2021 has begun

The team are back with the first new delivery of improvements and changes for 2021. The product team are now focusing on your ideas submitted through MySchool Ideas If you haven't signed up for an account, then please contact our support team, and we will send you an invitation. Your ideas are a great help in organising our development road map. Here are few general questions we are asked;

Why do I need to submit an idea when I have raised a support ticket?

We understand that it may appear to be an extra task, but it is important for our support team and CSM's to have clarity only on your support needs. We need to be able to deal with the urgent requests, first time help, and general daily tasks, before product enhancements and new functionality.; This is why we have split these two channels. 

It feels like we are being pushed to one side

We apologise if we have not always been the best at communicating in a timely fashion, we hope to improve and exceed our communities expectations at every step. If you do feel that you are being pushed to one side, then please take our reassurances that this is certainly not the case. You now have contact with more stakeholders within MySchool, and not just the support team. All our internal departments have eyes and interests in the ideas portal, which makes it a real community driven toolkit.

Our ideas are not actioned immediately

We understand that some requests can appear to be a small change, but take some time to be developed. There are many factors we need to consider when assessing requests. Is it possible? Is it linked to another functionality? Is it a legal requirement? Can it be used across all systems or marketplace specific? This is why it is really important that we have the ideas portal in place.

Whats new in 2021

Internal assessment types

The first big change already in place, is with subject specifications, and our default assessment report. After receiving the idea, we have implemented a feature where schools can decide whether an assessment type should be made public, or remain for internal purposes only.

Open the advanced assessment settings in subject specifications, using the blue cog. There is now a check box, which determines if this specific assessment type should be published on the PDF report. It will be visible Educators in the assess, and review pages. 

What are the use cases?

The idea was introduced to support assistants, advisors and Mentors in having an input to the students progression during the assessment period. The main teacher of the course or the class reviewer can gather opinions from all members of staff, in order to make an informed judgement for grading purposes. 

It can also be used in connection with the formula assessment type. Schools can choose whether to show the whole breakdown or just the final grade on the report cards.

If you would like to set up a progress report then Teachers can also use this functionality to have an assessment dashboard for their students. Use this for them to be able to produce quick update reports for parents day, or continuous assessment goals. Choose whether to publish these, or just add a comment to the report card based on all assessment criteria.

GPA calculations

Towards the end of 2020, we released a new GPA calculation feature for the assessment report. This calculates a student's grade point average across subjects for the assessment period. 

To use this as part of the assessment report, then you need to select a primary assessment grade in each subject. Check the box in the first column to use the numerical grade type as the GPA. It now stretches across all numerical assessment types, including formula, and assignment averages.

Quick reports

Further improvements were added to quick reports for institutions using the programme builder module. The report will now export the modules and their attached streams. This is visible in student view/export/Program/Programme module names.

Returning corrected homework

After launching our VLE module last year, we have moved to add a much requested improvement feature. Educators will now be able to receive submissions from their students, and send them a corrected version via the MySchool portal. This is available for educators on the assessment tab of the assignment, or via the course resource page. Upload the corrected homework, and give feedback as a comment.

On the course resource page, open the assignment and two new buttons will appear in the student submissions and assessment dropdown. The green clipboard is used for uploading the correction, the red cross removes the file. 

This is only available in the new assignment page student view (assignment/assignment_student_view.php, course/course_diary.php). Guardians can access the returned homework by using the My Courses dashlet, and selecting the relevant assignment.