Looking Ahead

The New Zealand Curriculum is currently undergoing a refresh which is expected to be completed by 2027. The refreshed curriculum will be inclusive, clear about the learning that matters, and easy to use from year 0 to year 13. It will also give practical effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

The refreshed curriculum content is being developed and released in phases, with schools and kura having until the beginning of 2027 to start using the fully refreshed curriculum. However, schools and kura must use the refreshed mathematics and statistics and English learning areas from the start of 2025. Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories already must be taught in all schools.

The Ministry of Education has stated that the refreshed curriculum will support students to experience success in their learning. It will provide a greater sense of what progress looks like and the learning that matters. The refreshed curriculum will also be designed to support students to develop the skills they need for the future, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and digital fluency.

Overall, the curriculum refresh is an important step towards ensuring that New Zealand’s education system is relevant and responsive to the needs of students in the 21st century.

Welcome to the new academic year! We are pleased to see schools have been using edge SM throughout January to communicate with their communities, streamline their administrative tasks and analyse data from previous years.

Here are a few benefits of using edge SM:

1. Easy communication: Keep parents and staff informed with the click of a button.
2. Automated notifications: Set up automated alerts for when specific absence and pastoral events are added.
3. Convenient access: edge SM is accessible from any device via browser or mobile app, making it easy to keep up-to-date from anywhere.
4. Use Assay, the built in analysis tool to track and analyse all of your assessment data.

We are dedicated to providing the best experience for your school, and our team is here to support you every step of the way.

Email services@edgelearning.co.nz to book PD for edge SM, LM or Assay.

Call 0800 600 159 for edge support.

Have a great start to your school year.

Cyber Security

Cyber security is an increasingly important issue for schools to consider. With the increasing reliance on technology in education, it is essential that schools take steps to protect themselves and their students from potential cyber threats.

One of the key challenges for schools when it comes to cyber security is the fact that students are often the ones who are targeted by hackers. Students may not have the same level of knowledge or awareness about cyber security as adults, and may be more likely to fall for scams or click on links that they shouldn't.

One way that schools can help protect their students is by providing them with regular training and education on cyber security. This can include teaching them about the importance of strong passwords, how to spot phishing attempts, and the dangers of sharing personal information online.

Another important step that schools can take is to ensure that their technology is up-to-date and properly secured. This means making sure that all software is regularly updated, and that all devices are protected by strong passwords. Schools should also consider implementing security measures such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems to help protect their networks from potential attacks.

In addition to these measures, schools should also have a plan in place to deal with any cyber security incidents that may occur. This plan should include steps to quickly identify and respond to any potential threats, as well as steps to minimize the damage and recover from any attacks that do occur.

Before launching into anything however, you need to evaluate where your school is in its cyber-security journey. If you haven’t recently undertaken some form of evaluation, doing one is a great way to identify potential gaps in your security efforts, so that you know what risks and education opportunities should be addressed first.

Overall, cyber security is a critical issue for schools to consider. By taking steps to educate students and secure their technology, schools can help protect themselves and their students from potential cyber threats.

Assay Analysis update for Y1-8

Assay Analysis can now be configured to analyse extra subjects from Achievement / Markbooks. These subjects are Science, Social Science, Technology, Languages and Arts. Setup is the same as before with the columns in Achievement needing to be enabled and markbook columns having the subject number plus time of year indicators such as T1, Term 1, MY, EOY, etc.

Outputs are identical to what was already available with Reading, Writing and Maths, such as the following:

Our Assay Overview video can be viewed here:

For assistance in configuring Assay for your school please email us: services@edgelearning.co.nz

New in Edge

Last weekend saw quite a number of features and refinements added to Edge. Below is just a few of them. For a complete list please visit our Release Notes page.

Today's Attendance Widget - available for Attendance Officers.

Updates from 9.15 each day.

Caregiver List by Student - People>Student Lists

Lists caregiver contact information as well as bill payer and medical details.

