so today we are going to look at effective transitions but we're looking at the key point of transitions so that primary from early into primary and from primary into secondary but while recognizing that all transition particularly around attendance is really important today these are the aims that we're hoping to explore with you we are going to give you some exemplification in the end and what that can look like and what typical package of transition data will be useful but before we dive into this I want to first of all just have a be chat about why why why is it so important for us to look at these points of transition and I'm going to go over just a little bit of data with you first so at the moment this is Scotland's attendance this is what the picture looked like this time last year and June 20th the last aggregated National Data we have and unfortunately or fortunately um our early years data is not collected that's for a whole variety of reasons that's because some people are on 52 we establish M some people are on a a school a school timetable so that data is not collected and aggregated and also as we all aware our early Year's attendance is not compulsory either but let's we look at this data here so what we have here is we have our totals so our totals are up here I think it's also important to recognize that well um we have definitely seen a a harder impact from covid I think it's important to recognize that this D trajectory attendance did not happen because of covid it was on a d trajectory since 2017 but let's we look at this here so here are our primary that's our Primary in June last year and this is our secondary so if we're talking about transitions what we're seeing here is that is a really really important thing to pay attention to because back sorry I've clicked into that meeting right I've put the camera off everything was just to see thank you um so we um we see that there's a big drop between primary and secondary so that again is a a very good indicator of why we need to be paying attention to to Transitions and I also want to we look at per assistance absence so this is anything that is is above 10% absence okay less than 90% attendance and again you're going to see that jump between primary and secondary but what I want to point out is that jump can be predicted you know this is a piece of research that was put together by sh jny and I want to just have a really close look at this data here our first our first comments a lot it's quite overwhelming so let's just take a minute and actually look at what we're looking at here so this is all attendance okay and what we're seeing here is that if you're if you're pretty much coming to school most of the time there's no real UPS or Downs you'll see a a steady a steady trajectory between authorized and unauthorized we'll also see that for those children who are have consistently low absence but we will then begin to see you know for those children who who maybe have moderate absence you begin to see that split between unauthorized and authorized that it's English data that's is not Scottish data but it is you know things don't necessarily change just because you step across the border I want to have a look at these three then here okay so this is moderately increasing unauthorized absence this is strongly increasing authorized absence and this is strongly increasing unauthorized absence it is the English system so it's primary 1 primary 3 primary 5 Prim 7 and then we go up and we jump to S2 and then we jump to S M5 okay look at this here those unauthorized absences here seem you know they're quite low level whenever they're in primary school when we hit that p7 stage we then see a rapid acceleration so if in your school and your local Authority you are seeing that Spike around third year you know moving from first all the way through and you're seeing it a massive Spike by the time you get to third fourth year it's it's really important to have a closer look at actually well is that predictable okay and or authorized here is is is pretty stagnant but again here we go and what we'll find is that in our last set of data was collected nationally the amount of unauthorized and authorized absences are now on kind of par with each other with regards to Trends they're both moving you know much faster whereas previously authorized absence was fairly low so we're seeing big spikes in that but again look at this if we're seeing a strong picture even in primary 1 you know this is this is 95% here at 10 we can begin to see that picture and it becomes quite jaggy in primary primary primary five flattens out a little bit but again the spike happens later on and the same for Anor absence so if we're seeing it these spikes are are really clear to see and we can see that that's happening around primary 7 first year then this really gives us a really strong argument for making sure that we are getting our transitions right that we're passing on the right data and I wanted to just cover a we bit today about what could that look like who are those groups that you know for instance we maybe want to be putting in our radar who might still be sitting at 95% attendance at the moment but they're people we want to keep a really close eye on over that transition period so we know that the people who are more vulnerable to low attendance are children impacted by poverty we know that St J's pupils that's where we see that Spike young people from Gypsy traveling communities and of course children with additional support needs those children are young carers those children that care experienced and also those that have experienced um exclusion and then that last one there is around anxiety and we are definitely seeing a a spike in the number of children who are um struggling to to be in the building of school so again that doesn't start in third year that takes a time to develop we also need to be really clear about understanding the reasons for absence because if we don't understand the reasons for absence we're not going to be able to address the reasons for absence and also whenever we are talking about transition how are we taking our time to actually pass on if we've got children with fairly low attendance at the moment how are we passing them what are the reasons for that and how do how do whenever we're pass on to the high school are they aware of the reasons and what I'm going to do is I'm going to just give you a minute thinking