School Mock Court Case Project SCIO

Teacher’s Guide

Principal Sponsor

Getting Set-up Welcome to the School Mock Court Project.

On registering you will receive an email

detailing your username and password. For

security, it is important to change your

password so as to ensure your account can

only be accessed by you.

Changing it is simple. The simplest way is to

login and on the top right is a box with your

details. Click the black arrow to change your

password. Once done you will be

immediately logged out. Now sign-in with

your new details.

You can change your email address in the

same area, but remember this is the address

we identify you with.

Teacher Type We have two teacher types on the system,

but to add to the confusion, one can be

both.

The ‘principal teacher’ controls the overall

project for the school. Each school can only

have one principal teacher.

When signing in, if you are the principal

teacher you will go directly to your ‘control

screen’. To go to your class screen, click

‘Teacher Page’ from the top menu.

A teacher controls his or her own class and

is responsible for

authorising the students,

uploading their work and

allocating roles. The

principal teacher can not amend anything a

teacher does.

The principal teacher allocates tutor dates

and can delete users from their school as

well as recover passwords for students who

have forgotten them. At the foot of the

page, you can see all the court dates, for all

the classes. This does not include ‘Pre-

Proofs’ as these are done at your school.

Principal Teacher The overall function of the

principal teacher is to act as a

conduit between us, your tutors and your

fellow teachers.

Once logged in you have one main screen to

contend with. On the right you can see who is

waiting to be authorised to access the system.

If you believe someone’s access has been

compromised or someone has been

authorised access in error, ask the class

teacher to ‘unauthorise’ them and you can

simply hit the delete button - they will be

denied access and removed from your school

records.

The centre section is important as it shows

you all the relevant dates of the project, but

these are currently blank. It is down to the

principal teacher to agree visit dates with the

two tutors and on agreeing, to enter the dates

in these field. This immediately updates your

teachers’ screens, the tutors diary and our

own monitor screens - meaning we don’t call

to chase you to arrange the visits.

On the left, you can see the student stats as

well as the password recovery box. Simply fill

in the details to recovery the forgotten details.

Class Teacher Looks a little confusing, but let’s break this

down into chunk sized bites.

Your Details

Top left hand box has your details. If these

are wrong, please let us know as soon as

possible, although you can change your

password and/or email address from here

yourself.

Tutors

As we get closer to the start of your project

tutors will be allocated to your school and will

appear in the top centre box. It will also show

if they are tutoring for the Pursuer or

Defender teams. Click on their name to email

them. You can also speak to them through the

forum, although this will be slower. See Forum

for more details.

Diary

The diary is important and must be adhered

to, else you will suffer a deduction in points

(min 5, plus 1 for each further day late, or

part thereof). Why? If, for example, your

initial writ is late, the opposing Defenders will

have less time to do their defences. It also

puts the other school out of kilt in terms of

planning etc. Closer to the trials, this might

mean important documents never reach the

Sheriff on time!

Stats

The top section gives you an overview of your

students, whereas the below section tells you

the points awarded in terms of the parental

participation section. NB: If a student is not

allocated to a team, they can not earn bonus

points.

Upload

This is the section that enables you to ‘serve’

your documents on the opposing teams and

or pass files to the examiners (art etc). The

files must be in an acceptable format -

principal a Microsoft, PDF, JPEG or PNG file.

There is a maximum file size of 2MB which

many overlook, but the uploading will be

refused if the file is too

big. One of the biggest

problems is students

putting loads of very

large photos onto a Word

document for uploading. Try a site like

https://tinypng.com which works really well in

compressing images to a fraction of their

original size. If all else fails, break the file into

more than one - as long as we can see it has

been spilt.

Once a file has been uploaded, the students

will be able to see it from home as will the

opposing team (if it is intended for them) as

well as the examiners. It also marks your

school record on our system, so again we are

not chasing you to upload. Make sure the

document is loaded into the correct section -

Pursuer or Defender and into the right

category (writ/art/diary … etc)

NB: It is the last Initial Writ or Defence

uploaded that remains. Older versions are

automatically deleted.

NB: Watch your timetable. Once the time to

upload has passed, the relevant upload button

will turn from green to red—meaning that

section has been locked and if you missed the

deadline, you are now facing penalty points.

