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Session 1. The School Data Picture: Attendance, Results, Tests and Voices
Objective. Read school-wide attendance, results, national test summaries and plain-language international findings together, triangulate with people's views and write a short school data picture with open questions.
A school is more than the sum of its classes. When you put attendance, term marks, a national test summary and what pupils and teachers say on one table, patterns appear that no single class teacher can see. This session shows how a head, a deputy or a subject lead can build that picture fairly, without blaming anyone, and how to use international studies as a source of questions rather than as a ranking.
Key ideas
A cycle for the whole school
- School improvement runs in a cycle: diagnose, prioritise, plan, act, review. This session is the first step, the diagnosis.
- Course 11.6 (Learning Analytics for Improvement) taught how to compare classes fairly. Here you read many sources together at school level and decide what question to ask next.
- The aim is a picture of the school, not a verdict on anyone. You are looking for patterns by grade, subject, weekday and group.
Four kinds of school data
- Attendance is cheap, early and already in the register: by grade, by week, by weekday. Results are term marks and school tests, such as the share of pupils at mark 3 or above.
- External summaries, such as a DTM-type or national test summary, show how many pupils reached a target level. Check how many pupils took it: a group of 50 can move by chance.
- People's views are the fourth kind: short pupil comments, teacher observations and parent remarks. They explain what numbers cannot.
What PISA and TIMSS can and cannot tell you
- PISA and TIMSS test samples of pupils to describe a whole country or system. They give no result for your school, and they are not a ranking of your teachers.
- Their plain-language findings show which skills are tested, for example explaining reasoning or applying maths to a new problem. Use them to ask whether your own pupils do these things.
- Do not copy another country's ranking or a single headline into your plan. Turn it into a question you can test with your pupils' work.
Triangulate, then write the picture
- One number from one source is a clue. Two or three sources that point the same way are a pattern worth acting on.
- Write the picture in about five lines: three facts, two open questions and one thing you do not yet know. Leave causes out; causes come in session 2.
- Collect only the data you will use, and keep pupil and colleague names out of school-wide summaries. Fewer, better-chosen data points beat a thick folder.
From four sources to a school data picture
Attendance as a weekly story
Attendance is the cheapest and fastest data a school has, because it changes every week and sits in the register. Read it by grade, by week and by weekday. A dip on Mondays, after holidays or in a particular season often points to transport, work at home, health or the way the first lesson is treated, and each of these needs a different answer.
Before you compare figures, agree the definition: is a late arrival counted as present? Is an excused absence counted? Two groups can look different only because they count differently. Write the definition on the page that shows the figure.
International studies as sources of questions
PISA tests 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics and science, and TIMSS tests pupils at Grades 4 and 8 in mathematics and science. Both use samples of pupils to describe a country or system. They do not publish a result for your school, so there is nothing to compare your own marks with directly.
What a school can use is the kind of skill they report on: explaining reasoning, applying maths to a new problem, reading for meaning. Ask 'do our pupils do this?' and look at ten of their papers. Treat the finding as a question that your own evidence can answer, and leave ranking tables to the policy makers.
Examples from the classroom
The Monday dip in Namangan
Scene. Aziz, head of studies in a Namangan school, reads the Grade 7 register by weekday for five weeks. Monday attendance is between 80 and 84 percent, while Tuesday to Friday are all above 90. Nobody had looked at weekdays before. He does not decide the cause. He asks two class teachers to tally late arrivals on Mondays for two weeks and brings the result to the next staff meeting.
Insight. Reading the same data a new way (by weekday) turns a vague worry into a clear question.
Forty-eight pupils
Scene. In a Fergana school, 48 Grade 9 pupils took a national-type test. This year 35 percent reached the target level; last year it was 40. Dilnoza, the deputy head, first checks that 5 percent of 48 is only 2 or 3 pupils and finds two earlier years at 38 and 44 percent. She writes: 'The figure moves between 35 and 44; one year does not tell us much.' Staff stay calm and add other evidence.
Insight. With small groups, a one-year change can be chance; look at several years and several sources.
Explaining, not only calculating
Scene. Malika reads a plain summary of an international maths study that says pupils manage routine sums more often than explanations. She takes ten of her Grade 8 papers and marks only the 'explain' items. Seven of the ten pupils lose marks there while calculating correctly. She brings the ten papers, with names removed, to the maths team and asks, 'Do your pupils look like this too?'
Insight. A published finding becomes useful when it is turned into a question that your own pupils' work can answer.
Common pitfalls
- Naming a cause or a person from one number before reading other sources.
- Comparing grades, subjects or years without checking that the groups and the counting rules are alike.
- Treating a PISA or TIMSS headline as a verdict on your own school.
- Collecting data nobody reads, so teachers feel the work is for the file.
Read a School Data Pack and Write the Picture
- Open the Activity Kit: a SAMPLE data pack for a school of 640 pupils (attendance by grade and weekday, term marks, a national-type test summary, a plain-language international finding and four voices). Trios (10 min): read silently and each underline three FACTS, such as 'Grade 9 attendance is 88%'. No explanations yet.
- Trios (15 min): fill the reading table: for each source say what it shows, what it does not show and whether the group is large enough. Mark which comparisons are fair (grade with grade, school with region) and which are not.
- Trios (15 min): triangulate. For the three possible claims in the Kit, read the four voices and rate the evidence for each claim as strong, some or weak. Decide what one extra source would settle the weakest claim.
- Second short activity (10 min): write your five-line school data picture: three facts, two open questions, one thing we do not yet know. Check that no line names a cause or a person.
- Whole group (10 min): two trios read their pictures aloud. The others listen for any hidden cause or blame and say it kindly. Then each person names a source from their own school they could add.
- Alone (10 min): write your school-based task from the Kit: which anonymised sources you will collect, from whom, and the date you will write your own school's picture with a colleague.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which fact surprised you most, and which source would you not have looked at without this exercise?
- Where did you feel the pull to name a cause or a person, and what helped you hold back?
- Which data does your school collect but never read, and which would you stop collecting?
Reflect
- Which single number is quoted most often about your school, and which other source would test it?
- Who in your school already reads the attendance register as a story, and have you asked them?
- What would be lost if the school stopped collecting one report that nobody uses?
Try it tomorrow
- Print the attendance register summary by weekday for one grade for the last five weeks and note any pattern.
- Choose one external or international finding and write one question it raises about your own pupils' work.
- Write a five-line picture of your school (three facts, two questions, one unknown) and show it to one colleague.
Further reading and links
Read attendance, results, tests and people's views together, treat each number as a clue, and write down what you know, what you ask and what you do not yet know.