The school

The Wordsley School is a small mixed comprehensive school, which was known as Buckpool School until 2002.

The school’s pupils are aged between 11 and 16 years and its catchment area has a greater than average social disadvantage.

About 10 per cent of pupils are from ethnic minority backgrounds, including some who are new arrivals to the country, and over 25 per cent claim free school meals. Upon joining the school, pupil attainment, especially literacy, is well below average.

The 2001 Ofsted inspection report describes the school as a good school in which leadership and management is good, staff teams are cohesive and standards are improving.

The challenge

The school is committed to raising aspirations and providing teaching that matches the ability and learning styles of the pupils. The use of data is a key element in informing this process.

Pupils who are lacking in self-esteem need to believe they can be successful and for many this is best achieved by demonstrably and repeatedly achieving short-term goals. The use of national curriculum sub-levels offers such opportunities.

The process

Teachers carry out assessments, using national curriculum sub-levels or GCSE grades, every three or four weeks, although this may stretch to half-termly for subjects that have the pupils less often.

Every pupil has an expected key stage 3 (or GCSE) outcome based on the Autumn Package (now Pupil Achievement Tracker) regression lines using their average key stage 2 points in the core subjects.

Each pupil also has an expected grade in each subject. This would typically build in some additional challenges but may also take account of other relevant factors, including a very uneven performance in the key stage 2 tests or a disparity between the national curriculum English reading test and Salford reading test result or knowledge about the pupils’ learning styles.

Departments, subjects, classes and individual pupils all aim for performance targets. The pupils’ progress against targets is reviewed three times a year and groups of pupils, for example those at grade boundaries, pupils with special needs, and gifted and talented pupils, are identified for extra attention.

The data is used to create ‘pupil progress objectives’ during performance management and during discussions between leadership team members and heads of department.

Staff can use the network to input data direct into the central administration system, RM Integris, where it is collated. Within Integris, data can be sorted and filtered to provide lists and data to suit almost any purpose, for example teaching sets, tutor groups, ethnic groups.

This means that up to date information is always available to, for example, a head of year or class tutor who is meeting a parent. It can be used to identify those pupils who are exceeding their target grades to enable senior staff to congratulate and further motivate them.

Integris can also be used to identify pupils who are at risk of underachievement. For example, an Advanced Skills teacher can identify boys in this category and work with them to get them back on target. Pupils behind in GCSE coursework are identified and may be scheduled to catch up.
The system can also exchange data with Microsoft Excel, thus allowing faculty heads and the leadership team to export data for analysis work away from the school network.

The school reports by adding comments and target actions to the Integris database which then exports these in real-time to Microsoft Access. This enables frequent printouts on whether pupils are on-target or not. It also offers increased flexibility as to the scheduling of exams by greatly reducing the turn-round time associated with reporting the results.

The issues

It has been important to sell the virtues of a data-based approach to all staff using meeting time and training days. This had to include training in the significance of data and also in its use to motivate pupils and involve parents.

Effort has been required to create an initial database that is reliable and sustainable, and that involves an informed choice of what to record and how to calculate targets.

The linking of the central administration system (Integris), the attainment data system (Excel) and the homegrown reporting system (Access) saved time by offering a semi-automatic generation and collation of reports.

It takes time to maintain the database and this necessitated the appointment of a data administrator.

The impact

The school is working hard to raise the pupils’ educational aspirations. It seeks to build the confidence of the local community.

The school’s GCSE results have improved markedly and, compared with similar schools, it is rated A* in its 2003 PANDA report.

The proportion of pupils gaining 5+ A*-C grades at GCSE has risen from 24 per cent in 2001 to 40 per cent in 2003. During this same period, the number of pupils with no GCSE passes dropped from 11 per cent to 5 per cent.

Teachers have ensured pupils not only know what the next level is but also what they must do in order to get there. Achieving the next level is seen as linked to quite explicit learning outcomes.

Pupils know their target grades and record them in their diaries. For some, achieving or exceeding these is a significant motivator, as seen in one pupil’s comment: ‘Can you mark this work so that I can see if I’ve managed to move up a grade?’

The data enables frequent communication with parents about the pupils’ progress without imposing an unsustainable burden on teachers.

It means that mentoring by form tutors, or others, can be based upon up to date information about how the pupils are doing in each subject.

The availability of high quality data enables the LEA to provide detailed analysis such as value-added lines, or a value-added score across a period of time.

The targets based on the data drive much of the School Improvement Plan.

Tips for other schools

Advice to schools in a similar situation, looking to set up their own systems, would be to:

• work on demonstrating to staff that the use of data is something that can have a positive benefit, for example by ensuring that information that is entered once can be drawn upon for a range of purposes, such as reports, predicted grades and identifying underachievers
• use national curriculum sub-levels at key stage 3 in order to provide targets that are small enough to track progress in the shorter term
• disseminate existing good practice from departments that are already using data well, for example, provide case studies of how pupils can be motivated to achieve their target level if they know how
• encourage subject departments to build examples of good practice when using data in their meetings schedule
• make sure systems appear user-friendly and sustainable to the non-enthusiast.

School quick facts

School quick facts
School name:	The Wordsley School
School type:	Secondary
School category:
School LEA:	Dudley
School last inspected:	April 2001
School location:	Urban
School address:	Brierley Hill Road, Wordsley, Stourbridge, West Midlands DY8 5SP
Headteacher:	Mike Lambert
Pupil age range:	11-16
Pupil gender:	Male and female
Pupil background:
Pupil mobility:
Special education needs (SEN):
Free school meals (FSM):	Above average
English as an additional language (EAL):

School contextual data

School contextual data
	Buckpool	Wordsley
Context	2001	2002	2003
NOR	631	632	622
FSM %	22.8	21.4	25.5
% SEN pupils with statement	0.2	0.6	0.8
% SEN pupils without statement	19.5	14.9	14.5
% Authorised absence	10.5	7.8	8.1
% Unauthorised absence	2.7	1.1	0.9
Pupil turnover	97	95	97
Results
% Achieving level 5 or above in KS3 English	57	63	71
% Achieving level 5 or above in KS3 mathematics	55	52	67
% Achieving level 5 or above in KS3 science	48	59	72
% Achieving 5+ A*-C at GCSE	24	46	40
% Achieving 5+ A*-G at GCSE	82	89	90
% Achieving 1+ A*-Gat GCSE	89	95	95

Note that, where possible, these figures have been taken from the Performance Tables website.

Data management quick facts

Data organisation quick facts
Tool	Further information
Pupil Achievement Tracker	www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/performance/