Technology - Data: the golden opportunity

Data: the golden opportunity

Your school's results may seem to be excellent but how do they compare to those of similar establishments elsewhere? We look at ways to analyse nuggets of information
Words Julie Nightingale

Schools today record a wealth of assessment data, but capturing the data is not, of itself, much use if it merely sits on the school's management information system to be dug out only at report time.
To analyse data closely is a timeconsuming process for schools but technology is increasingly coming to their aid, with tools to help them mine the key information from data mountains.
Some of these tools support assessment for learning for individual children, but technology can also reveal year-group or school-wide patterns and anomalies that would previously have passed undetected. This is as true for high performing schools as it is for those that are struggling.
One example is schools that are resting on their laurels, with a succession of respectable GCSE scores, but that are failing to stretch their pupils to achieve their full potential. They may not realise they are 'coasting' until they study the data.
A new wave of assessment products could help. For example, with Sims Capita's Assessment Manager software, staff can opt to see data organised according to an individual child, cohort, year group or by a grouping such as gifted and talented, all represented in graphic form at the touch of a button. It enables the school to pinpoint key areas of weakness where intervention is required (see case study on page 13).
The software also enables schools to compare themselves against national benchmarks to see how they rate against schools of similar types around the country - another measure of whether a school is 'coasting'.
Graham Cooper, an ex-deputy headteacher and now head of marketing for Sims explains: "A school can compare itself against national benchmarks; for example, with a school that has the same percentage of pupils on free school meals, or against schools that have pupils with a similar level of attainment when they join. This facility helps schools identify if they could be stretching their pupils more. The analysis can be done at whole school, cohort, class or individual student level, which allows real focus on learning outcomes in the context of similar schools. This can be a very powerful tool for identifying the next stages in raising standards."
Another hidden problem that technology can help to disinter is 'within school variation' - for example, a whole cohort of higherability children failing to meet their targets in one particular subject, yet performing well in others; or a set of children of equal ability split into two groups with different
teachers with one far out-performing the other. It may sound like a minor problem but within- school variation in England is well above the average of that of other countries, according to the economic thinktank the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It is also between fi ve and 14 times greater than variance between schools. A study for the National College for School Leadership in 2007, identifi ed "encouraging the sharing of data between and within departments" as one of the ways to overcome this variation.
Alfiesoft, a software package from Serco Learning, was designed to support assessment for learning and the Assessing Pupils' Progress strategy, but it can also help to identify within school variation. The software can sit on a learning platform or be used independently. Introduced in 2008, it enables teachers to construct
assessments according to the stage they are at in the curriculum, or for particular children. The questions are drawn from QCA national tests and the question items are standardised against national levels. The information produced can be used to determine group, as well as individual, curricular strengths and targets for development and to indicate the next stage in personalising their learning.
The standardisation is important. It eradicates the risk of inconsistency between subject teachers in marking, so the data produced will highlight any wide variations in performance by classes taught by different teachers.
Pete O'Hagan, Serco's research and innovation director and a former teacher, says that local authorities and soft federations of schools are using the product to help identify best practice and to pinpoint variation within and between schools.
"In school, people don't use standardised assessments very often. There are easy markers and hard markers across a school. Alfi esoft is a deep diagnostic tool. The quality of information generated is very deep.
"When I was a teacher we would give different assessments and write reports based on those assessments but there was no standardisation, so one might be more rigorous than another, even though they purported to measure the same standards in different subjects. Schools who want to move forward want to use more validated testing."

SCHOOL CASE STUDY

Hodgson School, an 11-16 specialist technology college in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, is one of the top performing schools nationally. In 2002, its GCSE scores of 52 per cent A*-C, and 49 per cent including English and Maths, were respectable but the school has resisted the temptation to 'coast'. By 2008, results had shot up to 97 per cent gaining 5 or more A* to C grades, and 72 per cent including English and maths.
The continuous improvement is the product of various strategies - curriculum development, fi nding the right courses to motivate students, a series of new vocational courses, added leadership capacity and expanding
the time spent on KS4 courses.
But the school, with the help of Assessment Manager software, has also been adept at making use of one of its key existing resources: its data. It tracks at a departmental level to ensure every student makes as much progress as possible within the subject. Tracking sheets are regularly updated with results produced by either internal or external assessment, be it coursework, module tests or assignments.
The Assessment Manager software sits on the school's management information system, and in class the teacher can call up all the student's assessment data on screen, such as test scores and coursework marks, to
give the student a clear picture of their achievements and next targets.
Importantly, they are used by the teacher and student to decide where and how they can get those extra marks and can pinpoint weak areas.
Deborah Bradley, is an assistant lead teacher on the school's Raising Acheivement Partnership, which involves meeting people from other schools to provide guidance and mentoring in order to help them improve their results. She says: "Of course every school collects data on student assessment, every school reports back to parents and every school is working towards targets. But none of these have any effect if they are not used by teachers, students and parents effectively. We are data rich but we have to be action-rich as well.
"Staff know exactly where students are and we can target those who need extra help to improve. But more importantly we share this data with the students and parents via Sims Assessment Manager to create interim reports, assessment alerts and written reports on a regular basis."
Assessment Manager provides heads of year and Key Stage coordinators with access to data across whole cohorts of children which enables them to spot, for example, how gifted and talented students or
students with special needs are progressing. Bradley says: "We go across a range of subjects and see what the areas for intervention might be, for example, if a child is doing OK in science but less well in maths and English. At the click of a button you can see all the data and the patterns emerging."