Revised Statement layout choices including showing of payments related to items. Due date heading is also now configurable on the statement template. 

More details available in this video

Bulk Complete tool for Pastoral Records - Pastoral>Incomplete Records

And not so new, but extremely useful .. The Edge Mobile app

Summer of 2022

With consistently high temperatures January has felt like a real summer .. and these long hot days and nights seem set to continue as schools head back for term 1 2022. Probably not the perfect companion to Omicron with all the uncertainties that brings, but by Feb 8 all schools will be underway in what is likely to be another roller coaster year.

With regards to getting the year underway with Edge here are a few start of year items:

• Set your school calendar (Admin>Setup>Define Schools Calendar)
• Add Teacher Only days prior to the day (Admin>Setup>Define Schools Calendar)
• If using a timetable, activate this for the whole year (Timetable>Create or Edit Timetable..Step 7)
• Recommended that all teaching staff be given the Relief Teacher role so they can mark a colleagues class if necessary (Admin>Security>Configure User Responsibilities). Not required for staff with the Attendance Officer Role.
• End date staff who have left (People>View/Edit Staff)
• Use the Edge Mobile app (Download from App Store or Play Store .. search for Musac Edge)
• For Help click the Help button (page footer, right hand side)
• For assistance call 0800 600 159 or email support@edgelearning.co.nz
• To book training email sales@edgelearning.co.nz

Useful Edge functionality during Lockdown

Two key features in Edge SM that are especially useful during lockdown are messaging your school community and managing your attendance en masse'.

There are a number of ways of keeping your community in touch with your school via Edge .. this includes announcements, emailing and notifications to the mobile app.

Please click this link to view a video on how to configure and use this functionality.

During lockdown most schools are adding the F code (The student is not in class but is on a legitimate off-site school-based course) to their students. Class teachers can add this to their own class if they have been given the F code as an option. 

To do this in bulk you need the Attendance Officer Role.

Go to Attendance>Attendance Records>Mark Attendance>Multiple Days

Alongside Mark for multiple: select Class

From the Room/Group dropdown choose Whole School (if you have created this as a Group), otherwise select your classes.

To learn how to create a whole school Group click here

Select From and To dates.

Alongside Sessions tick 'All'.

Choose Attendance code F from the dropdown.

Add a suitable Attendance Note and Save.

Our Helpdesk can be contacted on 0800 600 159 during business hours or email, support@edgelearning.co.nz 

All the best from the team at Edge Learning.

June Updates

 A nice time saving addition was added to Edge/Edge Mobile app last week. Schools can  now have caregivers send in an absence notification about their child, to the school, via the Edge Mobile app.

This is configured at the bottom of the Admin>Setup>School Settings page.

Schools can edit the text that caregivers would see on the app and can include the school phone number so the school can be phoned directly. If the school have the option to receive messages by text the 'Allow text message' box can be ticked.

When caregivers send an absence notification it is saved directly into Edge Attendance along with a suitable note that lets the school know that it was received from the caregiver app.

NB. the message is sent by data not as a text.

What the caregiver sees:

A now Family Roll list has also been added on the People>Student Lists page. This prints out the contact details for all students, grouped by family.

 

May Edge Updates

We are making a number of changes to Edge SM in May. Here's what we've released so far:

Changes to Purple Banner:

- Increased the font size of the student name.

- Included legal name.

- Added photo permission and internet permission.

- Moved the "Next" button to the right side of the name select box.

- Filter selections (Current Students, Pre-Enrols, Leavers) are now sticky when selecting students from the drop-down list .

- Added "Time at School" (YMD and weeks).

- Multiple Ethnicities are listed with a +# when more than three.

- Multiple Iwi are listed with a +# when more then two.

Other items:

- Added the option to fuzzy search for emails to help with matching when adding people  to Edge.

- Contact details for Independent Students now show in the app. (ticked as Independent Youth).

