A Q&A with Marian Wheeler, GDST Data Systems Manager, Girls' Day School Trust
As GDST Data Systems Manager at the Girls’ Day School Trust, Marian leads 26 schools in their use of data systems and MIS. This role encompasses the development of best practice, organisation data standards, supporting the introduction of new systems, analytics, and the development and delivery of training to empower the schools in use of systems and data.
Marian’s passion for MIS systems and data comes from many years working in the education sector, within Local Authorities, as well as schools. Her experience includes over a decade working for a Local Support Unit, supporting around 800 schools in their use of the SIMS MIS, with a particular focus on the use of systems and data to support school improvement and consultancy work advising SLT on exploiting MIS technology to its fullest potential.
How do you ensure that school leaders and staff are equipped to interpret and act on the data insights?
Marian: Firstly, have clear data standards. Ensure that we have purposeful use behind our data systems. Given limited resources, we need to really question what we’re doing in terms of collecting and processing data and whether there is value to it.
Establish clear KPIs around expectations for monitoring and evaluation, whatever the area, whether financial, operational, attainment, etc.
Data literacy is crucial. Make sure that people understand how to use data effectively. For example, we develop dashboards centrally for schools to use where there’s a common need. Not only do we launch the dashboard, but we will also run inset sessions for the appropriate audience within schools to talk through the dashboard, what it’s delivering, or how they might want to use it. So, we’re trying to ensure that we really package that effectively.
I think it’s also critical to have a clear calendar for your data: it should be clear at what points in time you intend to analyse, review, and target set so that it doesn’t become too onerous. This feeds into things like the frequency of collection, how often we need to update it, and how often we need to review the analysis based on whatever that data set is. For example, if you think of budgetary data, you’re going to be looking at specific points in time – financial quarters. A key part of the data strategy is having a clear calendar around your data activities. This also includes things like housekeeping and data cleansing activities that you might need to do on a fairly frequent basis to ensure that you’re in a good place.
What strategies have you found most effective for translating complex data into actionable steps?
Marian: We’ve been doing lots of work around inset for teaching staff with dashboards, but we’ve also been thinking about relationships between national, whole school, and classroom data and where they’re appropriate. Comparisons with different levels of data and different groupings of data should be done to ensure that the dashboards are going to be actionable and appropriate.
Understanding the audience and intent behind any data analysis is crucial because if you don’t have a clear picture around that, it’s going to be difficult. I use the word ‘KPIs’ a lot – it’s a key part of our data analysis because it helps us dig into what’s appropriate and to be able to track effectively. We need to have clear KPIs, but we can’t have too many of them because, otherwise, it becomes something that you can’t action as you’re trying to look at too many different things. It depends on the intent behind the analysis – that’s key to all of this – having a clear purpose throughout.
At the school level, there should be a clear mapping back to the school improvement plan. We shouldn’t be doing any activities around data that does not feed in and support that – if there is something else that we’re doing, we need to be clear about why. We need to ask ourselves: ‘Is there value to it? Can we make better use of our resource elsewhere?’
Understanding the audience to which you’re presenting data is also critical, and I think it’s worth looking at your strategy from that perspective. When you present data analysis to different types of people, you need to understand what they need. For example, if you present data to governors or trustees, then the data is likely to be in a different shape than it would be, perhaps for a head of a department.
From one data set, potentially, it’s possible to present it in many different ways for different purposes, so you’re getting lots more value back from your data. But there must be clear communication around intent, particularly in terms of required actions when you’re sharing your data; it’s not good to launch a data dashboard, or provide somebody with a report with a lot of data analysis, if you’re not clear around why you’ve given it to them and what you expect them to do with it. Is it just for information? Are they supposed to be going off and saying, ‘OK, I need to look at this and take some action’? This piece is easily missed and can make a big difference in terms of effective use of data.
Read next: Driving measurable improvement with data
Marian’s Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marian-wheeler/
The GDST website: https://www.gdst.net/about-us/about-the-gdst/