Learn About Work
School Co-ordinators Guide
September 2012
Contents
Introduction........................................................................................ 4
Getting started ................................................................................... 5
Log in .............................................................................................. 5
Supply SIMs data for import ............................................................ 6
Secure transfer of SIMS data to Spark! ........................................... 7
Student access to Learn About Work .............................................. 7
Emailing the Spark! team ................................................................ 7
Noticeboard........................................................................................ 7
Search 9
Search available jobs and view job descriptions .............................. 9
View available and booked placements for a job ............................. 9
View the students that are booked to a particular job ...................... 9
Book students to particular job ........................................................ 9
Students and bookings ................................................................... 11
Show students by tutor group and status ...................................... 11
Specify student Tutor Group and Flag ........................................... 11
Unlock student choices ................................................................. 11
Own-found placement details ......................................................... 12
Bulk printing, Flags and Mailmerge................................................ 13
Bulk flagging of fields .................................................................... 13
Bulk printing of key forms .............................................................. 13
Producing mailmerge source data files.......................................... 14
Reports and Help ............................................................................. 15
System users ................................................................................ 15
Placement options......................................................................... 15
Placement selection ...................................................................... 15
Placement support ........................................................................ 16
Student feedback .......................................................................... 16
Help Resources ............................................................................ 16
Settings 17
Set school address and key contact details ................................... 17
Specify different student cohorts’ placement dates........................ 17
Update the WEX students’ noticeboard ......................................... 17
Activate student Learn About Work functionality ........................... 17
Specify minimum and maximum numbers of placement selections 17
Log Out 19
3
Introduction
Spark! Learn About Work is the new name for the upgraded version of Veryan Webview.
The new system is designed to be really easy to use, whilst retaining maximum functionality.
We hope this simple guide will provide a quick and easy reminder of key functions and help you
find your way around the system.
One major change is that moving forward all students will be given access to Learn About Work
so they can access the careers resources and download an electronic template letter and
placement agreement that will help them secure their own placement. We believe this is a
really important set of skills for them to develop to help secure jobs in future.
Learn About Work supports steps 2 to 6 on the Work Experience & Internships process wheel
below.
If you spot opportunities for improving the usability of the Learn About Work system, please do
not hesitate to get in touch with the Spark! team on 020 8560 9900.
If you have any questions then please contact the Spark team at any time, but also make a
point of attending our annual Work Experience & Internships masterclass to brush up on your
skills and stay up-to-date with any system changes.
Getting started
Open your web browser (Internet Explorer is recommended) and go to:
http://spark.learnaboutwork.net/
Log in
On the welcome page click on ‘Member of school staff’:
Select your school name from the drop down list and enter the secure PIN number provided by
the Spark! Work Experience & Internships Team. Then click on the ‘Login’ button .
For schools or colleges commissioning a specialist work based learning programme (e.g. BTEC
or Industry Insight Day) Spark! may set you up with a second secure PIN.
After clicking ‘Login’, the Welcome screen should appear:
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Supply SIMs data for import
Register your students with Spark! by emailing a spreadsheet from your School Information
Management System (SIMS).
A file of student data can have any name but must be: in a TAB delimited text file format;
without field names; and with fields in the order shown below:
1. Last name
19. ClientType
2. First name
20. EmailAddress
3. Date of birth (dd/mm/yy)
21. CelphoneNo
4. Sex (M/F)
22. SEN (y/n)
5. House name
23. ShoeSize
6. House number
24. General_Notes
7. Address line 1
25. Occupational choice 1
8. Address line 2
26. Occupational choice 2
9. Town
27. Occupational choice 3
10. County
28. Occupational choice 4
11. PostCode
29. Area choice 1
12. Home phone
30. Area choice 2
13. Year group
31. Area choice 3
14. Tutor group
32. Area choice 4
15. Ethnicity
33. FEMIS Number
16. School name
34. Academic Achievement Profile
17. Health condition(s)
Score
18. Health notes
Please create a separate file for each cohort of students. E.g. “Stmarys_Yr10.txt” and
“Stmarys_Extd.txt”
Note: Invariably not all the fields listed above will be available. This is not a problem but
certain rules must be followed:
1. What data IS available must be represented in the above order
2. Any unavailable data fields must be represented by a blank field
3. It is not necessary to add blank fields after the last available data item
A useful way to check a file’s format is to open and edit it in Microsoft Excel and then “save as”
a TAB delimited text file.