time and just what you think maybe choose one child that you're aware of in your school or if your noral local Authority think of one of your schools in general and just think about what information are you passing on currently I'm going to be quiet just for one minute e believe it or not that is just one minute who knew that a minute lasts as long as it does and I suppose if ever ask you now you know do you have a minute a minute is actually quite a lengthy period of time anyway so when you're thinking about what information am I passing on am I only passing on here's where they were in June am I passing on they be passing on a whole lot of GRA information about children with that really low absence what am I passing on as well and I suppose it is about thinking about those risk factors if we are going to be if we're saying now that EA children at 95% you can possibly predict where um their attendance is going to is is is going to um decline whenever they hit third year we need to be really clear at what are those risk factors and how of course can we mitigate those so we've talked you a minute ago about those that are vulnerable and it is about establishing an early warning system we want to be able to as soon as a child walks into first year or is walking from um Nursery into primary one we want to know who are The Children at Risk who are those children we also want to know patterns for cohorts you know is it Fridays you know is that cohort as well as individuals but is that coh is it a Friday you know where where we see you know High absence or is it a Monday morning because again that can help you design your curriculum so that possibly you know if if PE is a draw if it's a pull into school that PE can in fact be the thing that's happening Monday mornings for first year because if we can really focus in on first years we can focus on primary ones then hopefully we can break this trend before it even begins we also want to be aware of the pupils who are attending but rively we know late coming there an early warning of absences to come so we want to make sure that as well as passing on overall attendance we need to know who is arriving late and I don't mean five minutes late I mean really kind of 15 20 minutes late an hour late who are those Learners who are not coming to school in time who are those Learners who are telling us that they don't want to go to school because we need to beay attention to that because while they're in primary or they're in nursery and their parents might be bringing them to school eventually they'll be making a decision about whether they're not coming they're coming or not regardless of what their parents want for them and we need to be really clear about what barriers that pupil is facing so if we know that this is the reason go back to those those four reasons if we know what the reasons are then we should be able to to put in place mitigation to to make sure that you know if we don't we don't have any friendships maybe it's our peers that's the issue then we can make sure that in those first few weeks of school and we know the first two weeks of school is really really critical in determining what the rest of the year looks like so we can be put in place things that will mitigate the barriers and the fact that you know the primary of the nursery have possibly tried those and they might know what works and what doesn't work those are really important and pieces of information for us to be passing on okay and that is really is just as important as passing on the data it's it's really important to pass on what has been tried and what has impacted but equally what has been tried made no difference we know the amount of energy that's going in to support attendance around the country and not everybody's getting the the the results back for the amount of energy they're putting in and it's really important that we understand before we put energy into something that we know already doesn't work that we passing that on so it is about having a thorough conversation with the nursery or with the primary school for that cohort as well as individuals but for that cohort to say this is what's worked for us equally we tried this and that didn't work and the last one in this list as well is also really important fostering that family support and we're going to hear from Alan in just a minute who is going to really talk in a we bit more depth about how do we Foster sport how does that work in the ear years but also how does that trans how can that transfer as well up into that transition point from Prime to seven into secondary and I think it's also important to remember that absence is attendance is a behavior something all do you've all decided to come here today you've all decided to attend you know you various barriers that have you know you've had to overcome to get here but absence is something that's just a symptom of whatever else has going on in that child's life and is getting it right for every child this is about us understanding what those barriers are and making sure that if we've put energy into that that we are passing that on if they're going to another establishment equally the the other establishment is is seeking to find out and really understand you know what are the barriers and what has been successful so I want to come to this and I was really like this as as a as a framework for actually what is a positive transition and Alan I think is going to pick up this in a be bit more depth but I think it's important to remember yes we do want to be child- centered we do want to be thinking about individuals we also want to be thinking about cohorts but we have to be thinking about how are we working together how we passing on that information really effectively how we collaborating we also need to be thinking about our culture and how we we value not just the individual information but the cohort information and also how are we going to be consistent about this how is this going to be part of your policy in the future whenever you are looking at how effective your your transitions are so I'm going to stop sharing and I'm going to ask Alan to come on and share for us no problem I'll just get my PowerPoint up Liz thank you and well you're you're getting organized there can I check message Jacobs are you okay now did you manage to to disolve that issue hi yes no when my colleagues is um on their computer so it's fine thank you perfect brilliant