What's New in 2010

New Features and Improvements for 2010

Improved Class & Pupil Setup screens
Organize your Pupil Templates
New Curriculum Subjects
Add Statements to your Subjects
Preview Templates
Search Reports Tool
Edit your Report Text
Improved Copy Tools
Additional Options
Undo your Changes

For a quick overview of the changes, take a look at our: -

What's New in 2010 video

 

Improved Class & Pupil Setup screens

The first change you will see is the larger list, displaying the class names, which makes searching and selecting classes much easier.

We've hidden the controls used to edit the class details, as there is no need to see them most of the time.

Clicking the "Add/Edit Classes" button beneath the list will display the edit controls. The setup screen then works the same way as it did before.

We have also made the screen much faster when changing the selected class.

On the Pupils screen, similar changes have been made.

The larger list and faster speeds should make finding and selecting the right pupil much easier.

Again, clicking the "Add/Edit Pupils" button will show the edit controls.

Organize your Pupil Templates

On the Pupils screen, there is an additional "Template" checkbox to help organise your Pupils list.

Selecting this checkbox will highlight the pupil as a "Template Pupil", which can then be used to create template reports. The Template Pupils will appear at the top of any pupil lists but will not appear on the Progress screen.

New Curriculum Subjects

On the Class Setup page, you'll notice that we have replaced the existing 5 Report Schemes with just 2 Schemes. These schemes are used to select the subject headings to be used for your reports.

The 2 Schemes are : -

StarReports Subjects; which refer to the common subjects, e.g. "Literacy", "Numeracy", "Science" and "History" etc.

and

New Curriculum Subjects; which relate to the areas of learning, in line with the new curriculum guidelines, e.g "Knowledge and Understanding of the World", "Mathematical Development" etc.

You can choose which subject headers you wish to use when you set up the class, and the related subjects will be used for all the reports in that class.

You may also modify the subject headers or add your own in the Subject Setup Screen.

Add Statements to your Subjects

The Subject Setup screen works as before, you can rename existing subject headers and hide subjects you don't wish to use. You may also add your own subjects, but critically, you can now associate groups of statements to your new subject, giving you complete flexibility.

Preview Templates

The Templates screen now has additional Preview options so that you can quickly preview reports before you select them.

New Search Reports Tool

We've added a new tool this year to help you quickly search for previous reports. You can search by Class, Pupil Name and Year to access all the reports you've ever created.  You can access this tool from the 'Search Reports' button on the Pupils page.

Edit your Report Text

The biggest change this year is on the Reports screen.

In order to make report editting more flexible, you can now edit the text directly on the Reports screen.  We have removed the Free Type mode as this is no longer necessary.  It means you can edit your report text and then continue using the Statements as before.

Another important change is that now, one subject at a time is displayed on the Reports screen.   This was required to allow the text to be edited and make the reports screen load much faster.

To view the full report, you can use the new Preview button.

We have also improved the Save function to make this action much quicker.   

Improved Copy Tools

The "Copy Text" tool is now integrated into the main reports screen.

The new tool allows you to insert text from any other report. Even reports from previous years, other classes, different Schemes and different age groups.  Simply find the text you want and use the Apply button to add it to your report.

You can also copy an entire report and insert text into multiple pupil's reports.

StarReports will automatically update the Pupil Name and Gender when the text is copied.

Additional Options

The new "Settings" screen has some additional options.

Changing the Age Range allows you to select Statements from higher or lower age groups, helping you find differentiated statements.

Undo your Changes

The "Restore" feature allows you to restore your text from an earlier save.  This means you can always go back if you are not happy with your changes.  (Accessed from the Settings Screen)