1. Consider the Evidence Evidence-driven decision making
for secondary schools
A resource to assist schools
to review their use of data and other evidence 4
Evidence-driven Strategic Planning

2. What is meant by “data and other evidence”?
Consider the Evidence
A resource to assist schools
to review their use of data and other evidence
What is meant by “data and other evidence”?
This is an introductory slide – the next two slides discuss and define ‘evidence’ and ‘data’.
This resource uses terms commonly used in schools - the usage and meaning intended is that generally applied in educational circles. A full discussion of terminology used in this resource is in the Appendix.
The resource we are using is called ‘Consider the Evidence’ – it deals with ‘evidence-driven decision making’.
Before we discuss evidence-based strategic planning, we need to think about what constitutes ‘evidence’ in schools.
It’s useful to think in terms of ‘data and other evidence’.

3. Evidence
Any facts, circumstances or perceptions that can be used as an input for an analysis or decision
how classes are compiled, how classes are allocated to teachers, test results, teachers’ observations, attendance data, portfolios of work, student opinions …
Data are one form of evidence
‘Evidence’ is used here in the same way that it’s used in courts of law and in standards based assessment.
All schools have access to a lot of ‘data’ about student achievement and student behaviour – test results, attendance patterns, etc.
But schools have access to a lot more information than what is normally thought of as ‘data’.
In this session we want to be aware of all the ‘evidence’ we have access to.
Some of this evidence is ‘data’ - but some (like parents’ opinions, teachers’ observations) can’t be easily processed in the way we process ‘data’ – so it’s best called ‘evidence’.
If participants have concerns about the use of jargon, here’s a way to discuss the issue:
Whenever people come to grips with new ideas, they might have to learn new terms or give special meaning to existing words. This happened with curriculum and assessment developments – but most teachers (and parents) are now familiar with terms and concepts like strands, levels and credits. The language of computing is another good example.

4. Data
Known facts or measurements, probably expressed in some systematic or symbolic way (eg as numbers)
assessment results, gender, attendance, ethnicity …
Data are one form of evidence
This resource treats the word ‘data’ as a plural noun – hence ‘data are …’.
There’s nothing new here - but for some of you, this will be quite a narrow definition of data.
We could have a discussion about what constitutes data – for example, do all data have to be coded in some way (eg as a number)?
But I suggest we accept this distinction for the purposes of this session.
The main point is: If we want to establish meaningful strategic goals, and if we are to din ways to meet our targets, we need to consider a lot more than what we traditionally think of as data.

5. What evidence does a school have?
Student achievement
Perceptions
School processes
Other practice
Demographics
This is an introductory slide – the next five slides deal with each category in turn.
All schools have data about student achievement.
To make the most of these data, we need to take be aware of many other factors - evidence that describes our students’ wider learning environment.
We have so much evidence that it’s useful to categorise it in some way.
The approach we are taking today separates all data and other evidence into these five categories.

6. Demographics Data that provides a profile of our school
School - decile, roll size, urban/rural, single sex or co-educational, teaching spaces …
Students - ethnicity, gender, age, year level, attendance, lateness, suspension and other disciplinary data, previous school, part-time employment …
Staff - gender, age, years of experience, qualifications, teaching areas, involvement in national curriculum and assessment, turnover rate …
Parents/caregivers and community - socio-economic factors, breadth of school catchment, occupations …
Demographics – also known as Profile data – are objective data that describe and define our school and its students, staff and community – decile, gender, suspensions, etc

7. Student achievement Evidence about student achievement
National assessment results - NCEA, NZ Scholarship - details like credits above and below year levels, breadth of subjects entered…
Standardised assessment results administered internally - PAT, asTTle…
Other in-school assessments - most non-standardised but some, especially within departments, will be consistent across classes - includes data from previous schools, primary/intermediate
Student work - work completion rates, internal assessment completion patterns, exercise books, notes, drafts of material - these can provide useful supplementary evidence
Student Achievement data and other evidence - much of this is readily available – from national assessments, standardised testing we carry out in the school, portfolios of student work, etc.

