Gender and DOB for test fairness?

[crispybits]

Hi

 

Just looking to see if I'm being reasonable before I argue the toss with one of our suppliers. They run some CATs assessment software for us and they have sent a template spreadsheet that includes such items as DOB, ethnicity, SEN provision, etc that they want us to fill in for all of the kids we want them to test.

 

Having queried why they need all this, we've now been told we only need name, gender and DOB on the spreadsheet and all the other columns are optional. The relevant bit about these fields is in their privacy policy as follows:

 

- Student information including gender and age - this data is provided to us from the school as part of the setup process. It is used to ensure our assessments are fair and to provide detailed analysis of performance.

 

We don't need or use analysis based on gender or age within the year group from this company (if we did need that sort of analysis, we could just roll our own from our MIS system). So we're down to "it is used to ensure assessments are fair".

 

My instinct is that personal data about our kids should not be provided so that external companies can quality control their products. If they want QA, they should do what every other company does and hire in people to test their product. I couldn't imagine providing our catering company with a list of kids details including DOB and gender against their purchases so they could run detailed nutritional analysis by gender and age for example.

 

Or is this because it's standardised testing I'm just being too sensitive to DP concerns and we can just provide it?

 

Thoughts from the eduhivemind welcomed :-)

[elsiegee40]

I would be surprised if you don’t analyse within gender in school.

 

Analysis by gender featured on RaiseOnline and features in ASP which replaced it last September.

 

It is a target of Ofsted who consider boys a vulnerable group and look at the gap between progress of boys and girls, comparing the outcomes with national, local area and similar schools data.

[crispybits]

But we can do our own through our MIS system - the data all gets uploaded onto there.

 

I've asked around all the usual suspects for this kind of analysis and I haven't found anyone who does it. (I know that doesn't mean it doesn't get done, just that I haven't found the right person yet)

[crispybits]

Never mind - just found someone who knows all about those tests and they also get reported to the DfE for analysis at national level, so I think it's a necessary thing to be sent after all.

 

Now just to argue with them about wanting a spreadsheet full of kids details to be emailed to them rather than some sort of secure upload process :-P

[GREED]

Never mind - just found someone who knows all about those tests and they also get reported to the DfE for analysis at national level, so I think it's a necessary thing to be sent after all.

 

Now just to argue with them about wanting a spreadsheet full of kids details to be emailed to them rather than some sort of secure upload process :-P

 

Just remember to do as I heard recently - put a password on the spreadsheet - which as we all know ISN'T A THING!

 

For clarity, this was nothing to do with my place of employment (for those of you that know me)!