The Exams Assist module has been designed, created, in conjunction with fellow examination officers with one aim - 'to assist centres with the process of conducting examinations’ Hence the motto ‘The Right Support across All Seasons.’
Exams Assist is a module created by SchoolWorkSpace which offer a variety of other solutions to schools and colleges. This solution acquires its information by syncing data from SIMS.net using ‘Groupcall Xporter’ as the data transporter. Both products are fully compliant with the current Data Protection Policies in the UK. The Privacy Policy can be found here and the Data Sharing Policy can be found here.
Data security is very important to us at SchoolWorkSpace so extra tools has been added to assist schools protect their data, schools are able to enable multifactor authentication, automatic timeout from the solution and a strong password format is required for all users.
The solution has been broken down into the following areas, from the Entries to Running the Exams on the day of the exam. This software does support multi seasons and therefore can be used for both internal and external exams running simultaneously.
'A Tool to help centres to ensure accurate entries and cut costs’
Allocate the 'Examination Entry List' to an individual or a group of staff for them to check and confirm that the entries are correct. These entries are visible to staff via the exams assist portal and can be either viewed as a list of elements or as a group of elements per subject. As well as environmental benefits this process
will save time and streamline the process of confirming the entries and have a log of amendments in one
solution.
Exams Assist has a portal available for both parents and candidates to access so they too are able to view their Entries, Access Arrangements and Examination Timetable. Great tools to ensure that all entries are correct and submitted on time reducing the risk of late entry fees.
‘Streamline the process and take the stress out of ordering your modified papers and save time’
View the candidates 'Access Arrangements' requirements in one location, these are also displayed graphically by using icons. Using icons helps invigilator to see easily what the candidates require i.e. coloured papers, reader, scribe, prompter etc. These icons follow through the whole system and appears on the candidate cards, attendance registers and seating plans created by this system.
The Exams Officer are able to view in one location the candidates that require modified paper and what papers they require these ordering for. The same process is also available for the candidates that require a laptop or a computer reader for an exam. Once these have been recorded as ordered or required the appropriate icon will be displayed on the candidate cards, the seating plan, attendance register.
‘Quickly gather invigilators availability for any season’
Gathering invigilators availability is very quick and simple, availability can either be requested based on the exams timetable or a date range provided by the exams officer. These availability requests can be emailed out to the staff from exams assist and their responses/availability can be viewed within the W/C tabs. When providing their availability to the schools the invigilators/staff are able to provide a note per session.
‘Quick and Easy scheduling, allocation of invigilators to rooms - no setup required’
Exams Officer can schedule invigilators/staff directly to a room based on their availability, no setup required and all room data is sync’d from Exams Organiser. Scheduling in Exams Assist will save the Exams Officers hours of work, eliminate the need for separate spreadsheets as exams assist creates everything you require. The Exams Officer are able to identify a ‘Lead Invigilator’ to each room as well as allocating specific roles to members of staff within a room i.e. if a staff member is to act as a reader in a room (the invigilators will be able to view this information in their schedules).
Once allocated to the rooms invigilators/staff are instantly able to view their schedules. Invigilators are able to view what exams they are invigilating, length of exams and what invigilators including their roles will display here too.
‘No more spending hours colouring in seating plans and adding AA arrangements to the plans’
The ability for the exam officer to print off a variety of reports, Candidate Cards or Component Cards, seating plan and attendance register for a room. The component Cards, Attendance Registers and Seating Plans displays any Access Arrangements applicable to that candidate. The Seating plan also includes different colours for each component if there are multiple exams within a room. A great function for the candidate, the component card can have a coloured border around it which is the same colour as on the seating plan and on the Exam Room Viewer, making it easy for the candidate to identify it’s end time especially in a room with a number of exams running at the same time.
The ability for the staff or invigilators in the room to be able to complete the registers electronically. There are three ways for the invigilators to complete the register, either from the Attendance Register, Seating Plan or by using the QR Code on the candidate card. There are other functionalities available; to ensure that the searing plans are accurate its possible to move a candidate within a room or even to a different/new room. It’s also possible to record SRB, Toilet Breaks and being able to add any incidents that have occurred in the room.
The Daily Exam Planner tab is an essential tool for any EO on a day of an exam. All information that an EO or SLT would require is available in this section from the list of the examinations running that day to writing the examination attendance back into SIMS.net (This tab does display exams information for any season). This section is further broken into sub-tabs:
This gives a list of the examinations that take place on that specific date. Once the attendance has been taken for that exam this can be viewed by selecting the component code within this tab. If there are any candidates that have a ‘Clash’ on this date this would be identified by a ‘Red Flag’ next to the component name.
This tab contains the breakdown of the rooms that are being used on a specific day, it also gives a breakdown of the attendance information of each room. It also displays the names of candidates that have been marked absent by the invigilators (this is auto-refreshed), it’s possible to select the name of the Candidate to view their details so that Parent/Carers can be contacted to make them aware of the absence.
This tab also displays any requests for assistance from the invigilators/staff, once these have been dealt with it’s possible to write a note against the assistance required.
This displays all the access arrangements information for a specific day. It’s a great view to check who requires a modified paper for an exam or requires a coloured paper.
Exam Room Details
This provides the details of the rooms that an invigilators/staff has been scheduled in. It is also possible to edit the allocated invigilators.
This displays any notes that has been written against either a candidate or room. It will also display any notes stored in the Access Arrangements section in Sims Exams.
Once the attendance has been taken in an exam room, it's possible for the Attendance Officer to write this data back into SIMS.net. In a single click it is possible to mark all candidates present in an exam to be present in SIMS; a great tool for all attendance officers in schools and colleges.
Exams Assist
