I would like to thank Marc Davies for the invitation to attend this years FFTaspire Conference. I have today, put on record my appreciation to the FFTaspire team. I noted their teams openness and receptiveness to our feedback (occasionally frank or forthright) and our various feature enhancements. For exmaple, the need to share the FFTaspire development roadmap so that we can align our deployment and training and the request for “show all” pupils from the dropdown list. After I came away from that “off the cuff” vox pop I gave it a little more thought and here is what I would have liked to have communicated.
It would be fair to say that FFTaspire was an ambitious undertaking not withstanding the significant change we are currently flexing to. The FFTaspire outline was revolutionary rather than evolutionary and for that reason, we are using a product still in development, improving and become more sophisticated with each enhancement release. The simplified models and clean user interface a step in the right direction. The dashboards very useful indeed. Their user engagement and support has markedly improved, from Govenors right through to teachers in the classrooms. The blog is first class, the webinars and recordings are varied and frequent, with the Educationdatalab blog and research adds some hearty content. Today’s presentation from Rebecca Allen a case in point and for those of you that know my interest in the “academically more able and disadvantaged pupil group,” Dave Thomson’s recent post “Higher attaining disadvantaged pupils need help to keep up,” perked my interest. On social media, the official Twitter handle is responsive, with individual team members such as @andrew_hill_FFT often on hand to help or advise, alternative the office team are friendly and supportive.
Wish list
In conversation today FFTaspire asked for feedback. I asked FFTaspire to consider the mechanics of sharing the excellent information available in FFTaspire more efficiently. The “Self-evaluation Subject dashboard” is excellent however, as yet bulk subject reports are not available. Good news, bulk reports are available in Student Explorer, you even have the “nuclear” option, of printing “all the information” for “all the pupils.”
Talking of Student Explorer, I look forward to working with our Progress Leaders (teaching staff) and all staff that offer essential wrap around care to our pupils. There is a lot of informative information for staff to explore and investigate. Certainly, the feature to add new pupils means schools can have access to this “background” information far quicker than having to wait for the next census.
So, with unvalidated data already in the hands of the FFT team, expect the roll forward in the next week or two.
Lastly, if you want an insight into what all DfE and Ofqual senior staff are thinking about assessment, may I recommend “Measuring up: What educational testing really tells us. – Daniel Koretz (2008).” Ofqual Chair Amanda Spielman makes it her duty to purchase a copy for every colleagues that enters the education fold.