In this situation (and only in this situation)

email the document to our Admin team who

will upload it for you. The sooner, the less

penalty points you get.

Students

Along the top menu you will see Student

Update. Your students must FIRST register to

use the system (you should not do this for

them). They will choose their username and

password, but are refused access to the site

until you allow (authorise) them in. On this

screen, you can allocate them to a team,

assign them a role and give them access to

the site. They must be authorised to gain

access and must be allocated to a team to:

Cont ...

Once students have been allocated to either

the Pursuer or Defender team (NOT before

then), they can ask their parents/carers to

complete the parent quiz. More than one can

have a go, but be warned, it will be the one

who attempted the quiz last whose score is

recorded!

Each team can earn up to an extra 5 bonus

points. The scoring is based on the

percentage of parents/carers taking part,

together with their average score - so the

more parents that take part, the higher the

score is likely to be and the more points each

team will earn!

The quiz is meant to be fun, so some of the

answers are a little silly.

The children can give the

adults a hand answering

the questions, but this is

more about parental

participation.

If the student has a

sibling in the project,

each parent/carer will

have to do the quiz

twice, once under each log-in. If a student

changes teams, inform us so we can transfer

their points.

Class Teacher

1) benefit from parent

points (see relevant section)

2) to work from home

and to see their own teams ‘papers’.

View Uploads

This allows you to see what you have

uploaded for each

Team / Role Allocations

Once you have updated a student, they will

see on their screen the role they have been

given, but at the foot of your main screen you

will be able to see the different roles all your

students have in their respective teams.

You can have either one or two solicitors and

should be fielding three witnesses. For smaller

schools, we would suggest one solicitor and

two witnesses. Thereafter, the number of

gown-makers, writers, researchers, etc, is

really down to you. Some schools find it easier

to ‘job share’, but that is up to you.

Remember, the artist can do more than just

paint a picture. They could be the cameraman

or photographer for the journalist. Perhaps a

TV clip could be done?

Court

The project may well start without your actual

dates for going to court showing. These will

go up once a Sheriff (Judge) has been

allocated and space given in the court diary.

NB: These a real courts with real Sheriffs

sitting. It is possible your court time/date

could change with little notice. While every

endeavour is made to avoid this, court

business will always come first. Please keep

checking this section as the date approaches

Speciality Day

This is when many specialists come together

to address the students. Whether they be

from the Judiciary, robe makers or those

dealing with mobile phones. A great

opportunity for the students to learn and to

see their opposition for the first time.

Opposing team

The buttons to the right of the Court Cases

Section (foot of main page) enable you to

email the opposing team as well as to see

what they have served on you - including their

initial writ or defences, witness list and list of

productions.

Parent/Carer Section - Extra Points

Forum For the students, this is probably the most

used part of the website. That said, we urge

teachers to use this as a way of engaging

with students outwith class, us and your

tutors.

Important announcements are posted on the

forum and we have stopped emailing

teachers individually as this is proving too

time consuming on matters involving more

than one school. Last year some teachers

used the forum to give and receive ideas,

seek clarification on points and even to have

a good old moan.

When you click the forum button, you will be

asked to sign in again. This is for security

reasons. The password remains the same as

for the main site. You will then be given two

chat rooms to enter - students or teachers

(The word Senior precedes both if you are in

the Seniors Projects). While you can enter

either chat room, your students can not see

your room.

You have access to the students section to

see what the chat is, what they are talking

most about, but also to help ensure students

behave.

Some teachers have gone in pretending to be

students and we have no problem with that if

it is done properly. Others have gone in and

set-up their school as a ‘University’ or the like

and the children respond well to that sort of

humour. Remember, usernames can only be

identified by you and us - no-one else. Tutors

can only see usernames - not their real

names or even which school they are at.

ALL posts and private messages are stored

and linked back to the user and their school.

If a student sees or receives an inappropriate

message/post, they should click the

exclamation mark (top right of the post/

message) and encourage them to inform you

and you to contact us.

When entering

this forum for

the first time,

go to your

control panel

(Profile) to

change your

signature or to

add an avatar

(small picture) if you so wish. Unlike your

students, we encourage you to enter your

email address so the system can email you

when a private message has been received

(this facility is available to secondary

students as well). It is here were you can

send and receive private messages.

