The Trust Data Services Team works to produce high quality, timely information to enable teaching and support services to monitor and improve their work with the ultimate purpose of improving the educational outcomes for pupils. We collect, collate and analyse data about our pupils, staff and services to provide staff and governors the insight needed to recognise strengths and focus support where it is most needed. Our work empowers pupils and their parents to better understand both their own progress and the work of the organisation.

Where appropriate, approaches are standardised across our schools, utilising solutions that integrate carefully selected proprietary software and bespoke analysis tools to generate high quality information. These analyses support the work of school and trust leads by providing consistent data sets that can be fairly used for monitoring. Our selected MIS partner, Bromcom, has now been adopted by all Trust schools, strengthening our ability to share practices and collate headline figures and KPIs.

Data managers are based within schools and form a team across the Trust. They are well supported and can share expertise to work more efficiently and support Trust agreed approaches. We know that schools will have their own data requirements too, so every school has either a dedicated or shared Data Manager to help to develop new approaches and meet emerging requirements. The team is led by an Executive Data Manager and Analyst, who provides expertise and leadership.

Our work is guided by the Data Steering Group, made up of senior leaders from across our Trust. This working party provides strategic direction for new focusses and supports the implementation of Trust processes in schools. Decisions are made collaboratively to meet the needs of all our schools. Key developments from this working party include standardised assessment and analysis from KS1 to KS4, and an agreed approach to attendance and behaviour analysis. Innovative and outward facing, the group also ensures benchmarking information is used to provide further understanding of our schools.