1. National Tracking Project Data for School Improvement

2. Who’s Involved?  Standards of Excellence and Learning (SEA+L)  Brock University Coral Mitchell, Department of Education Brock Business Consulting Group – MBA students  41 SEA+L schools across Canada

3. Motivation for the National Tracking Project  Canadian independent schools declare themselves to be excellent university preparatory schools  Most schools have detailed data on university acceptance but little or no concrete information on post-secondary performance  SEA+L standards require schools to track graduate performance  SEA+L defines its member schools as “providing outstanding academic preparation for higher education”

4. Why quantitative data?  For reflection  To confirm or refute our predictions  To establish trends and drive decision making  To build community discussions  To improve teaching and learning in our schools

5. What data is being collected?  Academic achievements of graduating class  Extra-curricular participation by graduating class  University and college transcripts for past graduates each spring  National data – comparing results between SEA+L schools

6. History  Two pioneer schools Rothesay Netherwood School Balmoral Hall School  2006 - Pilot Project 19 schools from across Canada Creation of the NTP Advisory Group Donna Alexander (BHS) - NTP coordinator Partnership with Coral Mitchell, Brock University & Larry Sackney, University of Saskatchewan Development of a comprehensive support manual and training programme for data collection for participating schools

7. History  2007 40 schools involved in tracking  2008 Kim Tulloch (LCC) appointed NTP Coordinator Brock Business Consulting Group joins in to do data collection and analysis Preliminary cross-Canada data analysis results are shared with NTP schools  2009 42 schools across Canada involved in tracking Brock Business Consulting Group providing data analysis for individual schools

8. Process  Graduating students (& parents) are asked to sign five/six transcript release forms  School submits transcript release forms to receiving universities beginning 13 months after secondary graduation  School collects transcripts, enters data and submits aggregate information to NTP coordinator

9. Process  National trends are identified and reported back to participating schools for comparative purposes  “Soft” data on extra-curricular and co- curricular participation also collected and correlated  Schools maintain confidentiality of data for first five years of project

10. Timeline for NTP Fall 2010  Speak to students and parents, about the intent of project. (This will be on-going throughout the school year) Spring 2011  Ask students to complete on-line survey – link sent to you by NTP coordinator. Survey results will be sent back to you as an Excel worksheet.  Ask graduating students to sign transcript release form with their full name and date of birth University name and ID number is not necessary. Requiring parent’s signature is at the discretion of each individual school.  Enter graduates’ final high school marks in the Excel worksheet once the students complete the survey and it is sent to you.

11. Timeline for NTP Fall 2011  Speak to students and parents, about the intent of project. (This will be on-going throughout the school year) Spring/summer 2012  Separate 2011 graduates’ transcript release forms by university  Determine cost of transcripts (use hyperlinks from NTP manual)  Arrange payment and send transcript release forms to universities  Once transcripts are received, enter the university results in the above worksheet for the 2011 graduates  Enter the 2012 graduates’ high school marks in their worksheet Fall 2012  Send your first year (2011 grad) results to SEAL/Brock Business Consulting Group

12. Student Involvement

13. Where are the resources? http://www.seal.edu/

14. Resources NTP manual and templates are available from the SEA+L website: http://www.seal.edu

15. Resources  Brock Business Consulting Group Doing data collection and analysis for all participating NTP schools  Individual school data analysis  Cross analysis with national data Providing technical support for data entry Will complete data entry for NTP schools for a small fee

16. Resources & Support  Kimberly Tulloch-Wynn, Project Co-ordinator – ntp@seal.eduntp@seal.edu  Lindsay Ireland, Administrative Assistant SEA+L – lireland@seal.edu lireland@seal.edu  David Bungay, Brock Business Consulting – bcs@brocku.cabcs@brocku.ca

17. Outcomes  Early results have been tabulated, shared and compared with published, aggregate university data  Schools have been reflecting on programme needs and university selection process

18. NTP in the future  In conjunction with Brock Business Consulting Group, we’re working to make the NTP process more “user friendly” for individual NTP coordinators: Streamlining of data collection Providing analysis of data that is relevant for each individual school Student surveys that are shorter and more specifically relevant for each individual school

19. Conclusions  Reputation built on “good news” stories and alumni profiles will come under greater scrutiny  Schools that collect concrete data on graduate performance will be able to: accurately assess the success of their programmes have the data they need to effect significant and targeted school improvement strategies