A Data meeting, involving participants from all the schools in the Partnership, was held at the University of Cumbria on 10 April 2008. Teaching and non-teaching staff were involved and a total of twelve people attended the meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how schools set targets, monitor progress and act if necessary, with particular reference to Year 10.
A representative from each school outlined the methods used and how the school responded to the information produced. Following these presentations it was agreed that there are many similarities in the assessment, reporting and tracking systems – even though different methods are used, timings of reports differ, and varying members of staff have responsibility to produce the reports, the end products are broadly similar.
All schools are able to identify students, or groups of students, who may need attention and action plans involve subject teachers, department or curriculum leaders and senior management, also parents and the students themselves.
The discussion highlighted these key points:-
- Ensuring staff understand targets
- Ensuring staff use data to inform teaching and plan for progress
- Ensuring that the analysis of data leads to an outcome
Curriculum Leaders are key players in this process and it was therefore agreed to organise a training session on the effective use of data, specifically for Curriculum Leaders, in July 2008 (see below).