that's great news thank you okay Alan yeah thanks Liz so good afternoon everyone as Liz has said my name is Alan flaming and I'm an education officer for early learning childcare education Scotland although my full background is as a nursery and primary teacher and Senior leader across ELC and primary so um this is something that's really uh involved in the work that I do in ELC but obviously the experience of um doing this across from ELC to primary and primary to secondary also comes into play here as well and I'm here to talk to you today about how transition principles can span across the stages as Liz has said H across those stages of a child and Young Person's education and how not only engaging the child but equally as important as engaging the parents can support attendance from the early early of a child's life onwards so let's have a quick look at what we know just now about effective Transitions and Les has already touched on the the five C's from realizing the ambition but I'll go into that in a bit more detail but what does research tell us about high quality transitions realizing the ambition being me or RTA for short was written for those working with children in their early years and early years is defined in Scottish policy as children from 0 to 8 so it's not when say earli we don't mean ELC we mean that Crossing from ELC into primary and many of you will know in the call that RTA um should be used across across ELC and primary however what you might not know is that although this is a document for those working with children age 0 to8 lots of the principles and realizing ambition can be used right across the education sector from pre-birth to 18 for example realizing ambition focuses on child Center practice and the voice of the child and this approach can be used to support children age four equally the principles apply to a young person who's 15 it's about knowing children as individuals and young people as individuals and listening to them planning learning and facilitating it in a way that that meets their needs and that is the same for our Transitions and another key section if you've not looked at realizing the ambition is section8 and that is a full section on high quality Transitions and it can be found in page 88 of of realizing the ambition and I'd encourage you to read it if you haven't already and while reading this section I want you to look at it from your particular lens what do these principles mean for children and families moving from ELC to primary or from primary to secondary or even from year to year realizing the ambition talks about these horizontal and vertical Transitions and section 8.2 focuses on what we can learn from research on Transitions and much of the research into Early Childhood transitions focuses on the move from ELC into school however there is also those um horizontal transitions that happen um dayto day okay so very quickly I know we're not looking at that specifically but actually it's important to consider this when we're thinking about attendance because for some children that transition from one class to the next or from one adult to the next can have as big an impact as um starting H in the actual setting itself so realizing ambition 8.2 goes into some detail around research done by Vogler um and it looks at the the key difference between horizontal and vertical transitions today we're going to focus on those vertical Transitions and Kagan and um aist Jo refer to the transition between different educational settings such as when they move from LC to primary or primary to secondary as those vertical Transitions and vertical transitions involve major changes for children and their families Burns 2018 suggests that children and their families often have have to adjust socially and cultur culturally to a new set of routines and rules and what I want you to reflect in today as part of your transition processes is that the role that you see for parents is it that they're the people that have just to assimilate the the the rules that you have set within your settings about when a child should be there or when they shouldn't be there or what they should do when they are there or are they active parts of that transition process realizing the ambition tells us that transition is a complex and dynamic process and that to to better understand it we need to be aware of how each child's or Young Person's development is influenced by that direct and indirect experience of their particular social and cultural context so I suppose we ask say what does that actually mean well we need to think about where children live and their family Ames and how they grow and learn so it's not just about the child and so often in transitions we can focus on getting a child- centered transition right for children which is absolutely what we should be doing but often the parents and families can be an afterthought around that and that they can often just be the people that need to get them where they need to be rather than being that active part of the transition the transition from YC to primary or primary to secondary is a big step a positive supportive transition at this stage as Liz as already said is likely to influence whether children are able to develop to their full potential at school both academically and socially and you'll see that um the quotes on the screen there especially that bottom left one from Dunlop and Fabian the way in which the first transitions are handled could potentially have a significant impact on children's capacity to cope with change in the short and longer term so in other words if we get these transitions right from the very start whether that's from our um youngest years from into primary or into secondary then that can make all the difference between a child who ends up settled and attached to a setting or a child who feels um disassociated or not comfortable in that setting that they're in and a number of researchers have demonstrated that previous positive impacts can decrease or even make um or or can even disappear if those transitions are not well managed and that that can arise from a lack of collaboration and communication between families and schools it could also be that our transition process is something that we've always done this way so we just keep doing it and you you might have noticed that at the start of this presentation it's it was called transitions tick done um and I'm going to come on to