited area of the website with 64% of people rating themgood or very good.

The Rollout shows all current updates and enhance-ments and can be accessed on the frontpage, without logging in.

Keep an eye on this section for the fu-ture dates of when rollouts will be withyou. We will always give notice of atleast three days. If you’re unsure thatsomething has been included in a previ-ous rollout, historical information isavailable, you can view the list of allprevious rollout by following the link.

The homepage offers a list of quickand useful links to SQA, Glow Network,Nams Access, and Strengths and Diffi-culties.

Catch up on the most recently agreed core projects forthe Development Plan for 2012/2013, and follow thelifecycle of each project here.

Notes of all meetings are added just after meetingstake place and project deliverables are published assoon as they are agreed with the working group.

To visit our improved website, go towww.seemis.gov.uk and simply log in using your Click +Go user name and password.

For further information on any of these products,please contact SEEMiS by following the online links ortelephone 01698 456380.

You can now catchup on the latest

SEEMiS gossip by following and rating James Battersby’s

Blog.

NEW SEEMIS

WEBSITE

10

North Lanarkshire andAngus Councils were re-warded for their efforts bywinning the COSLA SolaceBest Team Award for theirwork “On Track WithLearning” on the 7thMarch 2013. The COSLA Excellence awardscelebrate innovative projectsthat improve the lives of thepeople within communities across the country.

MEMBERS from North Lanarkshire and Angus Coun-

cils worked together to develop On Track With Learning

(OTWL), an advanced electronic planning programme

that allows teachers to successfully plan, assess and

report on pupil learning and track their progress across

the curriculum. It supports teachers and allows them to

plan effective learning and teaching, by breaking down

the Curriculum For Excellence Outcomes and Experi-

ences into key learning intentions. Based on the learn-

ing intentions selected by the teacher, OTWL will then

generate recommended activities, useful resources and

success criteria.

Ian Cassells, quality improvement officer for North La-

narkshire Council, highlights the importance of involving

teachers in order to produce a product that teachers

need and want. He said, “We had a sales drive to high-

light the importance of the package to schools. Through

LAUG we have spoken to different groups all over Scot-

land sharing our ideas. We have a user group to feed

any information back to us, and this influences any

changes that need to be made.

The biggest change for teachers is making that com-

mitment to giving up paper and doing it electronically.

We enable teachers to see the benefits through our

training.

BENEFITS TO PUPILS

OTWL can benefit pupils by allowing them to fully en-

gage in the learning and teaching process, alongside

their teachers, as OTWL incorporates the principles of

AifL, allowing them to be actively involved in their own

personal learning and planning. Electronic pupil profiles

record each pupil learning goals and records each

achievement as evidence that the goal has been met.

Recording both previous and current learning of each

pupil promotes continuity and progression. The OTWL

programme has the future potential to engage parents

and guardians with pupil learning by providing regular

updates and evidence on the pupil learning progress,

and by suggesting relevant home activities linked to

class work.

If the teachers have more information, the young peo-

ple get a better service.

Ian adds, “Pupils benefit as their learning goes with

them, you

know what

they have

done and

achieved.

Schools

can plan,

gather and

keep infor-

mation

over the

years. This

presents a

true learn-

ing picture of the child. It notes how they learn, and

highlights any issues arising. This provides an in-depth

picture and provides really rich information for each indi-

vidual child.

People have been committed to this on a personal

level, making it work, believing that it will make a differ-

ence to teachers and young people. We have been very

well supported by our head of services director, they

have seen the benefits to teachers and young people,

and have supported us along the line. It has been a

concerted effort by authorities to create an improvement

plan for schools, resulting in richer information.

“Winning over the heartsand minds of teachers is the

challenge. We are asking them to

change their approach toplanning, we need to let

them see the benefits of doing so”.

- Ian Cassells

Members from

Angus and

North Lanark-

shire councils

photographed

here with their

COSLA Award

presented by

Jacky Bird.

The Cosla Excellence Awards

are held annually to celebrate

council projects that improve

the lives of

people within local

communities

Ian Cassells, Quality

Improvement Officer, for

North Lanarkshire Council