What impact does the use of data boards

have on raising student achievement and

prioritising target students?

A leadership inquiry into how to raise student

achievement

Goal:

In this inquiry I intend to compare and contrast two different

schools use of data walls or boards and the impact they have had
on student achievement and identifying target students.

School One

Roll 68
One school is a small rural school that was a high functioning school that had a
well-established staff of 3 classroom teachers, where a lot of time and PD had
been focused around raising student achievement in Literacy and Numeracy.
Moderation was firmly established and occurred, within the school staff and
within the community of schools regularly.
Staff were well versed in the use of assessment practices and had
collaboratively agreed on school wide indicators and had unpacked exemplars,
had arrived at agreed understandings of what was necessary and sufficient to
meet the National Standards that applied to reading, writing and numeracy.
Continued and, on going collaboration was sought and expected within the
community of schools this school was involved in.
The rural school principal was focusing on student ownership of learning and
prioritised goal setting with students and whanau as an approach to raising
student achievement when introducing the data walls.
These were displayed in classrooms and children were identified by name and,
were encouraged to move their name as they progressed in writing, reading,
etc

The outcomes:
School One:
I

believe that the public nature of the data did have an impact on both the students and
the teachers of those students that did undoubtedly lead to raising student achievement.
For the students the pressure to achieve was raised, the fear of being placed
unfavourably on the wall must have exerted some psychological pressure to perform.
For the staff most wanted to reduce the exposure of those target students in the data
(driven by moral purpose) and to raise achievement for the students by improved
pedagogy practice to ensure social and educational success for these students into their
futures. The sense of urgency was certainly there and an expected outcome was
genuine acceleration of learning. The public nature of the data walls raised the sense of
urgency amongst the staff for these
students. However the practice was
questionable in terms of the impact the boards had on performance for some students.
Nationally this school was a high performing school and ERO cited the school as such:
http
://www.ero.govt.nz/Early-Childhood-School-Reports/School-Reports/Kuranui-Primary-School
-12-05-2011/2-Learning

Over 90% of learners are At or Above for learning in Reading, Writing and Numeracy.
Maori and Pacifica students are achieving well and their whanau fell valued and included
in the school.

What people thought?

I have collected voice from selected members of the board as they relate to
the use of data walls, including:

Parent: I hated going to the school and seeing my child constantly at the
bottom of the board for writing. I knew it wasnt one of their strengths but it
hurt as a parent. There should be a better way!

Child: I always felt like I was dumb even though my teacher always helped
me learn and encouraged me to do my best.

Teacher: I believe data walls that were used in this way created unhealthy
competition between students, that was fostered by some parents and
although we worked hard to minimise this we couldnt mend what others
said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/1
4/how-data-walls-in-classrooms-can-humiliate-young-kids/

School Two:

The second school is a central city school with a number of staff, at varying lengths of
service and from a wide number of backgrounds. The staff currently have varying
degrees of curriculum knowledge and experience, as one would expect from such a
school.
Staff appeared to have different interpretations of what was necessary and sufficient
to meet National Standards and what the standards are across the levels of the
curriculum.
There was reportedly a lot of change over in staff on a yearly basis and varying
degrees of induction available to staff members.
The school is in a state of change and has a proactive, future focused leader who is
implementing the changes she desires at a timely pace.
Currently the school is undertaking an ALL Writing inquiry
The use of data boards however, at this school was handled differently.
The data boards were only available to be viewed by teachers within each learning
team, the leadership team, the BOT members therefore preserving the confidentiality
of the students identified as target students with more success. (Leading with moral
purpose.)
The data boards were used to identify the students progress towards National
Standards at different points of their learning journey based on their age, until the
beginning of Year 3.
From year 3 onwards the data was collected every six months

