Target simplifies the process of managing attendance data in school by breaking the
attendance data down to into easy to understand graphs, reducing the time
spent analysing data, you can then use this time on more productive activities.
Working directly on your SIMS data, TARGET breaks the attendance data down into easy to understand graphs and charts. Every conceivable kind of comparison can be undertaken, between individuals, groups, and against local and national targets. As a school you know your percentage attendance, you can even name your worst absentees. But what are you doing about those pupils who are more difficult to spot and even more damaging to your attendance figures? Target is specifically designed to identify these absentees.
Visualise your SIMS data easily and quickly
The use of electronic registration usually leads to the
accumulation of a large amount of data. Working directly with
your SIMS data, TARGET allows you to see all your attendance
data in a way that helps you identify problem areas that would
have been difficult to discover using traditional methods. TARGET
helps spot problems, issues or areas of concern.
Personal targets
Having identified individual students or groups of students
with particular problems, you can begin to build an action plan
and, if required, set targets and achievement dates. Each student
can be given their own personal targets and targets can be set
for groups. Targets can range from simple percentages to broken
weeks and half day absences.
Timely remedial action
Regularly check on your targets and see immediately how the
students are progressing, giving you the chance to implement
timely remedial action where necessary. Direct your actions on attendance decisively towards the most appropriate pupils, families, staff and curriculum areas.
Target allows you to make a multitude of comparisons on your SIMS data to discover areas of underperformance.
It includes a variety of ways to highlight types of pupil absence, and contrast between groups and or individuals.
TARGET is ideal for sharing as the charts representing how pupils are performing against other cohorts or groups are intuituvely understand.
Personalised targets
Having identified individual pupils or groups of pupils you can set personal targets for individual pupils or for an individual within a group or for the whole group. Setting targets by selecting the most appropriate target for each pupil together with realistic goals and achievement dates. Targets set can range from simple percentages to broken weeks or half day absences.
What if?
Create your own attendance scenarios for 'what if' situations, you are able to remove a pupil from a groups attendance figures to see the effect they have on the group. You can remove a week from the calculation to see the difference that the “snow” or “flu” week made to the overall attendance.
Performance variation
It is important for school to know whether their attendance is improving or deteriorating. TARGET will report on this across any two comparison periods of time, indicating which pupils are improving and which are not. You can monitor your attendance against any chosen benchmarks or target criteria such as national, LA targets or schools of a similar nature.
MIS data
TARGET links directly to your SIMS.net database, all your attendance, pupil and curriculum data is available to you, together with the all the group structures normally available in SIMS.
User defined groups
You can analyse data based on groups found in SIMS, or set up your own student groups such as those who are underperforming, frequently late or ill, or always miss Tuesday mornings.
Ofsted
Schools are expected to have a working knowledge of attendance patterns and how these vary across various groups of pupils within school, during inspections you are required to demonstrate how you are alerted to changes in pupil attendance, whatever the cause.
TARGET provides a system to interpret attendance data, identify problem areas, and promotes good attendance practice in school.
Case Studies
If you would like to discuss out products directly with anyone involved in the case studies, please contact us initially and we will be happy to contact the relevant member of staff, before passing on their contact details.
Solihull Childrens' Services
Author: Joanne Sierzega, Principal Education Welfare Officer
"Where parents say, as they often do, that 85% attendance doesn't seem too bad (it would be an outstanding mark in an examination), it is useful to overlay a graph of the individual child's attendance over the whole class or school. The contrast is striking and more effective than any other form of persuasion."
Read more
"In a lot of schools the data is there but they don't use it - they don't know how to.
With Target, they can get what they want with a few mouse clicks.
Attendance attracts attention, such as from Ofsted, because it's very measurable.
With Target, changes show up immediately.
At last a school-focussed attendance data analysis tool that is very easy to use and comprehend. Target interprets columns of figures by converting them into colourful charts that are understood at a glance. Target is a must for any school that wants to monitor, manage and improve their attendance."
Steve Martin, LADO
"The biggest plus for me is the speed of access to, and analysis of, the information. You can access whole schools, or groups, or individuals all equally quickly. Schools sometimes focus on obvious factors, like pupils taking holidays, or a few bad attendees. Target identified other problems needing just as much attention.
In my opinion, a visiting Ofsted team's judgment is affected positively by the way the head
talks confidently about what's happening in the school - showing knowledge of the data and what it means."
Ian Wyatt, Education Welfare Officer
FAQs
Here are a selection of the questions we are most
commonly asked about TARGET...
Where does TARGET get its data from?
When TARGET is installed, it automatically picks up your students' attendance, group and personal data from SIMS.
Can I look at data for previous years?
You can use the date selector you view any of the years you currently hold data for.
Can I find all the pupils who have not met their target attendance this month?
You can view all of your current targets, TARGET will identify the pupils not achieving their target, and whether they are likely
to over the selected time period.
Can I set attendance targets for the next 13 weeks
Yes, you can set a target from now and into the future for any number of weeks. Target will also tell you if the target is likely to be achieved by the date set.
How do I update TARGET?
As you logon to TARGET it will automatically look for and install updates.
