New program provides benefits for students and parents

‘To be the best she can be’. This has been Stuartholme’s motto for a number of years. The philosophy around the motto is based on the Goals of a Sacred Heart Education.
The Goals are based on Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat’s vision: “to educate the whole woman with a view to her own vocation in the circumstances and the age in which she has to live”.
The philosophy around a Sacred Heart Education is also guiding our work with Student Performance and the introduction of TrackOne Studio, a program specifically for student tracking.
Student Performance Data Coordinator, Shannon Lacey explains how Stuartholme will use the program.
“Stuartholme has a huge amount of data about our students, this program is a way of using that data to gain insights into student performance.
“We not only have data on academic performance, national and external test results, but also classroom observations and attendance records.”
Including observations and attendance records in the program adds another dimension to a student’s performance that is not just based on results.
“You can never look at data without looking at the child behind it; observations on attitude and engagement form just as big a part to the picture as the grade they received.”
The program also allows for longitudinal reporting, which records observations made about performance over time.
“Of course subjects change as students go through secondary school, however having the longitudinal data highlights any anomalies,” Shannon said.
One of the key outcomes for implementing this type of program is not just on student performance, but also teacher performance.
In Shannon’s role she can extrapolate data and make observations that can be used to open up professional discussions between a student’s teachers.
“We’re not just about improving the performance of our students, but also that of our teachers.
“If a student is performing extremely well in one subject we have the opportunity to look at examples of lessons where the students differentiated and open up professional discussions for learning.”
The TrackOne Suite is being developed further, with a view to offering parental access through the Portal in 2017.
“For parents, being able to see student performance over time is a great way to assess progress at a glance.
“They will also be able to see correlations in performance across different subject areas which may give them a new perspective about their child’s strengths, and possible senior subject selection options,” Shannon said.
To provide a fully holistic picture, parents will also be able to access data relating to behaviour and attendance.