- Various minor bug fixes and performance improvements.

- Schools can now connect Edge to My Mahi to allow the relevant data to be accessed by My Mahi. The setting for this is found on the Admin>Setup>School Settings page.

End of term countdown

The End of Term Countdown widget in Edge is well into the single digits which will be a welcome sight to all. The Easter break gave us all a brief recharge, but two weeks sans students after another covid interrupted term will be very well received.

The term break will also give us the opportunity to release new functionality in two areas, both of which will be available on our mobile app.

The first is live reporting which will give school's the option of pushing assessment graphs to the caregiver mobile app and portal. These are the graphs found on the People>Student Details .. Assessment Summary page. Schools will have the option of which graphs to publish and when, as well as optionally including a comment.

 

The second is giving caregivers the option of reporting their child's absence via the mobile app. The notification is recorded directly into Attendance in Edge very similarly to the VisTab sign in/out via tablet system that many schools are using.

  

March 29 & 30 saw over 100 staff from dozens of schools attend our annual Edge User Conference at the Napier War Memorial Conference Centre. The event was kicked off with an extremely thought provoking hour delivered by guest speaker Henare O'Keefe. His singing, humour and inciteful commentary all spoken from the heart was very well received and set the stage for the following day and a half of workshop sessions. Feedback has been very positive and we are now looking ahead to our 2022 conference to be held in Queenstown.

Enjoy a well deserved term break.



  

Underway in a New Year

February 10 and all schools are underway for the new year .. which as usual nicely coincides with the best of the summer weather...

It's been good to hear from so many schools with a good number signing up to our Edge User Conference which is in Napier, March 29 & 30. If you haven't signed up or would like more information please click here.

Other events on the near horizon are March Returns. We'll be holding a number of webinars on this so keep an eye out for the link in Edge.

It's also nearly the time when some schools send out interim reports. If you need one creating or an existing one updated please contact your Account Manager or email services@edgelearning.co.nz

Finally a reminder about the Edge Mobile App. It's available for staff, caregivers and students from the App or Play Store. It's very secure and provides a convenient way to take attendance, view details, add pastoral notes, etc. Below are a two links that give more details.

Edge Mobile App

View Classes and Groups

Counting Down

Despite everything that happened in 2020 we can now all look forward to a well earned break, heart warming family time and a good catch up with friends. 

Schools are wrapping up the year with prizegiving's and shows, students are figuring out what to do for the next few weeks and staff are no doubt breathing a collective sigh of relief.

Here at Edge we'll be having a break from December 23 until January 11, but systems and emails will be monitored throughout with rollover happening automatically once the New Year arrives.

A few of quick reminders:

• Configure your 2021 calendar via Admin>Setup>Define School Calendar.
• If you have a timetable Activate it ready for your first school day of 2021.
• New staff are added via People>Staff Register Staff Member. Make their start date earlier than the start of school so they can access Edge when they need to using their school email and clicking Forgot Password the first time they need to login.
• End date staff that have left via People>Staff>View/Edit Staff.
• The Edge App can be downloaded from either App and Play Store. Search for MUSAC Edge.

From all of us here at Edge, have a festive Christmas and a relaxing New Year.

Countdown to Christmas

Term 4 has started as wet day for many of us and the last term of the year also brings with it many different thoughts .. EOY reports, NCEA exams, the festive season, a long hot summer  (hopefully).

It's also the term when you can get prepared for the following year. To this end we would like to encourage all our existing Classic Library users (MLM) to upgrade to Edge Library which is cloud based making it available on any connected device .. which could include students being able to search the catalogue from home.

To make the process as easy as possible there is no charge to convert your existing data and the annual license fee is the same as MLM. If you would like to change during term 4 there would be no additional license fee for 2020. The only cost to change is up to two hours of online PD. Click Here to view our Edge LM overview video and please contact services@edgelearning.co.nz to begin the process.

