How is data used in schools today?

FFT is a non-profit organisation established in 2001 as part of the Fischer Family Trust. They are focussed on providing accurate and insightful information to schools which enables pupils to achieve their full potential and schools to improve.

In 2019, they published a survey of current practice regarding the use of data in schools.

Here are some key highlights.

• 1 in 5 headteachers believe data collection should be less frequent than is current practice
• 51% of primary and 48% of secondary teachers reported having to provide data to school leaders every half-term
• There’s a wide variety of data being obtained from a variety of sources across phases and teacher with teacher assessment being the predominant source in primary and more formal assessments across classes in secondary
• The respondents are reasonably positive about the way that data is used in their school – just 30% disagree that it is used in a constructive way to improve education outcomes. However, classroom teachers are far less positive than those in positions of responsibility. It is secondary classroom teachers that are most negative about its use.

You may be interested in accessing this report in full

A note about Teacher Tapp

FFT used the Teacher Tapp tool to access a wide range of teachers for their survey. Teacher Tapp is a survey app for teachers and at 3:30pm each day, the app buzzes and thousands of teachers answer three quick multiple choice questions about their day or their opinions on teaching. After they’ve answered the questions they get the chance to see yesterday’s results to find out what thousands of teachers around the country are thinking! Every week on Monday, they give a deeper analysis of how different types of teachers responded to the questions we asked. In addition to this, each day users also get an expertly selected blog post or article to read. Selections are short, clear and relevant to teaching. Find out more

Once you’re ready, click ‘mark as complete’ and then click ‘Modelling a critical quantitative approach to education data’ to move on.