that in a we bit a we bit more detail in a moment it's it's clear that transitions can create a risk to Children's well-being their progress and development if we don't get it right however alternatively they can be a tool for positive change and they can create opportunities to improve outcomes for children and their families when we think about this from an attendance point of view we need to consider not only the child but their family as well and if we reflect on on that Dunlop and Fabian quote at the bottom if we get this transition right from the start it will contribute to children and their families having a positive experience and feeling more secure and attached in that setting and when we we move through this I want you to reflect on at What stages are parents truly involved in the transition process where where are their voices heard I know that um coming from an ELC perspective we spend a lot of time getting to know parents because the structures in the ELC allow for that the parents are in the building most of the time we're getting those relationships built up we work hard to get H to identify those parents that we think are anxious or worried or have got their own difficulties and we try and work with them as best as we can but quite often those parents aren't identified to schools so children in those risk categories that Liz pointed out first of all are identified and those enhanced transitions often take place but have we ever considered that actually for a lot of our parents that they need enhanced transitions how do we make sure and the question I want you to reflect on is how do we make sure that we are capitalizing on that great work that happens to get to know the parents and move that relationship on into primary and on into secondary because again seven years worth of relationships will have buil up in the primary school and how do you in secondary then capitalize on that too so for me there's an aspect of I know that there could be up to 15 if not more different ELC settings going into the one school and there could be maybe seven or eight or if not more primary schools into a secondary so there's there's I'm not stand sitting in this call saying that we should be meeting every single P individually because that obviously wouldn't be um feasible but are there mechanisms in place for settings to be able to pass over that information about those key parents or families that have got their own anxieties that we can then support as they move through Les reflected on the 5c's earlier and Marin Burns as part of her Research into Early Childhood transitions ident identify these five C's of positive Transitions and as you reflect in this session and what it means as you evaluate your current practice um please consider how you include those those five areas within your current transition processes you can use these these five words as a type of checklists so in what ways are are are what I'm planning to do promoting child- centered practice how are we getting the voice of the child in what ways is it effective communication is everything one way quite often in transition processes it can be you've got to be here at a certain time this is what's happening this is what you've got to bring but how do we get the the voice of the The Children and Families back into that not just as an evaluation after the fact not just how is that going but during that process and how do we ensure consistency for children and their families so to support the focused not only in children but in parents the the Scottish Children and Families transition position statement was published in 2009 and it recognizes a number of thing Rec things it recognizes the value of working together with children their families it recognizes the importance of positive relationships that positive continuity of learning and there's been research done over many years by the oecd about the importance of not only transition pastoral transitions for children but pedagogical transitions how do we make sure that the the the environment that the children have been in isn't starkly different to the environment they're going to be in and all of these things can truly support the child to feel safe attached and want to come into that environment the the the statement was developed in Partnership between the University of shth Cl the Scottish government education Scotland and a number of other H partners and it was informed by the work of the Scottish pedagogies of educational transitions a nice mouthful there or poet project for sure but there was a number of um Scottish government funded seminars and conferences um around this and you can find I'll share the QR code for this and you can find copies of these on the website but what I'd like to do is just quickly because I know we're we don't have a lot of time but just explore some of these six principles in a little more detail and when we're doing that if we can focus on it from not only the child but from the parent and Family's point of view so one of the six principles is around aspirations and we know that aspirations are about what we want to occur in a long list of possibilities whereas expectations is what we expect to happen and the the aspirations will be different depending on who you are you'll have aspirations as the educator parents and children will have aspirations as well but aspirations are underpinned by the recognition that children are from the child's point of view and from the staff's point of view that they are capable competent and creative individuals and that's why it's really important that we we put in mechanisms to to get the voice of the child across the minute you feel that something has been done to you I even as an adult you disengage more you're more likely to disengage than you are if you feel that you're an active participant in it so how can we make sure that the aspirations that children have that excitement if you're a parent and you've been with that we one who's got that excitement that we bubble in their tummy of you know I'm going to the big school how can we capitalize on that aspiration without overwhelming the children family's aspirations ultimately are that children will be happy and make a good start in any new setting if you ask a parent they'll say things like they want their children to be liked they want them to be respected and encouraged so how what mechanism have we got where we can support parents to show