Support Headings are the names of the different types of support provided at your college. For example: Initial Assessment, Dyslexia Diagnostic, Communicator, Literacy Support etc.
To enter your Support Headings, go to the Main Menu > 1) Getting started, preparing the database > Support Headings Manager
•Enter the names of Support Headings such as 'Initial Assessment' or 'Dyslexia Support'. Names should reflect the type of support being provided, therefore a heading such as 'Additional Tutor Support' is NOT a good example as it does not contain reference to a specific type of support.
•Ensure that your terminology is consistent throughout - for example, any forms used by support staff should include the same terminology as on SpirALS and vice versa. Ambiguous terms or 2 or more different headings referring to the same support, will end up confusing the administrator and produce poor data on reports.
•In addition to the compulsory fields - heading, organisation and type, other default data can be entered - such as 'support stage' and 'staff rate' if this information is always the same for a particular support heading.
•Organisation defaults to your own college but can be changed to reflect the agency providing the support. (You can also change this on the support record when entering support and costs to students.)
•To add a new support heading, click on the 'Add New' button. Take care not to over-type an existing support heading.
•To amend, select the appropriate support heading from the yellow list on the left of the form, amend the support heading name and/or details on the right of the form.
•To save the record, click on the 'Save' button. Clicking on the 'Close' button will also save the record.
•To delete, select the appropriate support heading from the yellow list on the left and click the 'Delete' button at the bottom of this form.
TIP: 'Heading Type' is a static list of categories that cannot be edited and which may be useful for collating consistent national statistics. 'Support Type' is a similar function but can be edited and therefore used to add a greater level of detail to the heading type and/or your own local statistical information.