BETT 2010 Press Pack (13 Jan 2010):
13 January 2010
NEW SOFTWARE SUITE FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL REPORTING
UK Product Launch at BETT2010
Estimated Savings: 40-50% of Teacher-Hours Spent Compiling Reports
SRS : Primary, the new Primary School Reporting Suite from the London-based Compubits Group, enables teachers and administrators to efficiently and effectively manage the school reporting system and allows parents and pupils to input their comments on the reporting process over the internet. It was launched at BETT, the world’s largest technology in education show, this week.
Compubits estimates SRS : Primary will result in teachers saving approximately 40-50% of the time they spend compiling reports each academic year.
Teachers currently spend approximately 120 hours per 30 pupil class (four hours per pupil) compiling annual reports. But from 2010/2011 the Government will require schools to enable parents and pupils to contribute to the reporting process, making the requirement for an easy-to-access, easy-to-use reporting suite critical in terms of both practicality and a manageable teacher work-load.
Even with the new reporting requirements, SRS : Primary should save teachers the equivalent of 6 – 7½ days per 30 pupil class when compiling annual reports, Compubits estimates. Additionally, the software should save teachers 2 days per 30 pupil class when compiling continual assessments on pupils. Continual assessments are completed every six weeks, making the total teacher time saved by SRS : Primary approximately 12 – 13½ days a year.
The new web-based software suite also solves the current all too common problem of lost or corrupted data as draft reports are transferred between teachers, year heads, school heads and administrators.
SRS : Primary also generate clear performance graphs, giving an instant view of pupil, class and school performance against both national targets and past performance in the core curriculum subjects (literacy, numeracy and science).
The software was developed over 12 months after Compubits director, Manjeet Panesar, realised the amount of time his wife, a primary school teacher, spent compiling school reports.
“Along with her colleagues, she was creating her own spreadsheets and passing them to other teachers in the school on a memory stick for their input. This resulted in personalised forms which were not always standardised across a school and, all too frequently, information and days of work getting lost if the memory stick was damaged or mislaid,” explained Panesar.
“Compubits has over 10 years experience developing software to manage information, so helping teachers manage the school reporting process in an efficient and cost-effective way was a natural move for us,” he concluded.
SRS : Primary costs £600 a year, with a 30% discount for schools with less than 200 pupils. In addition, there is a one-off set-up fee of £150.
The product will be followed by SRS : Secondary, a dedicated reporting suite for secondary schools, at the beginning of the second of this year (2010).
Compubits has been working in the education sector for over 15 years, supplying schools and universities in the UK and India with interactive teaching solutions, equipment and networking services. Additionally, since 1992, it has specialised in developing bespoke software to manage information flow in major corporations.
Headquartered in west London, it has a satellite office in Inverness and 30 employees, approximately two thirds of which are software engineers based at its development centre in Gujarat, India. Compubits has an annual turnover over £3M and experience of working with schools in the state and private sectors throughout the UK.
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13 January 2010
SRS : PRIMARY SCHOOL PERFORMANCE NOW TRANSPARENT
Teacher Claims New Software Enables Excellence to Shine Through
Launched at BETT2010
“SRS : Primary, the new Primary School Reporting Suite from the London-based Compubits Group, will make school and pupil performance transparent,” claims Surrey primary school teacher, Mrs Vicki Eddens.
“Currently, although schools are assessed against a common set of criteria, there is a glaring weakness in the system because it is imposed from above with teachers – the people on the front line – struggling to supply the required information in any way they can.
“SRS : Primary is a bottom-up system which gives control to the teachers. The result is an open system which is easier to use and requires less time and effort to complete.
“It is making life easier for teachers by saving approximately 40-50% of their admin work per class per term. But perhaps more importantly, because SRS : Primary produces a series of read-at-a-glance performance graphs, once historical data is entered it is much easier to compare pupil, class, year and school performance against national targets, previous years, and expected performance.
“As a result, using SRS : Primary means that everyone involved in teaching can see exactly what works and what doesn’t. Teacher excellence will shine through,” concluded Mrs Eddens.
Compubits spent 12 months developing its new School Reporting Suite last year (2009). The software consists of two primary modules – ARS, the Annual Reporting System, for regular interim or annual reports and ATS, the Assessment Tracking System, for continual assessment. Every element of the software is web-based, making it accessible from anywhere with an internet connection, and fully integrated, so that information only need be inputted once.
Compubits was established in 1992 and is a hardware and software support, licensing, consultancy and retail specialist. Headquartered in west London, it has a satellite office in Inverness and 30 employees, approximately two thirds of which are software engineers based at its development centre in Gujarat, India. Compubits has an annual turnover over £3M and experience of working with schools in the state and private sectors throughout the UK.
