Setting up student reports

In ICON, schools have access to a range of reporting templates for use with assessment and reporting. These templates are largely customisable by schools as needed. This guide is designed to support staff (with appropriate access in eSIS), to set up student assessment and reporting for the school by modifying the templates available.

A copy of the student report templates can be found here.

Before setting up reports, it is important for users to understand the definitions used by Synergetic for assessment and reporting.

• Learning Areas: Key Learning Areas (KLAs) e.g. English, Maths, Music, Science. These are administered in Learning Area Maintenance

• Subjects: Individual subjects that are part of each KLA e.g. Science may include Science, Forensic Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Psychology. These are administered in Learning Area Maintenance

• Subject Assessment Areas: Within each subject there are assessment criteria that teachers will assess students on for reporting purposes e.g. work habits, grades, assignments, tests. These are administered in Subject Assessment Maintenance

• Classes: Within each subject there may be a number of classes. e.g. Year 7 Maths may include 7A Maths, 7B Maths, 7C Maths etc. These classes share the same assessment criteria. These are administered in Class Maintenance. 

Subject Assessments are administered in Subject Assessment Maintenance. They are created according to a class or subject and contain the Subject Assessment Areas which are the items teachers will report on.

Copying Assessment Templates

A number of templates are provided for schools to copy to assist with the setting up of reports. These can be copied and modified to suit the needs of the school. Alternatively, reporting coordinators can set up their school's reports from scratch.

The following video explains the difference between the two main types of templates, the general template and the specialist template:

To copy the included templates:

• Click on Assess from the eSIS menu

• Select Subject Assessment Area Maintenance from the drop down menu:

The Subject Assessment Maintenance window is shown displaying all assessment areas:

Generic assessment templates have been developed for ICON eSIS. These generic templates have AAA at the beginning of their code.

The templates provided to schools can be found in the Summary window on the top of the left panel in the Subject Assessment Maintenance window.

Your school's reports can be built using these templates as a starting point. The instructions below relate to the creation of reports from these templates. Schools requiring statement-based reporting can find instructions for this on the Statement-based Reports page. Note that it is also possible to create your reports from scratch, without using the templates provided.

The two main templates are named AAA_GEN, providing a template for General reports, and AAA_SP, for a typical Specialist report. These two templates can be used as a starting point to produce different student reports, samples of which have been provided on the ICON Implementation site. By customising the templates provided, a wide range of options is possible. 

Select the template required to begin customising your school report. 

IMPORTANT: Do NOT edit the AAA templates directly. Schools will need to make a copy of the AAA templates to create their own reports.

Make a copy of the required template. To do this:

• Right-click on the name of the template e.g. AAA_GEN in the Summary window

• Select Copy from the menu:

• In the COPY Assessment Code window that appears give the AAA_GEN a new name based on the report to be created e.g. GEN_6 for a General Report for Year 6 students

• Click OK:

• Confirm by clicking Yes in the window that appears:

The assessment area has now been copied for your school and you can now make modifications as needed. 

The process will need to be repeated for each different report required.

The template will now appear in the Summary window:

It is now possible to make changes to the template to create a report for the specified year level/s based on the specific requirements of the school.

The Assessment Areas are listed in the Assessment Area window beneath the Summary window. ICON provides a number of sample assessment areas that can be deleted, copied and/or modified as required.

• Select the Assessment Area to be modified by clicking on it to highlight it:

Once the Assessment Area has been selected, changes can be made in the main window of Subject Assessment Maintenance (on the right) using the tabs provided: 

The Summary Tab

• Using the Summary tab the Heading can be changed by adding a year level name and an Overview of the subject (these are optional)

• A Unit Name can also be added if needed:

• Data editing may need to be enabled by pressing the F8 key on the keyboard or by clicking Yes:

The Area Tab

• In the Area tab select the Result Group required from the drop down menu:

• Select the appropriate Result Type from the drop down menu:

The process of creating a basic subject assessment is summarised in the following video:

Delete an Assessment Area

It is also possible to delete Assessment Areas if these are not required in the report.

• Right-click on the name of the Assessment Area in the Assessment Area window and select Delete from the drop down menu: 

• Confirm by typing DELETE in the box provided

• Click OK:

Note: It is not possible to delete an Assessment Area if data has already been entered for that Assessment Area. Results will need to be removed first and then the Assessment Area deleted.

