Use of data

The Workload Advisory Group has now published its report and the Government has issued its response to it. Making Data Work specifically focuses, as you might expect, on the additional pressures that data collection and analysis can place on teachers. The group has come up with a number of recommendations that the DfE has agreed to implement.

These include:

• minimising or eliminating the number of pieces of information teachers have to compile
• having simple systems for logging behaviour incidents and other pastoral information
• reviewing and reducing the number of attainment data collection points per year and how these are used; the guideline for data collection points is given as no more than two or three a year.

It also recommends that schools look again at the ways in which they use data in performance management and target-setting. The advice is aimed mostly at Ofsted and the DfE. However, schools are advised to review their data processes with their governors according to the principles that the advisory group has set out.

Teacher Workload Advisory Group Report and Government Response can be found at https://bit.ly/2QwkM9w.