Developing a network overview - Primary Schools: student engagement, wellbeing and performance

In our schools, young people will develop foundation skills in literacy and numeracy, strong content knowledge and the ability to learn, adapt and be responsible citizens. In schools that excel, students consistently perform at high levels on external and internal school performance measures and equity gaps are closing. School Excellence Framework – Version 2, July 2017

Scout provides several information reports which can provide Directors, Educational Leadership with the capacity to analyse data across multiple schools in their Principals Network. This can help identify collective needs across the network and enable a precise approach to providing support across different areas of school business.

The NAPLAN (DoE) App contains all information relating to NAPLAN in one centralised place.

The Results Across Schools report will provide you with an overview of the distribution of scores across the schools in your Network. There are a number of reports, including Equity – Aboriginality, Equity – SES, and Premier’s Priority which provide greater detail and comparison across schools.

Image: Scout chart comparing results across schools.

Scenario: Developing a Network overview

As a DEL, you would like to gain an overview of student engagement, wellbeing and achievement across the Primary schools in your Network. This can provide a data-informed starting point for working with your schools.

Focus: Student mobility across Primary schools

  1. Open the Primary Transition report (found in the Enrolments app) and select the third tab ‘Re-enrolment Rate’.
  2. Move through each of your schools individually.

Consider

  • How does the mobility of students at the school compare to their SSSG?
  • What does mobility look like for schools in the key periods of time: K-2, 3-4, 5-6? How might this be impacting NAPLAN results as a reflection of the effectiveness of literacy and numeracy programs in the school?

Focus: Student attendance across Primary schools

  1. Open the Official Attendance Census report (found in the Enrolments app) and select the third tab ‘Attendance Rate Across Schools’.
Image: Attendance rate across schools report.

Consider

  • Which schools have the lowest/highest attendance rates?
  • Which schools have seen increases/decreases in attendance over the last three years?
  • What are the contextual factors in these schools that might be contributing to this?

Equity focus: use the slicers for Gender and Aboriginality to determine if there are significant differences between groups of students.

Focus: Student suspensions across Primary schools

  1. Open the Suspension report (found in the Suspension App) and select the 8th tab at the bottom of the screen ‘Suspension Across Schools’.
  2. Using the ‘Scholastic Year’ slicer at the bottom left of the page select only the Primary years of schooling.
Image: Scout report on student suspensions.

Consider

  • Which schools have the lowest/highest suspension rates?
  • Which schools have seen increases/decreases in suspension over the last three years?
  • Is there a relationship between schools’ attendance and suspension rates?
  • What are the contextual factors in these schools that might be contributing to this?

Equity focus: investigate the following tabs in this report: ‘Suspension by Aboriginality’, ‘Suspension by Gender’ and ‘Suspension by EAL/D’.


Consider

  • How do these percentages compare to the percentage of students in your Network’s enrolment?
  • Is there an over-representation of any equity group or by gender?

Focus: Student wellbeing across Primary schools

  1. Open the Tell Them From Me Between Schools report (found in the Tell Them From Me App).
  2. Select Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6 from the ‘What Scholastic Year?’ slicer on the left-hand side (hold down control (PC) or command (Apple) to make multiple selections).
  3. If no school is selected all schools in your Network will be displayed.
  4. Look at the results across Advocacy at school, Expectations for Success and Sense of belonging. The dark green represents the school, the light green represents their SSSG, and the black line is the State average. Use the ‘Year’ slicer on the right-hand side to look for increases and decreases, or group three years together to provide an overview.
Image: Tell them from me report on Advocacy expectations and belonging.

Consider

Which schools are on par with or exceeding the results of their SSSG?

  • Which schools are below their SSSG?
  • What are some of the contextual factors that might be impacting this?
  • Are any patterns or trends emerging for specific schools in relation to their attendance, suspension and TTFM data?

Equity focus: Using the Sex and Aboriginality slicers on the right-hand side to investigate differences between specific groups of students. Are patterns emerging across attendance, suspension and wellbeing for any specific groups of students?

Focus: Student performance in NAPLAN across Primary schools

  1. Open Results Across Schools: Results (found in the NAPLAN (DoE) app)
  2. Select multiple years by holding down the control (PC) or command (Apple) buttons to make your selections. This will take away the impact of smaller or unusual cohorts of students and enable you to make a fairer comparison across schools.

Learn more about reading box plots here.

Consider

  • What is the distribution of results for the top 25% of the cohort and the bottom 25% of the cohort? How does this compare across schools?
  • How do the middle 50% (the solid-coloured box) of each school compare?
  • What are the contextual factors of each school that might be contributing to their NAPLAN performance?
  • What is the relationship between school performance and the other school factors you have already examined? (Attendance, suspensions, TTFM)
  • What internal data sets do the schools have that would provide further information about student performance at the school?

Equity focus: Using the Gender, Aboriginality and EAL/D slicers in Step 2, compare sub-groups of students at the school. What is the relationship between the results here and information already examined in other reports?

Return to top of page Back to top