Raising attainment using data-driven 'assertive' mentoring

I began working at Thornton Grammar School in Bradford in 2012, joining as assistant headteacher with responsibility for achievement. Despite its name, the school is actually a large comprehensive with 1,511 students, 30 per cent of them eligible for Pupil Premium. 

Within my first week, we had an Ofsted inspection and the report identified the quality of teaching and maths achievement as particular areas for improvement. 

I knew that we needed to increase our students’ progress and attainment, so I planned to target English and maths to raise results. This of course meant finding the students who were currently underachieving.

However, the existing management information system set-up made this difficult and so we set about overhauling the way that data looked in the system, developing how we used this data to set targets across all subjects, and the setting ambitious targets for all our students.