In this blog series, Caroline Fisher, Product Manager at RM Education, delves into the wealth of ways that school MIS data can be used successfully to drive long-term improvements.
The DfE are currently in the process of moving school data from RAISEonline to the new Analyse School Performance (ASP) Service, a sister to the existing Compare School Performance Service.
This is intended to allow greater analysis of a school’s performance by authorized personnel, with more detailed information on key headline measures.
It provides a comparison of school and individual pupil level against national averages and can be filtered on contextual data. Ofsted have access to the ASP and CSP services using anonymized data, and will be looking at school-level, regional-level and national data.
Before a school visit, they will analyse the available data and during the visit they will be looking to see how well school personnel know their own data, and how comfortable they are with extracting and manipulating it to inform interventions and evidence their effectiveness.
Headteachers and Governors can combine the ASP information with Ofsted’s guidance to build a school development plan and monitor its effectiveness using the Key Stage results.
It is important, however, for schools to have this kind of information instantly to hand, so they can put interventions in place quickly without having to wait until the year end results.
And this is where the MIS data becomes really powerful; schools can then track attainment and progress for all their assessment needs – formative, as well as summative - and their MIS can be set up to whichever programme they are using, whether a published one or something totally bespoke.
By bringing live contextual data into their mark books, users can immediately identify any interventions that might be required.
For example, if disadvantaged boys are not making the progress throughout the Autumn term, interventions can be planned for the Spring term, giving enough time to take effect before the year end.
Early interventions are the key to the successful use of data, and are increasingly required much earlier in a child’s education.
Check out our other blogs in this series at www.rm.com/blog or visit www.rm.com/integris to find out more about unlocking the power of your data.