CAM Posted July 9, 2013 Posted July 9, 2013 OFSTED have been pretty active lately and I was wondering if anyone had any tips for OFSTED proofing their work for fellow data managers. Whilst we don't get inspected ourselves, the data we collect and analyse most certainly is! I have just been through Manage Cover to ensure that names are recorded against all agency bookings for safeguarding. Also going through our data to check we have KS2 levels for all students which I assume will be needed. Anyone got any tips for your fellow data managers?
ICTLady Posted July 10, 2013 Posted July 10, 2013 I'll be really interested in the replies to this - get typing, people I'm fairly new in my role so not really sure what to expect from the big O (who are due later this year - eek!). I've made sure that our SEN, G&T and PP lists are up to date on SIMS, and have produced guides for teachers showing them how to find this information. I've updated KS2 and KS3 levels for all our current students and used those to project both expected progress and 3/4/5 levels of progress, which I plan to put onto our tracking sheets in the new school year. I need to make sure that we get a full set of KS3 levels for all of our new Y9 intake. Hopefully that will mean that any teacher can pull up a good data set on any given student - assuming they have attended my training session and/or read my instruction guide, and remember how to do it!
number34 Posted July 10, 2013 Posted July 10, 2013 I don't worry about Ofsted at all. What data we have and what is done with it is the responsibility of SLT. What you are describing is presumably what you have been told to do by the member of SLT to whom you report. They are the people who will be worried about Ofsted.
CAM Posted July 10, 2013 Posted July 10, 2013 I haven't been told to do anything about it by SLT. I'm checking pro-actively because I don't want data to be a point of failure if the inspection goes bad.
number34 Posted July 10, 2013 Posted July 10, 2013 My point is that you are the Data Manager and implement the policies and procedures as set out by your SLT. If you are doing that then they are answerable to OFSTED and not you.
Mark_VdB82 Posted July 10, 2013 Posted July 10, 2013 Hi, Having had in my 3 years here; 3 mock inspections, a section 8 (for new academies) and a full section 5 this May, I can honestly say that a data manager has a key role in the Ofsted process and I believe it to be a useful role too. I produced for each of these a 'data pack' which was developed for each occurance. This pack contained the evidence if you like to back up our judgement in the SEF which said we were outstanding. Data looking at previous results - whilts the Raise and other external documents will do this you might be inspected before December and if you've had a good set of results you want to show them just how good. Current tracking and projections for the coming exam year groups in a mini raise format data to show improvements being made in any areas identified by myself and SLT in the previous Raise as being development points Progress being made in all subjects, not just maths & english - although these are naturally the focus it gave all teaching staff the chance to understand progress and apply it to their thinking teaching staff have additional analysis - producing data to hihglight success in latest areas of key significance, i.e. pupil premium or facilitating subjects at KS5 for example Inspectors only have external data and your SEF they can access prior to an inspection and whilts they will undoubtedly have done their homework they wont have time to see it all and will make judgements on it, so you need evidence to back up your SEF claims and whats happneing now/end of this year to show imporvemnt, success, etc A tip from the inspection we had recently and from colleague who also had inspection - looking at data in terms of APS was a focus, we were asked to produce the APS at the end of each year from y6 to current year group in maths & english for all 5 year groups and the previous 2 year groups who left at the ned of key stage 4 So, a data manager I feel has a huge part to play, yes you wont necessarily see the inspectors but by producing packs, we gave them headlines but had lots at hand to answer pretty much any query that came our way during the 2 days. I was involved in the interview with an HMI on achievement and was able to see how useful the data I produced was in convincing him, and being the creator and understanding it was able to explain it to him and answer questions he had If I can be of any more help let me know
Brucy Posted July 11, 2013 Posted July 11, 2013 We had our inspection 2 months ago, the inspectors didn't speak to me at all. However I did have request for the odd bits of information to supliment further probing on the second day.
LosOjos Posted July 11, 2013 Author Posted July 11, 2013 One thing that transpired from our last OFSTED is that they're big on graphs at the moment. The vast majority of the data I have been providing has been in tabular format and we were complimented on staff having this data to hand, but they did say they like to see things in graph form. Have to be honest, this dumbing down of everything annoys me but I am but a humble servant! All tables now come with an associated bar/line/pie chart
CAM Posted July 11, 2013 Posted July 11, 2013 I have some massive data sets that I cannot extract a graph for! At least not without great difficulty. Will have to look into data packs though and how they link in with SEF.
LosOjos Posted July 11, 2013 Author Posted July 11, 2013 @CAM - in my (admitted limited) experience, they're not looking for graphs showing in depth analysis - that's what your tabular data is for. They want things like line charts showing the progression of your 5+A*-C % over the year, bonus points for having lines showing all students and a few key focus groups for comparison. I can see value in these graphs I suppose, it does give you a quick way of looking and seeing "oh yeah, White British Boys are steadily increasing but still below average," it's just that the statistician in me (giving myself WAY too much credit there!) thinks the figures show exactly the same and in finer detail, the graph is just eye candy. Sometimes it's hard to take a step back and think not everyone can so easily associate percentages as they can simple lines, and I think that's probably what OFSTED are getting at with this
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