8. Perceptions
Evidence about what students, staff, parents and the community think about the school
Self appraisal - student perceptions of their own abilities, potential, achievements, attitudes …
Formal and informal observations made by teachers - peer interactions, behaviour, attitudes, engagement, student-teacher relationships, learning styles, classroom dynamics …
Structured interactions - records from student interviews, parent interviews, staff conferences on students …
Externally generated reports - from ERO and NZQA (these contain data but also perceptions) …
Student voice - student surveys, student council submissions …
Other informal sources – views about the school environment, staff and student morale, Board perceptions, conversations among teachers …
In many schools there will be little of this sort of evidence, so you might spend more time on this.
Perceptions - evidence of what parents, trustees, staff, students and other think about the school.
This is probably the most subjective evidence we have, but much of it will be factual and collected in formal ways - student self appraisal, formal and informal observations made by parents, teachers, etc.

9. School processes
Evidence about how our school is organised and operates
School processes - evidence and data about how your school is organised and operates, including:
Timetable –structure, period length, placement of breaks, subjects offered, student choices, tertiary and workforce factors, etc
Classes - how they are compiled, their characteristics, effect of timetable choices, etc
Resources - access to libraries, text books, ICT, special equipment, etc
Finance - how the school budget is allocated, how funds are used within departments, expenditure on professional development
Staffing - policies and procedures for employing staff, allocating responsibility, special roles, workload, subjects and classes
Some teachers and trustees may not think of School Processes as evidence that can be used in decision making – you might need to skip forward to later slides that provide examples.
School processes - how our school is organised and operates – the timetable, resources, etc

10. Other Practice
How we can find out about what has worked in other schools?
Documented research – university and other publications, Ministry of Education’s Best Evidence Syntheses, NZCER, NZARE, overseas equivalents …
Experiences of other schools – informal contacts, local clusters, advisory services, TKI LeadSpace …
Other Practice – we should look at the experiences of others - documented academic research, the experiences of other schools, etc.
It’s important that a school’s evidence-driven decision making benefits from the results of research and the experiences of other schools

11. Evidence-driven strategic planning
If we use evidence-driven decision making to improve student achievement and enhance teaching practice …
… it follows that strategic planning across the school should also be evidence-driven.
Teachers continuously use data and other evidence to improve student achievement and enhance teaching practice. So t follows that the school’s strategic planning should also be evidence-driven.
An example follows on the next slide.

12. Evidence-driven strategic planning
INDICATORS FROM DATA
asTTle scores show a high proportion of
Year 9 achieving below curriculum level
NCEA results show high non- achievement in transactional writing
Poor results in other language NCEA standards
etc.
STRATEGIC GOAL
To raise the levels of writing across the school
Strategic action
Develop a writing development plan which addresses writing across subjects and levels , including targets, professional development and other resourcing needs
ANNUAL PLAN
Develop and implement a plan to raise levels of Writing at year 9
Development plan to be based on an analysis of all available data and to include a range of shared strategies
YEAR TARGET
Raise writing asTTle results year 9 boys from 3B to 3A
Appraisal
P D
Self review
School charter
EVALUATION DATA
asTTle writing results improve by …
Perception data from Yr 9 staff indicates …
Evaluation of effectiveness of range of shared strategies, barriers and enablers …
etc .
If you choose to use this chart, you might like to print paper copies for distribution.
The diagram indicates one way to think of evidence-driven strategic planning.
In this model, data from a range of sources provide ‘indicators’ of a problem - one aspect of student achievement (in this case, writing) stands out across the school as one that could be improved.
This leads the Board to establish a strategic goal. They add an appropriate aim and a target (with measurable outcomes) to the school’s annual plan.
School leaders create a development plan. To do this they will need to go back to the indicator data and analyse these data alongside other data and evidence.
Then the development plan is implemented.
At the end of the year other data and evidence are analysed to evaluate the success of the development plan as a whole and the various strategies that were used.
The data used for evaluation will probably be different from those used to identify the problem and develop the action plan. (In this case, for example, the current NCEA results were not relevant for Year 9 students, and other data was collected to evaluate some of the actions taken.)

13. How can we apply this approach
What now?
How can we apply this approach
in our school?
End of presentation.
The next step is for the group to discuss how this model can be applied in this school. This should include a discussion about how strategic goals are set in the school, what evidence already exists, how this is collected and recorded, and how well equipped the school is to analyse and use it in the interests of improving student achievement.
Finally, the group should consider what evidence-driven projects the school could undertake.