NB. If you would like to change from a library system other than MLM to Edge LM we are happy to help. Please contact sales@edgelearning.co.nz

We would also like to remind schools that if they would like any editing done to their existing end of year Custom Caregiver Reports (CCR) or are wanting a completely new CCR then please get in touch as soon as possible so we can get these underway well before the middle of the term. Please contact services@edgelearning.co.nz

Related to this if you would like any assistance or want to know more about any aspect of Edge please don't hesitate to contact our Support Desk on: 0800 600 159, support@edgelearning.co.nz, or contact services@edgelearning.co.nz for online or onsite training.

Edge SM newer features video

Curriculum Analysis and Acceleration Learning video .. please contact our Services team to assist with configuring this functionality.

An air of normaility

We are now nicely into term 3 and if we weren't hearing news reports from our near neighbours and further afar it would almost seem like as if everything was back to normal. It's now a definite advantage being far away from the rest of the world.

The lockdown has definitely given us some new normals with 'Zoom sessions' now being part of our daily vocabulary and for supporting schools and delivering PD this is definitely the way to go. Staff from Edge can catch up with far more schools in a day and there are all round benefits with less time on the road having an eco benefit as well.

We still do like to visit schools however so please don't hesitate to contact us when you have a query or looking to extend your use of Edge, Edge Library or Assay.

New and refined features continue to be added to Edge with some useful additions to Attendance:

Marking Bulk Attendance

- In Mark multiple days we have added the ability to pick the period (or half day) to mark

- Ability to exlude certain students from the group to be marked

- Ability to add a note to all students in the group marked for multiple days

Health and Safety

Below is an example of how the Edge Health and safety functionality can be configured.

To have full access to Health and Safety you need both Account Maintenance and Health and Safety Officer User Responsibilities.

Our Health and Safety section has been set up in a similar way to the Pastoral area. It allows you to record and analyse incidents and to keep a log of sick bay use.

Caregiver Reporting

Covid-19 has certainly thrown a spanner in the works for most schools.  Caregiver reporting is one of those areas that we have found a shift to either no report for Mid Year or a specifically designed Lockdown report.

If you require help to create a report for this unprecedented period of school life we have an experienced team willing to help you with ideas or to simply modify your current report to reflect the new way of reporting the lockdown period.

The Attitude to Learning (ATL) reporting is another fast and efficient way to communicate with caregivers giving a snapshot of students progress using a 5 point scale (5 being the highest) in areas such as Key Competencies, Effort, Behaviour, Homework etc.  You choose how often these reports are created and they can then be published to the Parent Portal/Edge Mobile App or emailed home.

Uncharted Territory

Wednesday April 29th is sounding like it will be the first of some very unique days in New Zealand education with teachers potentially teaching their students both in class and at home.

To help schools as much as we can our Support Desk can be contacted on 0800 600 159, or emailed at support@edgelearning.co.nz.

As well we will continue to offer a range of Webinars as well as updating a number of our training videos and notes in Edge Answers. The link to Edge Answers (Help) is at the bottom of nearly every page in Edge.

Below are the links to some of our newest videos and we will continue to update these on an almost daily basis.

Edge SM Release Notes May 4


Latest Videos

Mark Rolls

Relief Rolls

Student Search

Making Payments

Teacher Mode Overview

Add House

Adding Other Attendance Codes to Teachers

Widgets

Marking Attendance by Group (Bubble)

Bulk Field Update

Enrolment Settings

Portal Setup

School Announcements

User Rights

Unlocking Users and Resetting Passwords

Defining Classes for Primary and Intermediate Schools

Advanced Filterable Lists - Summative Feature

Advanced Filterable Lists - Grouping Feature

Caregiver Flags

Adding and Editing Staff

Online Enrolments

Term 2 begins

With schools about to go back for term 2 .. but with nobody actually at school, it certainly is a unique time in education for us all.

