Six steps to using data effectively

The former president of Italy, Romano Prodi, once said of Silvio Berlusconi: “The prime minister clings to data like a drunk to a lamppost – more for support than illumination.”

Most schools now realise the importance of data in evaluating performance – for example in preparation for an Ofsted inspection – but is your school making the most of your data in order not only to inform interventions and strategies for improvement but also, as importantly, to evaluate their effectiveness? Here are six quick questions to start you off.

Schools often make the mistake of creating a shopping list of data to collect “because it might come in useful”. They often end up being “data-rich but information-poor”. 

Far better to start with the questions that you want the data to help you answer, and then identify what data you need. For example: “Are our most able students achieving as much as they should?”