Newsletter Autumn 2018/2019
Welcome
We would like to welcome all the schools that have joined SOLAR over the past couple of months. Welcome to the SOLAR family.
Thank You
We would like to thank Bob from Parkside, Ian from Penn Hall and Stuart from Oakwood Primary for their input and Feedback on some of the new features in this newsletter
Urgent Reminder
Internet Explorer has major issues and will not work with many of the SOLAR features. Please use Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Bing
In This Newsletter
We apologise for the length of this newsletter, but we have been very busy adding new features and functionality over the past few months and have some very exciting new features coming very soon
Below are full details of our new features such as:
Spiky Profiles
Levels of Engagement
New forms
New reports
Video Player
And enhancements to the:
Group Attainment Report
Pupil Profile Report
Behaviour settings
User settings
And much more…………..
New Look
To keep up with web application trends you will notice when you go to SOLAR we have changed the UX with bolder colours and a lighter background
You will also notice that when you go to the SOLAR log in page you can now see the SOLAR you are logging into
Its worth checking this if any of your staff say they are having difficulty in Logging on. Some people do a google search and then try to log into the wrong SOLAR.
You will also notice that we have now added the details of the person who has logged in. This can be found next to the Logout button
Spiky Profiles
You can now set Spiky Profile Progress for Individual Pupils or a whole class
To turn on for individual pupils go to Admin>Pupils. Select the pupil and tick the check box
To turn on for a class go to Admin>Lists>Classes. Edit the Class and select
When you go back the Assessment Screen the pupil with a Spiky Profile will be indicated next to their name
How do Spiky Profiles work?
Once switched on SOLAR will now add the progress made in all levels into a single level progress
If we look at Andrew.
First collapse all the levels by click the blue bar for the level the pupil is working on and you will see the assessment across levels that has been completed
In this case Andrew has made some progress in Step 5 (Current) to Step 11. If we add these up, we get +18% progress. SOLAR therefore shows Andrews level at Step 4 +18%
This new figure is reflected in the colour coding, progress and reports.
Levels of Engagement
We have now implemented Levels of Engagement on SOLAR
One of the key features we have added is that you can add 2 videos to the output. One for when the Lesson is started and once when the pupil has made completed progress.
You can add a standard set of Lessons agreed at your school and add them to a drop down which you can manage.
The output has a dynamic Engagement Scale which changes as the input is amended
You can get details of how to use the Levels of Engagement on the DfE website at
We will be adding a video to the SOLAR video list in due course on using the Levels of Engagement Feature
Adding a Note when a statement is removed
When you now add a note to give the reason for removing a statement in a level the note is displayed for reference
IEP’s
You can now add different types of IEP’s in SOLAR. You can add and select from a drop down list. These will appear in any PDF’s generated
Reports
Behaviour Summary
This report allows you to run a summary report for each pupil
Safeguarding report
If you have permission to view Safeguarding reports in SOLAR, you can now run a report selecting safeguarding incidents
Pupil Progress Report
We have added Interventions to the output.
Group Attainment
When you select a group in the Group Attainment report a new option is now added to allow you to compare the group against any other group and not just the rest of the school.
e.g. Boys in Blue Class as group selected and Girls in Blue Class as the second group selected.
User Settings
We have added 2 new user settings
1. A Behaviour Administrator. You can turn this feature on for any user so that when an incident is added the user can select to email to all Behaviour Administrators without the need to input their email address
2. All Management Users have a Newsletter Opt-in option
Target Setting
To Save Key Stage targets in the database we recommend that you set term dates to 2020/2021. You can always change the dates later if you are not sure what they are.
This means that when you select smart fill or set a flightpath the targets are stored ready for future years. Without future years set there is no place to store the targets and they will need to be reset at the beginning of the new year
For this using yearly Targets, we have added a new option in Admin>Settings>Targets that allows you to set targets for the following year in advance.
Forms
We have added the following forms to SOLAR
Communication Profile
Risk Assessment
Behaviour Profile
Thank you to Victoria School for sharing these
We have also added the feature that allows you to rename the fields in Admin>Terminology and to turn on/off fields and add custom field to Risk Assessment and Communication Profile. PLEASE NOTE: This does not work on the Communication Profile as it is Icon based
Server Upgrade
Our server will be down on the weekend of 3rd November to allow us to update our storage server.
A message will be displayed to anyone who tries to log in
The benefit for schools is
1. We will be adding a video player to Star Cards. This will allow users to view videos online. Very useful if you give parents access or want to view while out of school
2. We will be increasing the file upload size from the current 40 Mb to 240Mb. This will allow for longer videos. PLEASE NOTE: The time taken to upload any files will be dependent on your Internet Connection so if you have a slow connection upload times may be long.
Future Development
Our next focus area is predictive targeting. SOLAR will automatically set targets for each pupil based on a set of criteria’s set by the school. These have to be finalised, but first thoughts are
1. Percentage progress so far over 3 months, 6 months, One year
2. A threshold set of a. Same Progress b. A percentage increase above Progress c. A percentage decrease below progress
Thanks to Bob, Ian and Stuart for agreeing to also help on this project
Ø I cannot use some of the features on SOLAR using Internet Explorer.
Please use Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari or Microsoft BING. Internet Explorer does not support many of the new technologies that have been released.
Ø Adding New Assessment Frameworks
We get many requests as to how to add additional assessment frameworks to SOLAR. Details of how to do this can be found in the Admin Manual – Sections 3.9 and 3.12 which can be downloaded by clicking the HELP button on SOLAR.
Ø Adding a subject to an Assessment Framework
We can now import additional subjects into an assessment framework that is already on your SOLAR. Just follow the instructions in the Admin Manual – Section 3.12 (put it into excel format) and send to us and let us know what framework you want it added to and we will do the rest.
Ø Baselining at a Percentage
When you first start to use SOLAR, you must baseline your pupils so that SOLAR knows where they finished at the end of the previous academic year to be able to mark progress in the current year.
SOLAR’s baseline function marks all the statements completed as at 30th August. There is not an option to baseline at a percentage as SOLAR would not know what statements in the level that the pupil has completed.
However, you can baseline and then mark a star card as completed as at 30th August to set a percentage level baseline yourself. If you have enabled the function “backfilling of stars” you can mark whole statements as completed at the same time.
Just remember to change the date in the star card to 30th August.
Ø Routes for Learning
Routes for Learning is a lateral framework and should be used through the RfL menu item and NOT the Assessment menu
As the framework uses Major and Standard Statements you cannot reorder as they are linked to the RfL map
Additional Training
Are you aware you can book additional training on version 3 if you need it. We would be happy to come along and get you up to speed on the new features and functionality.
Please call us on 0800 019 0661 option 1 for more information or to book a session.
You can contact the Help Desk by email or phone. We prefer email, as this creates a written record of your request and ensures that information can be passed efficiently between team members. It also helps us manage our work flow and prioritise our response more effectively.
support@solarforschools.org.uk
Sometimes we need specific information to diagnose a problem. If you see an error message, please tell us what it says. If it’s relevant, we may also need to know the assessment framework, subject, pupil, level and even the statement and star.
You can take a snapshot of your screen by using the Windows snipping tool or Apple’s screenshot facility and attach the image to your email. You can also show us a SOLAR screen by copying and pasting the URL into your email.
It would also be helpful for you to include your school name in the request as some e-mail addresses do not indicate which school you are in 😊