It is however great to see the level of government support with laptops, education packs and dedicated TV channels being made available, but the next two weeks will certainly take a lot of adapting to.

Here at Edge .. apart from all of us working from home and no school visits .. it is pretty much business as usual .. even down to offering a series of webinars that cover a wide range of topics.

Our Support Desk is also operating as usual on 0800 600 159 or support@edgelearning.co.nz, so please don't hesitate to contact us with any queries or questions.

All the best from the team at Edge and have a very Happy Easter.

2020 Well Underway

The new year is now definitely underway for all schools. For some the students have only been back for a day or two, for others well more than a week. Either way below are a few reminders to kick the year off:

• To ensure your attendance is created correctly your Calendar can be managed via Admin>Setup>Define School Calendar. Here you can add event days to cover Athletic and Swimming days as well as Teacher Only days. Please remember to add these at least a day before the event.
• Health and Safety functionality was added late in 2019. Click here to see how to configure and use.
• MoE Returns are two weeks away. Click here for background on the process.
• Announcements are a great way to communicate with your Staff and Community. Click here on how to configure and use.
• Many schools arrange for professional photographers to photograph their students early in the year. Click here to read how to export student data for them so you can then import individual student photos en masse' back into Edge.
• For other tips click the Help button at the bottom of the page in Edge.
• For further assistance contact Edge Support: 0800 600 159, support@edgelearning.co.nz

Half a year gone .. or to go ...

The first two terms of 2019 have certainly had their fair share of events with teachers gaining their hard earned salary increase and improvements in conditions. As well the flu season arrived early with plenty of schools having many students away .. and of course measles is trying to make an unwanted come back.

In amongst all that Edge had a very successful and well attended conference in Queenstown and we are already looking ahead for a 2020 North Island venue .. details will be out shortly.

Edge SM also continues to have incremental updates with the July 9 release squashing a good number of bugs as well as adding features including:

• allowing Vistab to post back lateness and attendance info to Edge when students sign-in and sign-out using the Vistab tablet at schools .. if you are using VizTab this feature can be turned on via Admin>School Settings.
• Implemented an NZQA Change where all papers in a standard had to be submitted digitally if one was to be submitted digitally. No more mix and match between digital submission and non-digital.
• Dashboard Notifications are now grouped by date.
• Users can now filter Dashboard Notifications by type, and choose to show only unread or all Notifications.
• A "Mark all as read" link has been added to the Dashboard Notifications UI to allow Users to clear their unread notifications.
• Clickable links have been added to Pastoral Dashboard Notifications to navigate directly to a student's pastoral records (in Teacher Only mode) or to edit the pastoral record (in Admin Mode if the User has the Pastoral Officer role).

Feature reminder:

Widgets:

These are tiles displaying live information that you can add to your Dashboard page.

eg. 

- End of term countdown (ie. days to go).

- Student birthdays

- My Class

To add .. on the Dashboard page click Add Widget then click Add after the description. NB. the available widget list will vary depending on the roles you have in Edge.

- Widgets can be dragged to different positions if required. 

- Click Save when done.

MyClass page button (Teacher mode) .. View Classes and Groups (Admin mode .. People menu)

- A sortable grid display of Classes, Groups and Year Levels that includes student's core details, contact information and notes .. that be clicked to view

- Buttons to access Print Lists and view Billable Items .. teacher mode

- Email and Push Notification functionality .. if enabled by your school.

Entering Staff Details in edge

In the light of recent events, it has become very important to keep details on students and staff up-to-date.

As important as student details, staff details are often left, or only minimal data is entered.  I encourage schools to enter as much detail on staff as they can.  Edge now has emergency contact details on each staff member. 

Where to go? – Click on People – Under Staff column, Click on View/Edit Staff. Select staff member. Enter all the details you have.

Once finished, you have the choice to export this to Excel or print to pdf.

As always, we are here to help you get the best out of edge software!