that that will actually happen because transitions can often be about the event and that's why I'm talking about that tick done um we can focus quite often on the procedural aspects of transition you know here is the timetable this is where they go this is where they should meet but actually how do we focus on that past more on that pastoral side and that emotional side for children and parents if we move on to the expectations expectations for parent or for children are largely based on the expectations of parents because they listen to parents who's been there when a grandparents said oh wait till you go to the big school they'll Tober you up there or do you know wait till you oh the big the hard work will start there so what does that start to do in that child's mind that starts to think oh my goodness this place that I'm going might not be as ER you know uh inviting as my ELC setting or actually I know my teachers really well in primary but they keep telling me these teachers in the secondary school are going to give me loads of work and I'm really worried about it so those parental expectations start to filter down into the child's expectations so how can we support parents to show them that actually the experience that they had at that point in their school that's completely different to what school is like for for children today we need to try and shift parental expectations to support us shifting children's expectations and if we can get that right with the parents then that's half the job for us because the the children will be supported at home with the same messaging that we are giving in the the education setting as well now I'm not going to go through I'm going to I'm not going to go through all this because we don't have time for it but one of the the things I want to talk about in this page is the opportunities transitions offer a plethora of opportunities both pos positive and negative if if if not handled correctly but those positive opportunities are that if you have got a child who um has not been attending in primary or has a has an attendance pattern the although it's not statutory where they're missing large chunks that there's the opportunity to almost hit that recet button use the data that you've got to find out right well let's look at that pattern as Liz has said what is it about those days on a Friday is it that actually the the parents work night shift Monday to Thursday and and a Friday they are absolutely shatter and can go they're late getting up so they just say you know what it's just it's one day what's one day so how do we capitalize on those bits of data that we have from the previous setting or the previous year to then make those positive changes and often at those points of trans position parents see that as a change of setting children see it's a change of setting or a change of time and space so it's the key time where we can really latch on to those opportunities to make those differences and the last two bits there are about participation and contribution and that's just I'm just encouraging you there to to Really reflect on what is the vital contribution that parents can make they are the first educators of their children they know their children inside out and quite often not always the case but if you've got an anxious parent quite often you you might have an anxious child because they're around that environment so again if we can really look at the family Dynamics and look at the positive aspects of how we can link in with children and with parents at those points of transition it will make our jobs easier one an example of something that happens is I know that in some I was part of a transition project in a learning community um where they're looking at how can we meet parents in a safe space so instead of inviting the parents into the school the first time they met they met parents was actually in a local park with their children and um it was a neutral ground this was an ELC into primary transition it was a neutral ground the parents didn't feel pressure that they were getting into this formal h building where they weren't comfortable they it was in the local area so the parents the the the the staff were coming into their comfort zone and another way that it's been done is that the the deput or the head or a principal teacher or even class teachers have come down to meet a small group of parents in the nursery again alleviating the parents fears that this is a new building that we're getting into the last time I was in school it wasn't a it wasn't a positive experience for me so we need to start thinking differently about how we manage Transitions and and also not just do what we've always done look at what are are the things that are having the best impact H look at things that are working why they working and try and grow and expand them so I'm going to um kind of round off now uh Les hopefully I've kept a time I like to Ratt on a bit but hopefully I've kept a time got okay I've got time so there's eight recommendations that come from H the transition paper and I'll just let you read them I'm not going to read them all out to you now bear in mind these trans transition this transition paper was aimed initially at the transitions from ELC into primary however the the principles and the rationale behind it can absolutely be applied from primary to secondary or even from year to year so the recommendations here I would ask you to look at them side by side to your own transition practice what how are you linking your practices into this um I've not got time to show you just now but there was a there's a really interesting quote about the process of transition and that just because we have three transition events for example doesn't mean that that's transition over transition is a psychological process and there's lots of research into this that actually transitions can can still be happening way into after the child has started in the school or in the setting and just because your events are over doesn't mean to say you can say tick done that's a child transitioned we're all ready to go in August CU we all know that that's not actually how it works and you might have children who are distressed or shown distressed uh Behavior further into the year and it's about looking at how can we continue that transition process for that child um and just because it's maybe not going right at the very start doesn't mean to say that we can't