Our director of data and research partnerships, Sean Hayes, was one of the key speakers last week at a conference organised by Inside Government on school inspections. Sean was one of several speakers who gave the delegates an insight into how schools can raise expectations and improve their performance.

The event began with a presentation by Ofsted’s divisional manager of education, Frank Norris, who spoke about the new school inspection framework. The new framework has an emphasis on strong pupil progress, he said, and there will be more of a focus on mathematics in 2013.  He also told delegates that the new framework will look at how effective senior leaders are at driving up standards. His mantra was “inspectors want to see everything” and he reminded delegates to make sure their school websites are up to date with opening times and other information.

“We are telling inspectors to see what’s available on your website,” said Mr Norris.

He ended up by saying really good secondary schools offer added value and outstanding schools have a “culture of improvement not letting children fall through the net”.

Next up was former Headteacher, Brenda Bigland CBE, who also talked about raising standards.

“It’s all about embedding systems and strategies at your school, which will support it to become good in the future.”

She said it was very important that all staff sing from the same hymn sheet and she also recommended putting lavender and cakes on view when inspectors come to call. She said there should be no secret about school performance and recommended getting parents involved.

“If you are only reactive, you will not get to that outstanding rating,” she said. “You must be pro-active.”

After a brief break for coffee and biscuits, the conference continued with Headteacher Karin Heap, who said it “is important that we need to measure what we want to achieve”.

“Outputs tend to lead to outcomes,” she said.

And then our very own Sean Hayes took to the podium to explain how data can be used to drive school improvement. Sean reminded us all that good data analysis can help a school be more transparent and push up standards. He also added:  “Good data management is often a key feature of outstanding schools.”

“Data won’t provide answers, but it can open up lines of enquiry,’ he said. Good data analysis can help identify groups at risk and show schools how they are performing against local and national targets. He said research by Kerr & West identified several key groups, which are currently at risk or underachievement or low attainment levels; these include white British pupils, those from poor backgrounds and children with single or unemployed parents, or parents who have few educational qualifications.

“You need to know your own students and your own context,” he said.

It was a fascinating speech and there were several questions from the floor afterwards.

The afternoon also saw several keynote speeches from the president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, Debbie Jones, and the National College for School Leadership’s director for school improvement, John Stephens.

Our thanks go to Inside Government for organising the excellent conference and if you were there, and have any further questions about Sean’s speech or data analysis, please get in touch.

Sean will be presenting a paper on UTCs and vocational and academic education at the British Educational Research Association (BERA) annual conference at the University of Manchester on 5^th September.  He will also be speaking at another Inside Government conference on 26^th September on data for school self-evaluation.