What to do with a years worth of data

Schools collect a vast amount of data every year, and by the end of term four your school is filled to the brim with data. However, simply collecting the data is not enough - as AISNSW puts perfectly in issue 5 of The Link; 

“The value comes from being able to interpret what the data means for individuals, groups and whole classes of students, and then to use it to make decisions about classroom instruction and wellbeing interventions.”

AISNSW

Organising, analysing and interpreting this data is what informs your strategic plans and goals for the new year, but where do you start with the mountain of data you’ve collected over the last 12 months? 

Here are six types of school data that you can use to inform your decision-making in the new year. 

Academic/ assessment performance  

All schools will generate end-of-year academic reports, however, what are you doing with that data? Looking beyond individual reports to examine whole-school or cohort performance can provide a different perspective on your school’s activities 

Viewing student growth in assessment results on a class, cohort and/or school level gives you vital insight into how your school is performing over time, helps you identify trends in certain subjects or groups, and can inform your goal-setting for the future.  

Your assessment data can also help you draw insights into the effectiveness of your assessment processes. Looking at the distribution of results for a certain assignment, for example, can help you judge the effectiveness of that assessment item. 

For most assessment outcomes, the cohort results should look somewhat like a bell curve, with a decent distribution of results among students. If you find the majority of results for an assessment are skewing toward one end of the chart, it may be worth looking into why. Perhaps the assessment item was too easy or too difficult, or maybe the assessment criteria too strict. 

Any large disparities in cohort assessment results should also be considered for review. For instance, if different classes are getting vastly different results for the same assignment, it may be worth investigating whether there are inconsistencies in your grading process. If it’s due to different marking techniques among teachers, consider whether cross-marking or increased communication may help ensure consistency for future assessment items. 

Also, take this opportunity to dive into your student’s external results for the year and how they compare to regular assessment results. If a particular student or group is performing well in NAPLAN or ACER PAT testing but falling short in their regular academic results, it might be worth investigating why. Perhaps the student is academically inclined but simply doesn’t enjoy engaging with schoolwork, it may be an issue with the grading process, or maybe the assignment was too difficult. 

Finally, comparing academic results across subjects and over time will help identify any common problem areas. For example, if the year 9 English cohort has poor subject results, consider; how are they performing across other subjects, and how have previous cohorts performed? If you identify any clear trends, it may be a good opportunity to start a cross-departmental collaborative discussion with curriculum leaders.  

Student Wellbeing 

If you track student wellbeing throughout the school year, it is worth investigating any annual trends in wellbeing outcomes. 

Consider looking at the ‘who, what, when, and why’ of student wellbeing.  

• Who is feeling stressed more often? Is there a particular cohort or class that is struggling more than others?  
• What are the main reasons for negative trends in student wellbeing? Are students feeling stressed? Unhappy? Bored?  
• When are these trends appearing? Are there certain times of the year students are feeling more stressed? How can you support them during this time?  
• Why are they feeling this way? Are students reporting similar stressors in their wellbeing reports, such as an upcoming exam or conflict in a specific class? Alternatively, is there something in common that has boosted overall student morale – a positive response to student awards, social events or other wellbeing activities that could be repeated or expanded next year? 

Answering these questions will help you identify the primary stressors that need to be addressed and will inform your school-wide student wellbeing goals for the new year. 

If you are looking for a way to reliably capture wellbeing data, check out the Learning Analytics Suite Wellbeing Module with Wellbeing Pulse surveys. 

Attendance Trends 

While attendance is something that schools generally track progressively throughout the year, looking at the year’s attendance trends can tell you a great deal about patterns in student behaviour. As with student wellbeing data, you want to focus on the who, when and why.   

• Who are your students/ cohorts with the best and worst attendance rates? 
• When are absence rates highest? Such as swimming carnivals or PD days? Are students avoiding a certain class or timetable period more than others?  
• Why are they missing school? What are the top absence reasons? 

Using data to answer these questions will help you to more accurately diagnose why students aren’t attending and what can be done to solve any potential issues.

Pastoral Care/ Behaviour

Summarising your progressive reports and looking at the years’ Pastoral Care data can give you an informed look at your student behaviour trends.  

Look into your most frequent Pastoral Care incidents over the past year, from a class, cohort or school perspective. When do these incidents occur – is it a certain class or timetable period? Is there a consistency in the environment or circumstances, or, are there teachers that log incidents more frequently than others? Identifying these patterns will assist your Pastoral Care leaders in creating an action plan to support and improve student behaviour in future years.  

Using Pastoral Care data is a great opportunity to track and encourage good behaviour as well. If you track positive activities, like good teamwork, leadership, merits, or even having zero detentions, consider looking into ways to reward this behaviour so that others might strive for it next year. 

In summary, looking into what your Pastoral incidents have in common could bring certain patterns to light, helping you to address trends that can help you set some more broad school-wide pastoral goals and strategies to achieve them. 

Enrolment Data 

Enrolment information is essential for accurate budgets and forecasting, as well as for informing things like staffing, timetabling and resource allocation. 

However, enrolment data also has uses beyond financial planning – such as informing your upcoming marketing strategies. Enrolment information can be used to gain insight into your target audience, analyse marketing activity and create location-specific campaigns. 

Some systems can allow you to take it a step further and visualise the data using geocoding and heatmapping, so you can clearly see which locations are more successful than others. For example, if there is a specific area of your local region that is booming with enrolments, investigate why – is there a popular feeder school, has there been significant population growth, or have you been implementing more marketing activities in that area, such as a billboard campaign? Once you know why enrolments are higher in that area, you can try and apply that knowledge to other suburbs and regions. 

Using heatmap information can help you can see which strategies are successful and where, allowing you to make effective use of your marketing budget and improve the quality of your enrolments. 

Furthermore, the end of the year is the best time to interrogate your enrolment data and take a good look at how potential students are moving through your enrolment funnel. Perhaps a large number of families submit an application but then don’t continue on to an interview. Looking at the year’s enrolment data as a whole will help you identify these ‘leaks’ in your enrolment ship, allowing you to improve processes and get to the bottom of it before it becomes a problem. 

You may also be able to pull out demographic information from your enrolment data to get an overview of common traits and factors across your school’s community, such as location, profession, or average income. This data can help with planning school activities such as school trips and excursions to fit within families’ budgets or choosing an offsite location for your swimming carnival that is close by for the majority. 

Extracurricular  

Finally, diving into your extracurricular data can help with planning next year’s programs.  

Trends in extracurricular activities can come and go, so it’s important to take a look at what students are participating in each year to inform your extracurricular offerings, budget and resource allocation in the coming years.  

Take a look at the most popular activities and how participation compares to previous years. Perhaps IT Club has grown significantly from last year – what can you do to accommodate a potentially larger turnout next year? Is there a trend towards more technology-focused extracurriculars, or are students flocking towards specific team sports? What categories are popular among certain cohorts? 

Contact the TrackOne team to learn about our extracurricular module, and how you can track ‘Soft Skills’ like teamwork or leadership. 

Your school’s data tells a story, no matter what area of the school you are looking at. Diving into and analysing your data year on year can uncover overarching trends within your school, and ensure that the plans and strategies you put in place are well-informed for years to come.