get that back but if we can plan for those um eventualities before they happen it makes a lot easier and I've already kind of spoken about this um really um Dunlop um alien Wendy alen Wendy Dunlop talks about the looking at how we def how we view Transitions and there's three different uh viewpoints there's the first one that Focus mainly on the individual child's development and the Readiness of the child um so you won't see in Scottish policy context anywhere that the phrase School Readiness that's that's a phrase that you'll hear down in in England but in Scotland policy we don't have that phrase because it's not something that we we we necessarily believe in um there's also those that on the other hand look more at the the structure around the child and their families so you know um is the school ready for the child so you'll hear that you know we should be ready for the child and their family but then you've got that third aspect that look at both they look at where the child is at and their family are at they look at the structures that're imp place within the school in the setting and they try and bring them together to make sure they're meeting that child's needs and that goes for using data on attendance whether that's Child Development or whether that's just getting to know the child and their immediate family so I'd ask you to reflect how do you view Transitions and how do you view your children and your families so I'm going to finish off this section here this is the QR code hopefully it will take you to um the Scottish Early Childhood fames transtion statement um and there's lots of further reading in there and there's there's a a very short version of the transition statement that is I think a double-sided A4 or if you wish there's the much more in-depth version too but I'm going to hand back over to Liz um and thanks much car Alan and I think what what you're saying that is really important is much much broader and it's about really knowing our families and our children well so we can make that smooth transition so that they want to come to school so what we're going to do now is we're going to hear from Colin who's going to talk um a we bit more about data and what data should be should be passed on at this time of year so coling you're okay to share yep and we'll hand straight over to you perfect thank you very much can you see that okay yeah yep we've got it perfect thank you very much so hi there folks my name's call French as Liz said I'm a development officer at South ler Council H I'm a primary background and I did a lot of work in attendance when I was in school and since coming to center it's been part of my remat as well so I'm going to talk to you tonight about some of the things we've been doing in South ltic Shir across the year with our some of our schools and we're hoping to upscale it to more of our schools next year so very quickly background we've been working on something called the test to change project it's involved 17 of our primary schools and 10 of our secondary schools this year this is the uh second of the project and basically we've tried to make it as reciprocal and reactive a process as as as was needed essentially we have tried to work with a Chang in landscape that is constantly shifting in terms of attendance um postco so this project has it's been it's been a successful project this year I'll talk about it more in depth in a couple of slides time but we're going to talk mostly about the data and how that's helped feed into the project so what we've done in the the change project this year there's been five sessions throughout the year and it's been really um helping schools dig into what the issues are and a lot of what both Liz and Allan have talked about tonight is what we've really tried to drive forward with the schools and it's about partially understanding and sharing all the latest research and everything that's coming out but a lot of what we've done this year has been trying to challenge the misconceptions of what schools have been trying to do and in in their own establishment and one of the things we've really come across is schools trying to work within this feed of influence and when a lot of our schools first came in at the start of the year they were hoping to take their children who were 70% attendance up to 95% attendance and when we and when we basically had a chat about it and said keep working with those kids of course keep doing other things with those children but you really want to work within your sphere of influence and look at the children who are potentially dropping from 95% maybe down to 92% and work on those small gains and those strategies that we've worked on with the schools across the year um not that they've then taken into schools and work with all stakeholders so the children the parents the other members of Staff as well and trying making it uh make everybody's business essentially has been one of the one of the Main Stays of our project this year so in terms of data and the main reason I'm here to talk this afternoon is what we've done with it this year and what's changed in the test of change project this year so the first thing that we had to we had to look at is what data we actually have and what we can receive from seus and what we can work with the second thing we about and we continue to speak about and I know every Authority will be the same as what is sustainable in this current climate in terms of in terms of capacity and one of the things we're very keen to do is although we're working very closely with the schools this year is we want to make this a self- sustaining process and the data that the schools get currently is something that they won't necessarily need the center team for in the future it's something they can work on by themselves and essentially a lot of the heavy liftings done so they can then get on with the project of actually helping the children get into school we wanted to make it manageable for the schools we didn't want it to be a difficult or owner this process and that's something that our schools this year have feedback that they've really enjoyed they've enjoyed getting involved in the data but involved in an almost a nice shiny front end of the data where you don't have to worry too much about all the all the stuff that goes on behind the Exel that you'll see in a few seconds so we wanted to give them the facts we wanted to talk to them about how you