Example: In the spreadsheets pictured below, the file contains only the fields up to and
including the post code. Note that if no “House name” or “Address line 2” data is available, then
columns 5 and 8 (E and H) should be blank. Also, row 1 contains the first student’s data. It
should NOT contain field names “Last name”, ”First name” etc
Secure transfer of SIMS data to Spark!
Any data files from your School Information Management System (SIM) must be encrypted and
password protected using the latest version of “WinZip” before transmitting to Spark! You can
download the latest version of WinZip from: http://www.winzip.com
The ‘Zipped’ data can then be transmitted (uploaded and downloaded) using the highest level of
security via a dedicated school storage folder on “Dropbox”- http://www.dropbox.com
Telephone the Spark! team for the username and password to access your school’s storage
area on Dropbox.
Student access to Learn About Work
Once this is done, each student will be given their own secure PIN on a Welcome Sheet
supplied by Spark, including those with own finds or those on extended placement. Students
should be advised to keep their PIN to themselves.
For own find and extended placements, the students should now log-in to VeryAn complete
draft cover letters and application forms.
Remember as a School Co-ordinator you can access Student PINs from the ‘Reports and Help’
section of the website (Select ‘Student PINs by tutor Group’).
Emailing the Spark! team
If at any point you need to contact the Spark! team, click on the email link at the bottom of the
screen to bring up a new email message with the Work Experience Team address completed
automatically.
Write you e-mail message and click send email in the usual way.
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Noticeboard
Click on ‘Noticeboard’ from the horizontal main menu of the Learn About Work website. You
will see a screen similar to the one below:
This is updated by you as School Co-ordinator or the Spark! team and shows the latest
information, reminders etc. visible to your students under their log-in. Please help the Spark!
team keep this up-to-date.
Search
Click on the ‘Search’ link on the horizontal main menu of the Learn About Work website. You
will then see this screen:
This section of the Learn About Work website allows you to:
 Search through the available jobs and view job descriptions
 View available and booked placements for a job
 View the students that are booked to the particular job
 Book students to a particular job
Search available jobs and view job descriptions
You can search available jobs by:
 Entering a job number and clicking ‘Go’
 Looking up an employer’s name and clicking ‘Go’
 Making a classification selection
You can restrict your search to a specific post code or town by entering the details in the white
boxes and clicking on the ‘Submit’ button before you make your classification selection.
Click ‘View’ button to the right of the specific job description that you want to examine.
View available and booked placements for a job
Once you have selected the selected the specific job description, you will then be able to see at
the top of the screen (example below) the number of places, bookings and places left.
View the students that are booked to a particular job
Click on the ‘View Bookings’ button that appears after selecting to ‘View’ a specific job
description to see whether any students from your school have selected the placement.
Book students to particular job
First select to ‘View’ the specific job description.
Then, assuming there are places available, select the student you want to book onto the
placement from the drop-down list.
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Finally click on the ‘Book’ button.
If that is the last placement available for the particular job, then it will immediately get taken off
the availability list.
Students and bookings
Click on the ‘Students and bookings’ link on the horizontal main menu of the Learn About Work
website. You will then see this screen:
The ‘Students and bookings’ section of Learn About work allows School co-ordinators to:
 Show students by tutor group and status
 Specify student Tutor Group and Flag
 Unlock student choices if a change needs to be made
Show students by tutor group and status
These drop-down menus allow School Co-ordinators to display a list of students by tutor group
and status.
Status options are:
 Fixed - ????
 Booked - ????
 Booked O/F*- Booked own found
 Pending - ????
Then click ‘Go’ to run the query.
Specify student Tutor Group and Flag
You can add Tutor Group and Flag information by entering the data in the white boxes and then
clicking the ‘Submit’ button at the bottom of the screen.