The outcomes:
School Two:
I believe that the use of data boards has been effective in
identifying prIority learners and indicating change over time for
these learners. This is more evident in the year 4,5 and 6 where
students have more physical time to achieve the goals while in
Year 1-3 the shorter units of time to report over does not allow for
clarity in trends in children. However it does prove useful in
keeping these children in the forefront of their teachers minds.
While some teachers report feeling frustrated at changing results
as students reach new benchmarks they do acknowledge the
usefulness of the visual nature of seeing data displayed in this
manner.
Data boards have raised awareness of the urgency to act where
these children are involved and highlighted the need to seek
solutions to addressing their particular needs
The use of data boards has also raised and cemented the need
for ongoing moderation between teachers about their OTJs and
understandings around the terms at, above, below and well

The differences in the

schools

Roll numbers, 68 compared to 360 approx

School approaches to lesson content- one had preset range of teaching
programmes, the other allowed variety and choice in teaching programmes
The city school had almost a 50/50 split between Maori and European
children

Both schools had:

Experienced leaders and staff

Both schools were blessed with visionary principals who were
alike in their passion and drive for student achievement,
expectation of excellence in practice and belief in identifying
then working with target students to raise achievement.
Both schools had been involved in ALL programmes and both
schools have disparity between the levels of achievement in
students in the classrooms.

What the research tells

us:

Data boards improve teachers responses to interventions (inquiries).

Simple and inexpensive tool
Easily maintained
Improves identification of target groups
Improves communication of data between colleagues
Effectively conveys information therefore reducing the time needed at
meetings
Provides focus for learning needs in cohort groups or classrooms
May provide indicators of future professional learning required across
the school and influence school wide charter goals

http://lplearningcenter.org/wp
-content/uploads/2012/11/EducatorVol9.pdf

What impact did the data boards

have on teachers in School Two?

What the staff survey revealed

I used Survey monkey to create a survey to ask teachers how

data boards impacted on their teaching and learning decisions.
These are some of the responses:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/summary/O0Yt4vTK421_2F7VouWmXwkdUs2X80t3djIBQ2bfnH1CU_3D?utm_source=RPS

Conclusions:

Maintaining confidentiality among student achievement is essential

Data boards accurately accurately track student achievement against
the National Standards in most cohort groups, especially Yr 4-8 and
above, with great clarity consistently
Data boards accurately accurately track student achievement against
the National Standards in Year 0-3 students but it requires ages to be
displayed to determine where in the cycle of benchmarking these
students are. Without this knowledge it loses its clarity.
Data boards ability to show individual progress in younger students
needs to be viewed in conjunction with individual tracking records in
order to paint a clear picture of individual progress achieved by the
student.
The difference in clarity exists because of the need to report every six
months within the first 120 weeks of school for students in year 0-3 and
at the end of each year in Year 4 and above.

An overview of my year..of
NAPP

What leadership growth has

NAPP developed within me

Pono: the belief in myself as a leader and my ability to question and reflect on my
values and beliefs around leadership. What makes an effective leader? How to deal
with the road blocks?
Integrity: This year has highlighted for me the need to handle every situation with
integrity and to watch, listen and filter my thoughts, feelings and opinions with a
lens aligned to the perspectives of others.
Ako: To continue to build my own capacity as a learner and be self regulating in
achieving my goals. See my self as a learner. Build my capacity to inquire, be aware
and to develop research skills, be reflective and go above and beyond to keep the
child at the heart of the matter
Recognising and developing the actions of leading with moral purpose,
acknowledging the right of others but steering my own course with my own moral
compass.
Meeting and struggling through personal challenge: balancing personal and
professional needs.
Building relational trust: through active listening, caring for others, and
demonstrating personal integrity; being reflective and share knowledge to build and
strengthen colleagues, act as an interface between the school, parent body and
outside agencies.
Keeping the child at the heart of the matter: having strength of character to
challenge others to strive to be the best they can, uphold the rights of the child in
the face of challenge.
Encouraging and supporting others: I have quickly built trust with my students and

To teach is to touch a life,

forever

Thank you ..
Thank

you to my fellow NAPPers

for sharing my journey with me.

It takes a village to raise a child. or a

learner !