Add a new subject assessment

It is also possible to add a new Subject Assessment.

• Select the Summary tab

• Click New OR right-click in the Assessment Area window and select New:

• Enter an Assessment Code (this usually includes a reference to the year level and subject) (1)

• Give the subject assessment a Heading (2)

• Click Finish (3): 

It is also possible to copy a Subject Assessment Area

• Right-click in the Summary Window

• Select Copy:

• In the COPY Assessment Code box that appears enter a new Assessment code

• Click OK:

• Once the new assessment has been created, enter the summary information:

  • Check the Heading for the Subject (1)

  • Type (or cut and paste in) an Overview for the subject if required (2)

• Click on an item in the Assessment Area window to edit an existing item OR, to create a new Assessment Area item, right-click in the Assessment Area window and select New OR click on  the Area tab (1) and click the Create New Area (2) button or the New (3) button to add a new Assessment Area

• This will bring up the Create New Subject Assessment Area box:

There are three parts required when creating a new Subject Assessment Area:

• • The Result Group: describes the group of subject assessment areas e.g. Victorian Curriculum, work habits

  • The Result Type: describes the result values available for that result group

  • The Heading: lists the subject heading or, if using statement-based reporting, the learning outcome

For each Subject Assessment Area required:

• • Select the Result Group and the Result Type from the drop down boxes

  • For example, you may require a Victorian Curriculum (VC) result group with a VC result type of A-10 continuum AND/OR a Result Group of Work Habits and Result Type of Work Habits 5

  • You will need to create a Subject Assessment Area for each combination required for each subject 

  • Click Finish: 

• If you have chosen a Victorian Curriculum option, you will need to select the Curriculum Area Group and Curriculum Area for the Victorian Curriculum to link to the appropriate progression point

• Select the appropriate Strand/Mode

• Click OK: 

This links the assessment to the relevant strand of the Victorian curriculum and allows students to be assessed against the appropriate standards.

Order of Assessment Areas

The Seq number in the Subject Assessment Selector window describes the order of Assessment Areas in SynWeb (as seen by the teachers when entering assessment results. This is NOT the order of subjects on the report itself. This order can be changed via the LookUp Table):

• The order of the Assessment Areas for techers when entering results, can be modified as follows:

• Right-click on the relevant Assessment Area and select Move to New Sequence

• Insert the required number for the Assessment Order. If another Assessment Area is already in that position, select Insert when prompted

• Click OK

• When finished click the red cross at the top right of the Subject Assessment Area window. Be careful not to click the cross at the top right of the application as this will close the entire program:

Adding the template to a class

Once the report has been created it is then necessary to allocate it to a specific class (so that reports for that class use the newly created template).

• Open Class Maintenance by clicking on Assess and selecting Class Maintenance from the drop down menu:

Previewing Reports

There are two methods to preview reports for ICON schools. For those with access to eSIS it is possible to preview the look and feel of reports using the Assess > Print Student Reports function.

Previewing Reports in eSIS

To preview reports, click on the Assess tile and select Print Student Reports from the drop down menu:

• Set the Student Reports Search Criteria by selecting the required options from the drop down menus

• Select File type A for Academic reports

• Click OK

The Sort Order window will appear:

The Sort Order window defines the order in which the reports are printed/viewed

• Items can be moved up or down in the order if needed using the arrows to the right

• When finished, click OK:

• Select a student from the class and double-click on the section of the report that you want to preview to open the Preview window:

It may take some time for the report to be generated.

Previewing Reports in SynWeb

Teachers can preview the content of a student's report or results for a class using the SSRS function available in SynWeb. To access the results:

• On the Home page of SynWeb click on Available Reports: 

• From the drop down list select the TeacherProof_SSRS or TeacherProofStudent_SSRS report. 

The TeacherProof_SSRS report allows teachers to view the results for all students in a selected class. The TeacherProofStudent_SSRS allows a teacher to preview the results of one student at a time.

Note: These reports only provide a summary of the content of the report, not the 'look and feel'. Only users with appropriate eSIS access will be able to view the report as it will appear when printed or viewed online by parents. These could be saved in pdf format and made available to teachers for viewing/proof-reading before being uploaded to the Community portal and/or printed for parents.