Unlock student choices
Selecting the ‘Unlock’ button allows School Co-ordinators to unlock a student's selections after
they have been locked by the student printing the Selection Form. Unlocking selections will
allow the student to delete them and make other selections or change the preference level of
existing ones.
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Own-found placement details
Click on the ‘Own-Found Placement Details’ link on the horizontal main menu of the Learn
About Work website. You will then see this screen:
Ideally students should complete this form using their log-in to the Learn About Work website.
However, if for some reason this has not been possible, then this section allows you to enter the
information on their behalf and e-mail it to Spark!
Select the student, their Tutor group and Gender.
You can then enter: the name and address of the new provider; the provider’s telephone
number, contact name and an additional contact name; as well as general information note.
You can also enter your email address to receive a copy of the e-mail when you send it to
Spark!
You can then either click the ‘Save’ button to come back to the record later, or click ‘Save and
e-mail’ to send the information to Spark!
Bulk printing, Flags and Mailmerge
Click on the ‘Bulk printing, Flags and Mailmerge’ link on the horizontal main menu of the Learn
About Work website. You will then see this screen:
In this section of Learn About Work, School Co-ordinators can perform the following actions for
any number of students at once:
 update the 'Flag' field and/or the Tutor Group;
 print Job descriptions and Certificates;
 create files for use as source data files for mailmerge documents.
Bulk flagging of fields
To update fields simply edit the flag/tutor group fields as appropriate, use the scroll bar on the
right hand side to bring more students into view.
When you have made all your changes, click the ‘Update’ button to save them. The screen
should then clear and refresh, confirming your changes.
Do not use the ‘Select’ tick box if you are just using this page to update records.
To sort columns: The data may be sorted by Lastname, Firstname, Group or Flag by clicking
the column heading.
To flag/select students: Either select or flag students individually by clicking the tick boxes
or use the options in the panel at the top right.
Bulk printing of key forms
Select the students for whom you want to print the key forms, select the printout(s) using the
Job description or Certificate tick boxes in the lower right panel and click ‘Print’.
You can also specify that only placements booked since a specific date are printed.
By default forms will be generated in alphabetical order of student name. If you want them in
Tutor Group order, tick the ‘TG Order’ box before clicking ‘Print’.
The selected printout(s) will then be displayed in the browser and can be printed using the
browser print button.
Note: Although the forms appear on the screen in one continuous document, they should print
correctly paginated. If the pagination is not correct, try updating to the latest version of Internet
Explorer. You can do this from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie
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Producing mailmerge source data files
Select the students whose details you wish to mailmerge, select the appropriate mailmerge
option using the radio buttons in the top right panel and click ‘Go’.
You will then probably see a message box like this:
You need to download the file to your computer to use it as the source file for the mailmerge
document.
Click the ‘Save’ button and use the next box that pops up to save the file to a suitable location
on your computer.
Having saved the file, start your word processing software and create the mailmerge document.
Use this file as the data source.
Please review the help in your word processing package for guidance on the production of
mailmerge documents.
Note: The mailmerge options are (i) student data only and (ii) all placement data. If you choose
(ii) you will only get data for records whose status is 'Allocated', or 'To Be Visited' or ‘own found
placement' i.e. you will not get data for any records whose status is 'Withdrawn' or 'Cancelled'.
Reports and Help
Click on the ‘Reports and Help’ link on the horizontal main menu of the Learn About Work
website. You will then see this screen:
With the exception of the Help ‘Resources’, clicking on any of the links will run ‘queries’ in the
Learn About Work database to provide you with information to help administer key tasks to
support work experience programme delivery.
Once you have selected an option and run the query, it can be printed out by clicking the Print
button on the browser toolbar. You may automatically be promoted to print by the system.
Use the Back button on the web browser toolbar to return to this page after viewing/printing the
reports.
System users
Student List (alphabetical): Selecting this query generates an alphabetical list of all the
students in the database for your school with their PIN numbers.
Student PINS by tutor group: Selecting this query generates Tutor Group lists of students
with their PIN numbers. These lists are double-spaced to make it easy to cut into strips to issue
the PIN numbers to students if a reminder is needed.
