Colleagues,
As we review the Trust KPI framework, I've been thinking about whether we're focusing too heavily on measures that are easy to report rather than measures that are genuinely useful.
Attendance, behaviour, assessment outcomes and financial performance are obviously important, but they don't necessarily tell us everything about how effectively a school is operating.
A few areas I'm wondering about:
- Staff retention and stability
- Staff workload
- Pupil engagement
- Progress of disadvantaged pupils
- Impact of professional development
- Parental engagement
I'm not suggesting we add another twenty measures to the dashboard. Quite the opposite.
I'd like us to think about whether there are one or two measures that would give Trustees a better understanding of the health of our schools without creating another reporting burden.
Interested in views.
Simon
I'd be cautious about trying to quantify staff workload too precisely.
We can measure things like absence, retention and survey responses, but I'm not sure a Trust-level workload figure would tell us very much on its own.
For me, the more useful question is whether the information prompts a conversation with the school rather than whether it produces another green or red box on a dashboard.
I'd put professional development fairly high on the list, although I'm not sure what the measure should be.
Attendance at CPD is easy to record but tells us almost nothing about whether it was worthwhile.
Perhaps we need to look at whether agreed development priorities are actually showing up in practice over time.
That's helpful.
The distinction between measuring activity and measuring impact is probably where we need to focus.
I'll take that away for the KPI review rather than simply adding more indicators.