You can send a message to your students,

fellow teachers or tutors. This would be

useful if your student wishes to ask a

question they don't want the other teams to

see! Private messages can also be sent to

the project team (username = Admin),

although we will not be able to help with

specific questions like drafting etc, but will

answer general questions.

Teachers and secondary students can email

documents to each other through the forum.

This is prohibited for primary school

students.

Last year there was an informal competition

as to who could get the most responses to a

post and who could post the most! Some

students decided to help others with general

advice, which was often well received.

Visits - In and Out of School A key part to the project are the visits - the

tutors visiting your school, the Speciality Day,

Intermediary trials and the finals.

TUTORS

Most of the Tutors are solicitors, paralegals,

diploma students or advocates. Each give up

their time voluntarily, but each also has a

busy workload. Court practitioners sometimes

have to cancel a planned visit at very short

notice, as is the nature of their work. Please

be understanding.

The key to successful tutor visits is

communication. Please don't wait for the

tutor to contact you. Click the email button

and send them a message. Alternatively, pick

up the phone. Remember, some tutors will be

a little nervous and a little reassurance goes a

long way.

On the first visit, it is ideal if all the students

are in the same area. This allows the tutors to

introduce themselves and to talk generally

about the project. Hopefully, before they

arrive, you will have already introduced the

project to the students and have allocated

them into their teams. Part way through the

first tutorial, the teams will be spilt so they

can talk more specifically about the actual

roles.

Visits two and three should have the students

already split into their teams awaiting the

tutors.

NB: The children remain your responsibility

when the tutors visit. If there is no adult

supervision by the school, the tutors have

been told they can leave the classroom.

Intermediary Trails.

We have already touched on the scheduling

of the intermediary trails and where to find

this on your screen. Please remember these

are real courts and some will still be running

when you arrive.

Please do NOT arrive earlier than

15 mins before the first trials.

Some courts will refuse entry.

Please follow the directions of

our staff and the court officials,

especially in terms of where to

go. Please only use the toilets

you are directed to use.

Some courts offer catering

facilities. If you make use of these, please do

clean up after yourselves.

Not all courts have large public galleries.

Naturally, space is offered first to students,

then mums and dads, before other family

members and friends. If you are expecting

large numbers, please let us know.

Finals

All schools are expected to attend irrespective

of whether you are competing or not. Schools

not competing in the finals may be asked to

show case their school by providing a soloist,

choir or even a teacher as Black Rod/Macer.

There is an awards ceremony at the end.

NB: Those attending trials can not sit in on

other trials until they have been heard. In

other words if you arrive as a class and one

team has a trail at 4.30 and the other at 5.30,

those in the later trial must not sit in on the

earlier trial - but those in the earlier trial may

sit in on those in the later trail.

Parents/teachers are not able to assist

students during the trials.

Resources A very important part of the website and it is

crucial that you look through all your

resources in order to try and work out what

team’s position is going to be.

Don’t be frightened by some of the

terminology, If you don’t understand a term,

ask your tutor or us, through the forum.

There is loads of help out there, you just

need to ask.

Have a look at the videos on the site and

postings on the forum. Try and work out

what happened when the phone was

acquired. Who might have said what to who

and what really did happen.

Maths plays a really important role here and

is often overlooked. Remember to tell your

story and to get your facts across.

The role of artists, journalists, robe makers

are very important. Last year there was a big

drive on art and the level reached was

staggering - earning the schools who pushed

in these areas big points.

Remember, to win at the

intermediaries it is the

combined effort of all

roles (and parental/carer

participation) that adds

up to determine who

competes in the finals. Only one defender and

one pursuer team from each region go

through to compete in the finals in

Edinburgh., although everyone goes through

to watch.

Schools needing additional help should let us

know as soon as possible and we will do all

that we can to assist.

Do’s and Dont’s

Never leave tutors with students

Please use the forum to communicate once the project starts

Follow instructions by us and court officials when at court and do not arrive more than 15

minutes before the first trials

Organise your first tutor visits with your tutor as soon as you can

Enjoy!

School Mock Court Case Project SCIO (SC043342) 1st Floor 108 Commercial St Edinburgh EH6 6NF T: 0131 555 8415 F: 0131 561 8205 E: info@mockcourt.org.uk W: www.mockcourt.org.uk

Principal Sponsor

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