2008 Road Show

Student management systems making a difference in teaching and learning, as well as administration Data Sharing Roadshow 2008 Ian Munro & Paul Seiler May 2008 “ Empowering Education ”

Agenda (setting your expectations) 2.50 - 3.00 10.20 – 10.30 Early notification available to most schools 4.05 - 4.30 11.35 - 12.00 e-asTTle for 2008 3.40 - 4.05 11.10 - 11.35 Privacy and security 3.00 - 3.40 10.30 - 11.10 SMS – LMS interoperability with MUSAC and KnowledgeNet 2.30 - 2.50 10.00 - 10.20 Refreshments 2.15 - 2.30 9.45 – 10.00 ENROL, SMS, NSN & SRT: What are these? 1.30 - 2.15 9.00 - 9.45 Electronic attendance registers for 2008 1.00 - 1.30 8.30 – 9.00 Data Sharing follows accreditation

Where is this journey going? • Focus and message evolving from ‘selecting an SMS’ to ‘use in the office’ and now on ‘use in the classroom’ • The essence for us today is how you can get better use from your student data • Important enough that is forms the basis of the new quality mark in the SMS market And free webinar training for school management in the use of data. To register for Counting Education email [email_address]

What is data sharing? • SMS were islands (self-sufficient and isolated) • SMS must become more like a country in a continent “ No man is an island; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main .” • Animation representing an approach to data sharing • Important enough that is forms the basis of the new quality mark in the SMS market

Data sharing approval • Builds on the solid foundation of accreditation • An annual process • A collection of mandatory or optional initiatives • A pass in each mandatory initiative is necessary to become Data Sharing Approved • All information available to vendors and schools. Just email: [email_address] (Yahoo account is required to view documents and previous postings)

How does this data sharing look? Sending school SMS Ministry Environment Web service eReturns

How is my vendor doing (and what can I do about it)? • Current Data Sharing Approved status of vendors • Customer satisfaction survey results show changing school satisfaction with vendors • Market share figures Join an SMS user group (see next slide) Ask the SMS Project team (as we work for you)

Have your say and make a difference [email_address] [email_address] [email_address] [email_address] [email_address] [email_address] [email_address] [email_address] [email_address]

Original excuse notes (1) • Dear School: Please ekscuse John being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33. • Please excuse Gloria from Jim today. She is administrating. • John has been absent because he had two teeth taken out of his face. • Carlos was absent yesterday because he was playing football. He was hurt in the growing part. • Megan could not come to school today because she has been bothered by very close veins. • Please excuse little Jimmy for not being in school yesterday. His father is gone and I could not get him ready because I was in bed with the doctor

Why now? – background New Zealand has very high rates of non-attendance and truancy ENROL has highlighted a surprising number of non-enrolled students School support has published Attendance Guidelines (May 2007) as part of the Student Support handbook – we want to contribute to the next phase which will support the introduction of the electronic Attendance Register (eAR) All SMS vendors are expected to be approved for eAR by next term The number of schools with accredited SMS is now approaching 95% We would like to provide schools with as much assistance as possible re good attendance management to reduce their preparatory workload

What is the measure of good attendance?

What is the measure of good attendance? • The family of Mr J. H. Williams, of Ellesmere, Canterbury, setting out on their three-mile journey to school. the two older girls have not missed a ½ day for more than eight years the boy has not missed a ½ day for over seven years the youngest child has now been at school two years without missing a ½ day. (1925) Selwyn photographic collection

Electronic Attendance Register (eAR) • eAR is intuitive easy to use attendance software that is available as part of the offering included in student management systems. • It meets quite specific and demanding requirements and has to be approved by the Ministry of Education before a vendor can include it in their SMS

What are the advantages of using eAR? • eAR has numerous statistical calculations built-in • Attendance objectives can be measured and related back to school targets • Links can be made between attendance, behavioural and achievement data • The time taken per teacher to enter data is minimal • Information is available faster • Teachers no longer have to fill out the E19/1 • Student retention will improve • Casual truants can be identified before they become serious truants

What are the advantages of using eAR? • Easier, more accurate targeting of what and where resources need to be deployed • The level, or richness of information is much better • Comparisons can be made between schools anywhere in the country • The biennial attendance survey will be able to be done at the touch of a button • Schools will have a tool enabling them to identify individual students and trends within year levels that in turn will allow them to be proactive in both identifying and reporting to parents, senior management & BOT

Requirements • an holistic approach – it needs to be seen as a whole of school improvement issue led by senior management • commitment and understanding from management, staff, students and parents/caregivers • good communication to and from staff, students, board and the community • Example of good communication • ensure all staff are clear about who is responsible (and accountable) for what • remind staff regularly why good attendance is so important • give attendance management a consistently high profile in your meetings and reviews

What is the rationale behind the statistics? • Many New Zealand schools have high rates of non attendance • The Minister of Education has approved a five year plan to reduce truancy • This focus is expected to have beneficial flow-on effects, on student retention and achievement • The comprehensive tool set in eAR will allow schools to analyse the factors that influence student attendance • In turn, this will enable schools to take appropriate corrective action

Original excuse notes (2) • Please excuse Ray Friday from school. He has very loose vowels. • Please excuse Pedro from being absent yesterday. He had diahre dyrea direathe the shts. • Please excuse Tommy for being absent yesterday. He had diarrhea and his boots leak. • Please excuse Jennifer for missing school yesterday. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday. • Maryann was absent December 11-16, because she had a fever, sore throat, headache and upset stomach. Her sister was also sick, fever and sore throat, her brother had a low grade fever and ached all over. I wasn't the best either, sore throat and fever. There must be something going around, her father even got hot last night.

