the primary head's blog

Introducing the all new school’s dashboard.

Gone is the bland summary page, full of those statements of strengths and weaknesses, that had been automatically generated by a computer whose analysis of key data was about as sensitive and nuanced as one of Deep Thought’s farts. Rest easy, knowing that the school performance summary, that had for so long, befuddled governors as they pretended to understand what it all meant so they could challenge the content of your school improvement plan, is no more. Rejoice in the knowledge that Inspectors will now have to go without the vanilla flavoured amuse-bouche that used to whet their appetite (and pre-determine their opinions) before they began a section 5. Because everything has changed. We are entering a world of full disclosure. A data-set that has something for everyone.

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But why the overhaul? Well, besides the fact that too many people were beginning to become familiar with the dashboard (something we never like to happen) the old dashboard was just too limiting. By only gathering information from schools’ contextual data and their national end of key stage results, followed by a cross-referencing with the national picture, we were only ever able to provide a summary of academic performance: a field of vision we now believe to be too narrow in order to truly judge a school. As the department for education grows so should the data we produce. Plus, what with national tests suffering from cheating – sorry, over-aiding – and some spectacularly incompetent marking, both adding to a general sense of apathy for rigorous testing of knowledge (damn hippies) the dashboard itself was looking as relevant and interesting as the launch of the new Bake Off. The revamped dashboard is an altogether different beast that collates data from every faction of your school community.

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This dashboard is not just about what the schools have done. It is about what everyone else is also doing and how that impacts on the school’s capacity to perform. Nobody is safe. Using the latest cyber, and drone, technology we are finally able to retrieve evidence from the whole community and feed it into a complex matrix that will help Ofsted to determine how effective a school really is. But this dashboard is not just for Ofsted. It will enable everyone to judge…whilst also being judged themselves.

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Let’s start with the parents. For some time, we have been judging the school’s effectiveness in closing the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers. This, it turns out, is only one tiny part of the picture. We are now able analyse parent attitudes and actions towards their child’s school and determine if the parents themselves are a help or hindrance to a school’s success. One of the ways in which we do this is by monitoring social media and cross referencing this with an annual freedom of information request for the number of times the parents have discussed the same issues with the school. If parents are openly negative about the school on social media but do not seek to engage with the school then they will be judged to have a negative impact on the school’s capacity to raise standards.

For a parent to be judged as having a positive impact on the school’s capacity to raise standards then, although they may not always necessarily agree with all school decisions, they will always engage with the school respectfully, and through the appropriate channels, and will most likely support the school ethos. Schools will be asked to keep a permanent record of their top ten parents and carers who they believe to be their most positive and negative influencers. This information will be available on the dashboard which schools must publish on their websites.

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During an inspection, the Inspectors will expect to speak to these key parents that will, alongside additional data collected during the visit, enable them to make a judgement of the school’s parent pull. This is a measure that seeks to determine by what degree the school is enabled by the parent community. A negative pull score may indicate that a school faces a statistically significant negative mind-set challenge from its community that may hinder its performance. A positive pull score may indicate that the parents are fully behind the school and work with them in a supportive and/or challenging role. On the dashboard, a school’s effectiveness in other areas of the inspection framework will be off-set by their parent pull score. For example, a good performing school with a negative parent pull score will likely have a leadership and management judgement rated higher than a similarly, or lower, performing school, but who have a positive parent pull score. Confused? Good. Additionally, the dashboard will make very clear whether the parent community are outstanding or good contributors to the school’s success or whether they require improvement. If the parents are judged to be inadequate the governors and PTA will be expected to put in place a parent improvement plan within three weeks with some parents being excluded from social media until sufficient improvements have been made.

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It’s not just parents that will have a new section on the dashboard. Using drone technology, it will be possible to garner an overview of acceptable staff behaviour and attitudes within the school. The staff drone will record on-site conversations between teachers and support staff and then analyse them against a series of DfE approved vocabulary sets and professional standards keywords. This data will be extrapolated to provide an overall level of in-school professionalism score that will be used when judging the effectiveness and genuineness of staff. Any anomalies or spikes in undesirable words/phrases will provide Inspectors with a line of enquiry during the inspection process. Senior leaders will also be given a test where they will be expected to identify teachers in at least eight out of the ten most common conversations had between members of staff. This score, as well as the actual in-school professionalism score of the staff, will be available on the dashboard and emailed to parents one day before an inspection.

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The dashboard will also be able to identify the professionalism, as well as the work-life balance, of staff outside of school. Cyber-monitoring of all teachers’ computers and mobile devices will be able to detect if they are engaging in online or social media activities in a positive or corrosive manner. Before an inspection, the governors will be given an electronic dossier of the online content created by members of staff and they will be required to formally respond to Inspectors in a manner that is judged to be proportional and appropriate. Failure to do so will impact on the Inspectors’ judgement on governors’ knowledge of the school. The dashboard will publish an appropriate range of online content generated by staff compete with profile pics. Any anonymous users of social media will not be formally identified but, by then, it will probably be too late.

Do you want to………Ctrl Alt Delete…………..Ctrl Alt Delete…………SHUT DOWN…………………………..SHUT DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!