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13 January 2010
BACKGROUND: SRS : PRIMARY
Practical Benefits & Usage
SRS : Primary, the new Primary School Reporting Suite from the London-based Compubits Group, is designed specifically to make life easier for everyone involved in the school reporting process.
Teachers are able to set current and predicted grading levels for every pupil on a term-by-term basis for subjects in the core curriculum (literacy, numeracy and science). Individual pupil-specific comments, such as, for example, why a pupil exceeded his projected improvement in a specific subject, are added in a drop down text box.
Historical data held by the school in spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel or Access can be quickly and easily uploaded into the new system so that no past reporting information is lost.
As SRS : Primary is web-based, year heads, head teachers and, if appropriate, school governors, can review performance and/or add their comments on individual pupils, forms and years from any location at any time.
When compiling annual reports, once the school side of the process is complete, parents and pupils need only a password (typically a pupils’ school registration number) to add their comments to the report. Should the school head wish it, parents and pupils can also view teacher’s reports on their children. SRS : Primary then automatically collates all the relevant information into a single report for each pupil.
Because of the standardised nature of the information on SRS : Primary, teachers, year and school heads can quickly and simply plot performance graphs for each pupil, class, year and school. These graphs provide an instant and easily understood view of performance against key targets.
Security on SRS : Primary is provided by individual passwords, ensuring access is always controlled by the systems’ school administrator.
Compubits was established in 1992 and is a hardware and software support, licensing, consultancy and retail specialist. Headquartered in west London, it has a satellite office in Inverness and 30 employees, approximately two thirds of which are software engineers based at its development centre in Gujarat, India. Compubits has an annual turnover over £3M and experience of working with schools in the state and private sectors throughout the UK.
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January 2010
BACKGROUND: SRS : PRIMARY
Details & Specification
SRS : Primary, the new Primary School Reporting Suite from the London-based Compubits Group, is a web-based, intuitive software suite designed specifically to make it easier for teachers, year and school heads to comply with the Government’s requirements for continual assessment and annual reporting on pupils from 2010/2011 onwards.
SRS : Primary is hosted on Compubits on the schools’ behalf (at schoolreports.eu) and users wishing to access the system require only an internet connection, basic familiarity with computers and the relevant passwords.
The suite is initially set up and customised to schools individual requirements by the school ICT coordinator. Once running, administrators enter assessment criteria and pupil details for the school year. Initial set-up and customisation should take no more than half a day and need only be performed once, and annual pupil registration is simply a matter of bulk-importing the school role spreadsheet, which takes seconds. Individual pupil details only need be entered once and can be transferred up in a block at the end of the academic year. No specific computer expertise is required for these activities.
Teachers accessing the system for either continual assessment, interim, or annual reports enter attained and predicted performance in tick boxes and have the opportunity of adding comments in text boxes. Where remote access is available parents and pupils access the system using an internet browser and are presented with text boxes for their comments.
Collating annual pupil reports is done automatically and, once finalised; reports are locked and can be quickly and simply distributed by email or post. There is an audit trail throughout the reporting process which clearly records all the changes and entries made on the system, guaranteeing security.
Head teachers wishing to generate performance graphs for pupils, classes, years or the whole school against national targets or past performance can do so at the touch of a button without the need to re-enter data or have any advanced knowledge of spreadsheets, pivot tables or data manipulation.
Compubits was established in 1992 and is a hardware and software support, licensing, consultancy and retail specialist. Headquartered in west London, it has a satellite office in Inverness and 30 employees, approximately two thirds of which are software engineers based at its development centre in Gujarat, India. Compubits has an annual turnover over £3M and experience of working with schools in the state and private sectors throughout the UK.
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January 2010
BACKGROUND: COMPUBITS GROUP
The Compubits Group was established in 1992 and is a hardware and software support, licensing, consultancy and retail specialist.
Headquartered in Southall, west London, it has a satellite office in Inverness and 30 employees, approximately two thirds of which are software engineers based at its development centre in Gujarat, India.
The Group currently consists of Compubits Solutions Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary based in India, Spheroid UK Limited, which trades as Compubits in the UK, supplying computer and related hardware and marketing software developed inside the Group and Compubits Support Limited, which supports software installations in some of the UK’s largest companies.
Compubits Group is a Microsoft Certified Partner, has an annual turnover over £3M and predominantly works in the education, telecommunications and IT sectors.
The Group’s five directors have an average age of 53. Four are based at the parent office in Southall: Manjeet Panesar, Dave Short, Pankaj Patel and Vijay Patel, who have backgrounds in telecommunications, software development and business development. The fifth director, Jas Panesar, is based in Gujarat and responsible for Compubits’ Indian operations.
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