This article has been put together chiefly using feedback from school leaders in the primary phase.
The LA Services offering in Perspective and Perspective Lite provides school leaders with early information on their assessment results and the data included in their school census submission. This information is contextualised with comparisons to the LA, emerging National results, and, in some areas, schools of different Ofsted grades. School leaders can also break the analysis down to examine the results for key pupil groups.
As a school leader, you know your pupils and schools better than anyone else, but that doesn't mean that you can't find some surprises (both strengths and challenges) in the data that is available, and that is the place where our feedback from head teachers suggests that you might want to start when the results become available.
Remember that Perspective Lite brings you results - with these comparisons and contextual data - much earlier than it is published by the DfE and includes nearly every school in the country in most measures.
Step 1 - Analysis (Insight) - Intelligence
This analysis section is your shortcut to reviewing all key metrics regarding assessment results, absence and exclusions. Each measure is compared to (nearly) all schools nationally and assessed for mathematical significance, and presented as either a strength or a challenge. This looks at both the gap to national and your year-on-year trend.
Helpfully colour-coded as green (strength), red (challenge), or grey (neither), this data can be reviewed in less than 10 minutes, and from that review, you can pick up what you might want to look into more deeply.
Compare that to needing to pour over tables of data, compare to national figures, and do it all for yourself. This really is your shortcut to that assurance!
Step 2 - Analysis (Insight) - Headlines
Your review of Analysis - Intelligence may have pointed you at certain measures you want to understand a little better, or - and we would recommend it - you might want to look in on those headline measures and understand your school performance in more detail. Headlines offer you that chance. If you needed to put together a report for a Governing Body or Board, this area would provide you with that straightforward narrative and visualisation of the results. Providing you with percentile rankings in most measures, you can also really understand where you sit.
Step 3 - Analysis - Pupil Groups
Intelligence and Headlines may have alerted you to areas of results that you may want to understand better, or it may be that the nature of your school's cohort means that you will want to look into the results for SEND or Disadvantaged cohorts.
By selecting the group you are interested in, you can access similar visualised and verbalised reports you have already worked with in Steps 1 and 2.
At this point, you may already understand your results and pupil groups well. Still, if you need to drill down further into the groups or overlay more than one pupil group (for example, to look at the performance of specific ethnicity codes or genders), then you can use Reports (Nova).
Step 4 - Reports (Nova)
Reports offered in this section are much more detailed and allow you to access results - with comparators - for virtually any pupil group included in the School Census plus Pupil Premium eligibility.
Perspective's LA Services menu offers several more options, including detailed reporting on Absences and Inclusions/suspensions.
Expanding Your Toolkit: Additional Modules and Enhanced Capabilities
In addition to the core modules, Perspective Lite offers a variety of additional features designed to further enhance your data analysis and school management capabilities.
These include real-time data charts and news, keeping you up-to-date with the latest developments and insights.
Furthermore, your Local Authority may subscribe to additional modules, such as school visits and file returns, providing a comprehensive suite of tools tailored to your needs.
These enhancements allow for a more detailed and responsive approach to school leadership, ensuring that you have all the necessary resources at your fingertips.