How to Free Yourself From Manual School Data Processing

When I was teaching, the worst shock I ever received was a year before I designed and created my first trackers. I’d been processing all my data manually, and I’d hugely overestimated what grade each pupil was working at. The inaccuracies when trying to calculate the grade as the exam board does, specifically the weightings, grade boundaries and conversions needed, meant I also hugely overestimated their forecast grade. I thought I knew where my students were at in relation to their target grade, but it turns out I didn’t.

You’re probably aware of what you need to do in order to track student progress accurately. The question is: do you have a tracker or tracking system that allows you to do it accurately, quickly and efficiently?

As soon as I started using a tracker, things started changing. I could easily see the big picture, drill down into details, and think and plan strategically to improve student outcomes – and my predictions were finally accurate. More importantly, the final outcomes were significantly better than expected. 

A tracker can free you from the errors and effort that come with manual data processing, just like it did for me. Here’s a run-down of what your tracking system needs to be able to do in order to give you the information you need, at the times in the school year you need it.

1. Calculate grades exactly as the exam boards do

The most important thing about your tracker is that it needs to have been designed around the exam board specifications exactly. It needs to factor in:

• The exact number of marks required for each component
• What grade boundaries are used for each component
• What the boundaries are for the overall course grade based on the cumulation of the marks from each component
• The exact weightings for each component

It should also be able to update all relevant grades automatically whenever you alter a mark for a single competent. The effort it takes to calculate these grades manually after every assessment is not only exhausting, it will inevitably cause errors. 

2. Provide quick and easy analysis on the impact of assessments

A common issue with collating data in spreadsheets is that there are reams and reams of data recorded on separate spreadsheets or tabs. This makes cross-analysis of past performance pretty much impossible, or at best highly confusing. Multiply that by a team of teachers all adding their data at the same time, for hundreds of students, and it’s easy to see how calculating a Working At Grade can become an absolute nightmare.

A good tracker solves this by having all your data in one place, and accessible at all times. It also needs to allow you to add:

• Multiple mocks
• Personalised assessments
• End of topic tests

…and use all of these to calculate the Working At Grade

3. Convert mini-tests to a grade to gauge the working at grade

The best Working At Grade calculation includes using all relevant mini-tests and mock papers, scaling the total marks to match the unit’s maximum marks, and uses the resulting mark to calculate the overall course marks.

Converting all these values also gives you a clear picture of areas of strength and weakness, telling you where you and your students need to focus. You can’t rely on percentages, as a small test out of 15 marks won’t have the same relevance as a longer test out of 50 marks. Percentages can skew the marks, giving you a false picture.

You can, of course, do this all on a spreadsheet. But getting accurate grades involves lengthy calculations if you’re doing them manually. It’s these calculations that keep mini-tests in line with the final grade of each assessment, and that’s why a good tracker is essential.

4. Allow you to share data with your students at all times

When the process of manually producing individual pupil reports is so labour intensive, you aren’t going to share them with your students that often – if at all. 

Yet sharing pupils’ progress with them regularly will increase their motivation, because they’ve always got an accurate and up-to-date picture of their current grade and areas to focus on in order to improve.

This will also support lesson observations and faculty reviews, because students will actually be able to answer the question: “What grade are you working at?” when asked directly by senior management or Ofsted.

5. Allow you to forecast results accurately

Throughout the school year, you’ll have to meet with your team and line manager to discuss whether you and your cohort are on target. You need to take time to crunch the numbers, and do it accurately.

There’s a huge difference between ‘calculating’ forecasts and ‘making’ forecasts. If your tracker doesn’t do the hard work for you, then your forecasts will be based on guesswork and faith in the pupils to try harder. With a tracker, you can use objective information to make an objective prediction.

Believe me, I’ve been there. There’s nothing worse than communicating where your cohort or class is with confidence, only to realise several months later at the very next data point that you’ve grossly overestimated their current position. 

The solution? Simple: get a tracker in place that’s accurate from the start of the course delivery. If the calculation of the grade your pupils are working at is accurate from the start, you have a strong platform to forecast from. 

 You can read a more detailed version of this article over on our website: 5 things your tracker MUST do to free you from manual data processing

Try our no-obligation 6-week free trial to see if the Pupil Progress tracking system is right for you, or send me a message.