work with the data and how you can pass things like this up to the up to the secondary schools in particular but once you have the data how you build a story around the children and then what actions you take is what was important and we wanted to give them those facts quickly and easily to allow them to then go on the important parts of building the story and actually trying to make a difference and getting these children into school so what we started to use this year was an arm of seus that some of you might be familiar with it's called business intelligence it's something that we previously hadn't had unlocked for our primary schools but we now are getting unlocked and one of the big differences for business intelligence is you can get the exact bra or the exact time frame that you want so whereas most of you know on clicking go with seus you might only be able to ask for the last four weeks or eight weeks or a defined um characteristic you have to download with business intelligence you can set as you can see from the Wii the Wii screenshot there you can set exactly what you want so you choose your skill you choose the stages and you choose an exact start point an exact end point so you can look at weeks you can look at terms you can look at whatever date range you want and something that we really liked about it is it brings all the characteristics down so where's on click and go you can't really download the data on business intelligence you can just click download and it comes straight into a nice XL for you all the raw data and it brings down all their characteristics so it brings down pardon me the S IMD it brings down whether or not they're free scale meals it brings down ethnicity it brings down all the facts and all the all the data essentially that exists in seus and most importantly it's quick to download a data set takes about 30 seconds you just set this we set these we parameters up and then you download straight away and that was something our schools have really enjoyed it takes away all a lot of the long leg work and I'll talk about that in a few seconds so I've got a very quick video here I should just say that the video here all the data is either example data or it has been redacted so the the start that you'll see here all these names and everything these are example this is a a dummy data set so I'm just going to talk you through as a video plays so this is the raw data that you download from business intelligence and what we've done is we've build a built a tool that does this all automatically for you so you dump this raw data in and then all you need to do is click the refresh button as you'll see in a second and then down here the filter and view section that straight away tells you the percentages it shows you all the children's names all their individual percentages and something the schools were Keen to have is how many actual days they'd attended as well over on the left hand side you've got all the slicers and this all happens automatically so you can choose straight away and see class attendances you can see Equity so far south lire you look at SD 1 and two and three School meals you can see pretty much any filter that exists on seus if you want to look at an individual student perhaps look at the surname and look at the brothers and sisters as well you can do all these functions over here and it tells you straight away live from the morning that the data was put in what their attendance is so it's really good at diving quickly into exactly what's happening at this moment in time and you can do this across stages you can use multiple filters and do essentially whatever you want with it what we also did is we built in a quick overview basically so every time you download the data this will show you exactly what's happening in your school in terms of attendance per desile or quintile whatever it is you work in and then it tells you all your raw data as well in terms of your the makeup of your school the second part of the tool shows a five-year Trend which we thought was important as well and this is something we built in after Consulting with the school so this is an example family that we've clicked on and you can see straight away there's a bit of a concern there they've went from 100% And they're slowly dripping down and you can look at your primary one over the last five years you can look at any stage exactly the same as the previous one worked and I do apologize this is very quick but I'm just trying to show you that the fact that the tool can be clicked about very very quickly and you can get all the exact data you want at your fingertips without having to dig around for it or create your own spreadsheets or anything so everything happens automatically it's about 30 seconds Worth to download it and then it's all straight into the tool there for you so we also have an authority level one which lets us see the fiveyear trends in all the same ways which is helpful for us and it means we can talk to schools so what we did was we spoke to the schools and we said what do they need that will make a difference for them and when we had a sharing good practice session a couple of weeks ago all the schools did fantastic work in their Gams are as I said with the group we were working with at the moment our increases in percentage are just under double the rest of the authority average so our schools the 17 primary schools we're working with are making just under double the progress with their attendance one thing we did notice at the sharing good practice is with every body was still doing the same thing and they were building up their monthly attendance for each child and that's something we hadn't originally built into the tool so again we thought we're going to try and automate all the parts that we can because that across the year if you've got 100 200 300 however many children in your school putting their monthly attendance in that's going to build up to hours and hours for one person across that year so we built in a tool that now makes it minutes so I've got another very quick we video to show you for this addition so now what you can do in the tool is you can see all your children how they've got on month to month throughout the year so again all the same filters apply you can see whether or not your whole school if there's any issues there so there might be a we issue looking straight away in March there that could be the that could be the