Placement options
Job availability list: This query lists all available jobs.
New placements added: This query lists details of jobs added to/updated on Learn About
Work since the date entered.
Placement selection
Student choices/bookings: This query lists showing the Organisation/Company, Job Title,
Job Number and Booking Status (if this field in Learn About Work has been updated by the
Spark! team) for all the choices made by all your students.
Students who have not made any choices will not be shown. The student names will appear
more than once if the student has made more than one choice.
Students with insufficient selections: This query lists students who have made less than
minimum number of selections specified under system settings, showing the number of
selections they have made.
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Unbooked student lists: This query gives a choice of two lists:


Show ALL unbooked students; and
Show students who have made at least one choice, but are still unbooked.
These can then be ordered alphabetically or by tutor group
Post popular selections: This query lists the top 100 most popular jobs, along with the
number of choices made by students.
Placement support
Staff visit lists: This query lists all the students with confirmed placements which include
addresses and telephone numbers and can be ordered in various ways. When you select this
option, the following screen will appear:
If you wish, you can restrict your report to students with a particular flag, as well as by Tutor
group.
The ‘Order by’ drop down is useful to sequence by visitor or postcode when arranging teacher
placement visits.
If you select ‘Updatable list’ in the ‘Type of list’ drop down you can use this form to enter/update
visitor initials.
Enter values in the boxes in the ‘Visitor’ column and click ‘Submit’ (in the top right of the screen)
to save your changes. Remember to click ‘Submit’ at least once every ten minutes to avoid any
data loss.
Student feedback
Feedback report: This query provides a consolidated view of all the students’ quantitative
feedback on their placement experience.
Feedback comments: This query lists the additional qualitative feedback that the students’
provided on their placement experience.
Help Resources
This area of help resources has a link to this School Co-ordinator’s Learn About Work guide, the
students Learn About Work guide, as well as the Veryan Webview Knowledgebase.
Settings
Click on the ‘Settings’ link on the horizontal main menu of the Learn About Work website. You
will then see this screen:
The area allows you to:
 Set your school address and key contact details
 Specify different student cohorts’ placement dates
 Update the WEX students’ noticeboard
 Activate student Learn About Work functionality
 Specify minimum and maximum numbers of placement selections
Set school address and key contact details
Use this area to specify your school address and key contact details including your own as the
School Co-ordinator – and emergency out of hours contact.
Specify different student cohorts’ placement dates
The middle section of the screen allows you to specify the placement dates for up to 8 cohorts
of students. Use the check button to select the default/ current dates.
Update the WEX students’ noticeboard
Click on ‘Update WEX noticeboard’ to change the content of the noticeboard information that
appears when students from your school log into Learn About Work.
Activate student Learn About Work functionality
A range of Yes/ No radio buttons allow you to select:
 When students can visibility of the placements ‘Search’ area to access Spark! found
placements
 Whether students should be allowed to print job descriptions
 Whether students should be able to see XXXX (whose?) contact details
 Whether students should be able to see their final placement allocation
Allow/Disallow Job Description Printing: Clicking either of these links will allow/Disallow
the 'Printer-Friendly Version' button on the job description page.
Show/Hide contact details and address: Clicking either of these links will show/hide the contact
details and address.
Specify minimum and maximum numbers of placement selections
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Use these boxes to specify the minimum and maximum number of placement selections
required of your students. Spark! expect this to be set to is 3 and 3 as per our standard Service
Level Agreement.
Log Out
It is important that you click on ‘Log Out’ in the top right hand corner of the Learn About Work
website when you have finished using the system:
When you have successfully logged out, this screen will appear:
Be sure to close the web browser at this point to prevent students gaining access to the School
Co-ordinator section of Learn About Work.
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Formerly Hounslow Education Business Partnership, Spark! was founded in 1980 and
has been working with young people, schools and businesses creating new
opportunities and igniting careers for over thirty years.
The Clock Tower EMC2, Great West Road, Brentford, TW8 9AN
Company Number: 7409565 | Charity number: 1138697
UK Register of Learning Providers: 10033962
Spark! is the trading name of Hounslow Education Business Charity