Learning Exchange Library
School performance tables This DfE website page helps you find data on how schools in England have performed, what the characteristics of those schools are, and data about per pupil spend. You can use a map, a search or follow the quick links to the left of the page.
School attendance data (England) This is where you can find data about pupil absence in English schools, including pupil characteristics for the latest period released (2009-10 - Statistical First Release dated 03/2011).
SEN pupils: Department for Education Statistical First Release: January 2012 This briefing draws on the School Census and the SEN2 Survey. It analyses the characteristics of pupils by their SEN provision and information on the assessment and placement of pupils with statements of SEN.
IDACI tool: Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) This index of deprivation is used in the United Kingdom. The IDACI tool helps planners determine the IDACI score and rank of any postcode in England.
A-Z of GCSE League tables In this handy Guardian guide to GCSE League tables, just click on a local authority to find out how schools performed in GCSE and A-level league tables during 2009-2010.
GCSE results 2011: an interactive map This is the Guardian's crowd-sourced, interactive map of GCSE results by school or college. On this page, you can generate a results page for a particular school and search reports by location, and schools can submit accounts of their success stories.
Local Authority Child Health Profiles The 2012 Child Health Profiles for every local authority are now available on the Child and Maternal Health Observatory (ChiMat) website. For comparison, last year’s profiles can be found below the current profiles. ChiMat’s Data Atlas is where you’ll find older data. (This Gem is also on the Sport, PE, Health and Well-being page in the Library.)
FSM: Get the data from Datablog The attainment gap between children on free school meals and all other pupils gaining A*-C grades in their English and maths GCSEs lies at 27.4%. Look at the Guardian’s Datablog to break down these results by ethnicity, special educational needs and first language.
The English Indices of Multiple Deprivation combine a range of economic, social and housing issue indicators into a single deprivation score for each small area in England. The Indices help planners and funders analyse patterns of deprivation in order to target funding for special initiatives more accurately. And here is a document that explains how to use them.
How to get to Impact Heaven Voluntary sector organisations could do worse than follow these ten useful and thought-provoking steps (outlined in a blog by the NCVO's Richard Piper) to think about and estimate the impact a voluntary sector organisation is having.
An impact tool: use your 'noodle' The ultimate one, according to NCVO's Richard Piper. But the advice looks useful - and intriguing. As he says, this may seem a playful blog, but it has a deadly serious message.
The LAIT: no, not caffè latte-making tool The LAIT is an Excel-based tool provided by the Department for Education. Reportedly, it provides 'user-friendly access to a system that brings together a consistent set of local authority (LA) performance and data items including: inspectorate judgements, contextual information about individual LAs, including number and type of schools, social deprivation factors, pupil attainment, health, looked-after children, post-1', and so on.
EYFS Profile Attainment by Pupil Characteristics in England, 2010/11 This statistical release, published on the DfE website, shows 'attainment by pupil characteristics, specifically gender, ethnicity, eligibility for free school meals (FSM), special educational needs (SEN) and English as a first language'. The figures combine information from the School Census and 2011 EYFS teacher assessments - and could be a useful source of data for targeting intervention programmes.
10 Tips for Data Collection These tips have been developed by Sun Associates based on work with school districts to implement teaching and technology surveys. However, the tips are worth bearing in mind by anyone who intends collecting data.
(Please note the copyright notice at the bottom of the Sun Associates page above, which says: Information on this site that has been produced by Sun Associates is Copyright 1997 - 2010 Sun Associates and is available for individual, one-time, use by educators. Duplication is prohibited without permission. All other material is the property of its authors and Sun Associates makes no warranty for its use or accuracy.)
The Big Book of Interesting Statistics This is a great free resource from Young Advisors, which offers a huge range of reliably sourced, clearly set out and up-to-date statistics. There are useful data in this publication for youth workers and extra-curricular activity practitioners who need facts and figures to back up funding applications or to help plan and target activities appropriately.
Closing the social mobility gap: It’s not all hopeless Rebecca Allen and her colleagues are mining school data and finding ‘hundreds of individual examples of outstanding schools that truly appear to transform the lives of children from deprived neighbourhoods’. (Dr Allen is a senior lecturer in Economics of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London who writes exclusively about education. She works in a multi-disciplinary team in the Department of Quantitative Social Science – with economists, psychologists, sociologists, statisticians and demographers who practice applied quantitative research.)
Don't be a data slave Headteacher Chris Luck points out hidden data traps, saying: 'Only a headteacher’s in-depth knowledge of a school coupled with intelligence, analysis and intuition can find a way forward that meets the unique setting for that particular establishment. We'd say it's worth keeping those words and his cautions in this article in mind when analysing data in order to target activities effectively. (The article was contributed to the National College for School Leadership.)
What's the difference between quantitative and qualitative data? Evaluation methods produce both qualitative and quantitative data. This site explains the difference between the two and offers some tips on the collection and analysis of both. (From Center for Civic Partnerships)
Evaluation: dark art or a brick-by-brick process? This Philanthropy Capital blog points out that all organisations can collect some data to help figure out what is working, when it’s working and for whom it’s working. But it’s not easy and can’t be done in a day. Evaluation, the blog says, is a process of ‘building your knowledge, brick by brick; the result: continuous improvement and greater impact. If organisations don’t evaluate, they may never know what good they are doing – or what harm.
Hours of Opportunity This three-volume report from the Wallace Foundation presents lessons from five cities on building systems to improve outside-of-school-hours programmes, and how to use data and a systems approach to improve after-school programmes.
Guide to Using Data in School Improvement Efforts This is an American resource, but it offers some useful tips on taking a group approach to the collection and analysis of data that feed into school improvement processes (through participation in 'data retreats'.