inservice day something like that you can look at all your classes individually so you can click through and see what's going on with your classes again you can look at your Equity profiles so no for your 3 to 10 and no free School meals you can also same all the time you can look at your boys girls fre School mes if you want to look at ASN again you can choose multiple so if you wanted to look at sd1 and two and free School meals in primary one or primary 2 it basically does whatever you need it to do you can look at exact groups of children you can look at whatever you need to do so if I was looking at primary 7 here as an example there is going to be usually a drop off in December but one I was interested in when I was looking at this one is that little dip in February and March then back up to April so as the person who's looking at attendance in my school I might be looking at that little Factor there and seeing if there's something we can talk about around there and then what the schools were all still doing as they were creating these attendance spreadsheets and this is something for the primary sevens that can go up to high school but instead of this being hours of work it's now minutes again you can click on conditional format and you can do all the colors and all the nice stuff that we we tend to do with in when we're in Excel and this can all happen automatically as well now so if I was to click on the whole amount straight away I can click on conditional formatting it's going to give me a nice clear outline of what's going on in my school the final part we looked at was creating individual attendance trackers and these might be the children who are in an attendance group or something you're working with and similar to what Liz was saying at the start again this is all automated this can happen automatically coming from seus now you can see this example child's profile and straight away I'm recognizing that sometimes there's whole weeks off I'm looking at Fridays there's quite a quite recurring pattern there there's a bit of a late recurring pattern so this is something I actually used in my own school and it something that we showed the teachers we showed the children and we showed the parents as well and this I say black and white but it's obviously very colorful but this is right there in front of them in black and white and you can see very quickly some of the things that are happening and what this did in a school is it really challenged some of the misconceptions where some perhaps a teacher thought a child was off all the time and they actually weren't off that often they were just off a particular day maybe it was writing day or something like that so straight away you've got an in there as to what the story might be so these this kind of school level down to pup level and then into months and then into example pupil trackers for those who potentially need it is how we were really looking at the data to then provide a story for people to work one so then what we're thinking is what were the secondary schools received or potentially the next class teacher any important data point you sorry any important transition point you can use it essentially whenever you want but in terms of the data our secondary schools will now be able to for the primary SS from every school and importantly when we were speaking to the secondary schools we wanted it to be in a similar style they didn't want lots of different um lots of different graphs and so on coming in from different schools they wanted it to try and be consistent they can look at the monthly patterns and they can look at individual trackers as well what that all does in terms of data is it builds the story it gives the high schools the strong explanation of each child exactly as Liz was saying and Al was saying as well some of the things that have worked some of the things that possibly haven't worked the schools that we've worked with this year all the all the learning and all the understanding that they hopefully now have around the the pedagogy of attendance if you like and all the Intel can go up with them as well so you get all the numbers you get all the facts and figures but you can also get a much more detailed story about each child and it then gives hopefully the secondary schools a firm starting point why we're doing it we know that attendance tends to very rarely develop overnight when they're going up to high school there's probably a trend that's going to exist and there's a trend that might continue unless we try and unless we intervene we shouldn't be waiting for children to fall from 100% on day one and this is something that we're trying to speak to both our primary skills and our high schills about making sure that just because they're on attendance 100% attendance in August we shouldn't be waiting for that to start dwindling we should be trying to put things in place from the word go so these children are supported and that we're all building a team around the child as we all do in our own ways anyway of course there's a huge amount of things that go on in our schools in terms of supporting children for attendance but we trying to get in there as early as we can and as best as we can with the information that has come previously from the primary schools to know what these child's uh what these child little um drivers and anything that might potentially work and trying to link up that good practice as much as possible so we're trying to basically create strong easily accessible data that carves a clear path and it makes life a bit easier for people essentially it gives people the stories and lets them know what's happening importantly it gets the stories into the right hands is that the deputes that should be GR uped in high school or pup support so we have that data package that can just go up and make life a bit easier for whoever's looking at it and they don't need to be particularly proficient on Excel and for everybody it's about continuing to work on those small achievable games and that is very quick Whistle Stop tour of the attendance from a data perspective that we've been looking at in SLC this year and as an ongoing process we're trying to develop it as much as possible to make it as easy as possible for the people who are going to make the difference thanks Liz can I just say thank you so much for for GR that I think big message there is nobody starts Manch the percent come come August