Set up your school

Set up Attitude to Learning

How-to guideFor data managers and pastoral leaders

Attitude to Learning (AtL) puts pastoral judgements, such as effort or behaviour, alongside grades in Sisra Analytics. Each key stage can have up to three AtL categories, each with up to 10 judgements. You set them up in CONFIG, then upload teachers’ judgements with each data set or assessment collection.

Before you start

You need:

an authority group with Access Data Section, such as Admin
to have agreed with pastoral leaders which categories to record, and what each judgement means

Authority groups and permissions explains Access Data Section.

AtL is optional. Each judgement belongs to a grade: Sisra imports it against a pupil’s or student’s grade in one qualification, in one data set or assessment collection. So do not set up effort or homework as qualifications.

Look at your categories

Select CONFIG, then Attitude to Learning, then Attitude to Learning. The page has a KS3/4 Attitude to Learning Summary and a KS5 Attitude to Learning Summary.

Column	What it shows
AtL Category Name	The category’s name. Select it to open the category’s detail page
Display Aggregated Figures As	How the reports show a group’s judgements
Sort Order (points)	Whether higher or lower points are better
Judgements	Each judgement, in its colour, with its points
Status	Active, or deactivated
Actions	Deactivate, rename and copy

In the demo school, both key stages have Attitude, Behaviour and Organisation. Each has judgements A, B, C and D, worth 4, 3, 2 and 1.

The KS3/4 and KS5 Attitude to Learning summaries, each with three Active categories. Attitude and Behaviour are shown as Average Judgement and Organisation as Average Points, all sorted Descending, with judgements A, B, C and D worth 4, 3, 2 and 1. Each row has a red pause icon, a pencil and a Copy button. Between the tables, a green toggle reads Configuring KS5 independently of KS3/4. — Three categories at each key stage.

Configure a category

Each key stage has three category slots. A slot you have not set up offers Configure. Nothing is saved until you select Save at the end.

Next to an empty slot, select Configure.
Enter the category’s name, such as Homework, in up to 15 characters. The name shows when you upload judgements.
Choose how the reports show the category, under Aggregated Figures Displayed As. The next table explains the choices.
Choose the sort order: Descending if higher points are better, as for homework, or Ascending if lower points are better, as for behaviour points. Hidden categories have no sort order.
Select Next.
Enter up to 10 judgements, each with the fields in the second table.
Check the preview, then select Save.

Aggregated Figures Displayed As	What the reports show for a group	Suits
Average Points	The mean of the judgements’ points	Homework
Average Judgement	The mean points, shown as the nearest judgement in its colour	Behaviour
Total Points	The sum of the points	Interventions, each worth 1 point
Hidden	No points or averages. Judgements rank in the order you enter them	Judgements with no natural score

Field	Limit	Example
Judgement	Up to 2 characters	`A` or `Ex`
Judgement Text	Up to 15 characters. The reports show it in filters and tooltips	`Excellent`
Points	From -100 to 100, with up to 2 decimal places. Not needed for Hidden	`4`
Colour	Optional, from a colour wheel. The reports show it

Upload files can hold either the judgement or its judgement text. The sort order decides how the reports sort the category, and which way comparisons are coloured.

With Average Judgement, each judgement covers the points halfway to its neighbours. In the demo school, Behaviour has A to D worth 4 to 1, so B covers averages from 2.5 to 3.5. Five pupils with A, A, B, B and C average (4 + 4 + 3 + 3 + 2) ÷ 5 = 3.2 points, so the group shows B. Two judgements in an Average Judgement category cannot have the same points.

When you save, Attitude to Learning Detail opens with the category’s settings and judgements.

Attitude to Learning Detail for the KS3/4 Attitude category: Name Attitude, Aggregated Figures Displayed As Average Judgement, Sort Order (points) Descending and Status Active, with a Reconfigure button. The Judgements table lists A Excellent 4, B Good 3 and C Satisfactory 2. — A category's settings and judgements.

Change, rename or deactivate a category

To rename a category, select the pencil in Actions.
To change its judgements, display or sort order, select its name, then Reconfigure.
To stop new judgements going into a category, select the red pause icon, then Continue. Judgements already published stay in the reports.
To make a deactivated category active again, with the same settings, select the green play icon.
To rank the judgements of a Hidden category, use Reorder and the arrows, then select Save.

Sisra works out AtL figures when it publishes grades. After changing a category, republish the data sets and assessment collections that hold its judgements.

Set up KS5

KS5 can have its own categories or use the KS3/4 ones.

While Configuring KS5 independently of KS3/4 is on (green), KS5 has its own three categories. Changing them does not affect KS3/4.
To use the KS3/4 categories for KS5, turn the toggle off, then select Confirm. It turns red and reads “Using KS3/4 configuration for KS5”.
To copy a KS3/4 category’s set-up into the KS5 category in the same position, select Copy from KS3/4 on the KS5 category, then Confirm.
Copy from KS5, on a KS3/4 category, copies the other way. It shows only while KS5 has its own categories.

The Copy AtL Category from KS3/4 dialog over the Attitude to Learning page. It says This will copy this AtL category's setup into KS5, asks Are you sure you want to do this?, and offers Cancel and Confirm. Behind it, the KS3/4 categories have Copy from KS5 buttons, the KS5 categories have Copy from KS3/4 buttons, and the toggle reads Configuring KS5 independently of KS3/4. — Nothing is copied until you select Confirm.

Upload judgements

Upload judgements after the grades they belong to. On each data set’s or assessment collection’s upload page, every active category has its own tab beside Grades, such as Attitude, Behaviour and Organisation. You upload one file per category, with one judgement for each pupil or student and qualification. Upload grades gives the steps.

See AtL in the reports

The reports show each judgement, or the category’s figure for a group, faculty, qualification, class, pupil or student. See Basics, EBacc, value added and AtL reports and Grade Analysis and AtL reports.

A value that matches no judgement shows as an unknown judgement, and Grades Management flags it as Unknown AtL Judgements. A judgement for someone with no grade in that qualification does not appear. At KS3/4, Grades Management says: “You have students with judgements but no associated grades. As such, these judgements will not appear in the reports unless a grade is added for these students.”

If something goes wrong

A category has no tab on the upload page. The category is deactivated. Select the green play icon to make it active.

Judgements show as unknown. The file’s values match neither a judgement nor a judgement text. Correct the file, or add the judgement with Reconfigure.

Judgements are missing from the reports. The person has no grade for that qualification in the data set, or the data set has not been published since you uploaded them.

Sisra will not save two judgements with the same points. In an Average Judgement category, each judgement needs its own points.

CONFIG is locked. Sisra locks CONFIG while any cohort has data in the publishing queue. Wait for publishing to finish.