A Love Letter to the Learning Analytics Suite.

As the TrackOne Studio Learning Analytics Suite Product owner, I am very passionate about the value that the Suite offers, and I would love to share some of that passion with you.

Let me tell you what I love.

I love that the Learning Analytics Suite is a single place to collate a huge amount of school data.
(Having worked in schools, I say ‘yay!’ for fewer spreadsheets!)

I love the way it collates students' historic and current academic data, because it allows school staff to identify trends in the students’ learning journeys, shows students improvement over time; and highlight any students who are showing decline so that strategies can be put in place for support and improvement.

I love the many, many ways that academic data is presented for analysis, because this provides crucial information to help teachers and school leaders look at current practices, identify where they could be doing better, and then monitor if the strategies they put in place produce the results they are expecting.

I love that the Suite allows external data to sit alongside internal result data. These standardised and diagnostic assessments can come at significant cost, so being able to access this data in a single location allows meaningful connections to be made. TrackOne Studio does this very well.

I love that it’s not just about academic data though; there is plenty of other data collected in the Suite to help create a more complete picture of each student.

I love that absence data in considered, because making connections between student results and their attendance is important, particularly where students are struggling academically and have high absenteeism.

I love that behavioural data is included in the student profile, both positive and negative, because it provides further non-academic information about the students. Whether a student has had a lot of disciplinary type activity, shows a consistently high work ethic, low engagement etc all helps us better understand the makeup of the student and what else might be occurring in these young people’s lives. The more information we have, the more informed we are to make better decisions and plans.

I love that students’ extra-curricular data can be shown - sports, bands, choir, volunteering, hobbies etc., because so much value is gained from these activities, and this involvement helps shape the students into the individuals that they are.

I love that teachers can look up their classes in the Suite and see all of this data above in one place. It’s a huge timesaver, helps them understand their students, and to have informed conversations with parents at interview times.  
A classroom is full of pretty cool young humans, each with their own experiences, challenges, interests and passions, and I love that the Suite can display the data to contribute to their understanding of their students.

I love that head teachers and curriculum leaders have the tools to monitor student performance in a variety of ways, by individual classes, by subject, or for entire year levels, and even be notified about students who reach threshold areas of concern.

I love our Student Pathways module, which asks students to reflect on their results, and then set goals for the next period of time, because it means they are more involved and invested in their learning.

I love our Wellbeing module, where students can be surveyed to find out how they're feeling about things overall, because it gives students the opportunity to reach out for help if they need it, and flag those who might not.
I love that pastoral staff can monitor the students' 'Wellbeing Scores', because it means they can identify students who are struggling, and over time, monitor for significant changes in a student's score. 

I love that email notifications can be sent regarding students of concern, known as 'Focus Students '. These are students whose results slip to a concerning level, or their absenteeism reaches into the high numbers, or their wellbeing scores drop too low. It flags these students so that help can be provided to them, so they don't 'slip through the cracks '.

How about the Awards module? What a time saver this is for schools! Gone are the spreadsheets trying to work out which students should get an award because they got more than 5 As, or the highest result across 3 subjects, or all results above a B... the headaches this causes trying to manually work all of this out. For. Every. Year level! 

I love that our Suite is not just for school staff; and if schools wish to, they can activate the parent and student portals, so that they too can access the wealth of information.

Long before me, the founders of TrackOne had a vision. When I look at this product that they produced, I just think 'wow, how good is it!'

It’s both humbling and exciting to be involved with the future of this product.

I'll finish with one of my favourite quotes that I love to hear, and I've heard it many times from schools, and it's this: "Our teachers love TrackOne Studio."

Deb Ferdinands
TrackOne Studio Product Owner