Do the statistics offer new ways of looking at attendance • The analysis not only provides traditional details about variation in attendance by days of the week and times of the year, gender, year-level and ethnicity, but for all schools can provide comparative analysis across teachers and subjects (secondary) Positive endorsement from Te Kotahitanga Research staff working with Russell Bishop

Analysis criteria Analysis can be done on virtually any combination of the following parameters : 1. Date Range 2. Whole School (Y/N) 3. Year Level 4. Form Class (Tutor group) 5. Student 6. Room number (Home room) 7. Subject 8. Teacher 9. Subject Class 10. Gender 11. Ethnicity

What does a school do that doesn’t want to use eAR? • They continue with the use of the E19/1 roll registers • Note that all permissions to use the alternative attendance register have been rescinded

Is a computer needed in every room? • It would be good to be in that situation, but many schools are not there yet and it’s not essential A school’s process to capture attendance needs to accommodate the availability of computers, the school’s geography, the use (or non-use) of an attendance data operator etc

Truancy comparisons from England • In 2005 the secondary school truancy rate in England was 1.8% In 2006 New Zealand’s rate was more than 8% although our inclusion of intermittent truancy boosted this figure At some point in the year, just over 25% of students in England were truant – the average duration of the truancy (for the year) was 7 days In New Zealand we don’t yet have comparative figures

Targets • Schools in England are legally required to set attendance targets (Sep 07) • The MoE has a five year target to reduce truancy • In England nearly 50% of all truancy can be attributed to less than 2% of students • In New Zealand we don’t yet have this information, but if our figures are similar, we can drastically reduce truancy by targeting a small number of students

Year 9 Attendance and year 11 achievement • In England two critical thresholds were identified as significant predictors for examination success in year 11 ▫ More than 37 half-days of absence in year 9 ▫ More than 10 half-days of truancy in year 9

Examination year attendance • For girls to have a 50% probability of achieving 5 or more GCSEs of grades A—C a minimum attendance of 97% was required • For boys the figure was 98% • In New Zealand we don’t yet have equivalent figures

What is the Ministry doing? • The following documents are available offering support to schools on the management of student attendance, and specifically to assist them in the introduction of electronic attendance registers Guidelines on attendance and truancy Electronic attendance register (eAR) frequently asked questions Sample policies Sample protocols Best practice tips Case studies for primary and for secondary schools

The forgetful staff member • Every school has one or two (or more) of these and what these teachers often don’t appreciate is the extra work they cause. • Two teachers, each missing 5 periods of attendance recording in one day, could create 250 attendance ‘blanks’ that someone has to follow up. • The people who have to do their work for them include: ▪ Attendance officer or form teacher ▪ Deans ▪ DP or AP • The missing data also contributes to inaccurate school statistics

What can be done? • Ensure the school process is teacher friendly • All staff need to appreciate the reasons for good attendance • Use the built-in alerts in eAR • Make the ‘forgetful’ staff aware of other people having to carry their responsibilities • Include the requirement to complete attendance recording every period as part of performance appraisal • If nothing else works, consider a disciplinary letter

Interim Musac solution • Musac Symphony attendance is eAR approved but not yet available to schools because: ▫ The Symphony Suite is on a new development platform and some schools may require a technical tune up to use it • In the meantime: ▫ Absences V3.15 will enable schools to move to the 2008 codes and this is out now ▫ Absences V6.? includes codes and statistical reporting, is noticeably faster/slicker, and will be submitted to the Ministry for eAR approval. This will be available in Term 2

Why can’t my SMS update ENROL automatically? • You asked for it, we listened, and it is coming soon to a place near you! Centrality of the National Student Number (NSN) to identify students across systems So, accuracy and workload benefits will accrue to schools who use their SMS to update ENROL Education benefit can be added if you also use the Student Record Transfer (SRT) system

When will my SMS update ENROL? • For primary and intermediate schools the earliest dates are: April ‘08: NSN issued to student records in ENROL May ‘08: School can access NSID files from ENROL and import these into the SMS. Manual intervention required to resolve all mismatches From May ‘08: After importing NSID files (and once your vendor has done the necessary development) schools may use Get/Check NSN to populate NSN for all remaining students

When will my SMS update ENROL? • For all other school types the earliest dates are: July ‘08: NSN issued to student records in ENROL August ‘08: School can access NSID files from ENROL and import these into the SMS. Manual intervention required to resolve all mismatches From August ‘08: After importing NSID files (and once your vendor has done the necessary development) schools may use Get/Check NSN to populate NSN for all remaining students Later dates are to stay clear of the data exchange processes with NZQA 2008 is the last year NZQA will issue NSN to school students. From 2009 ENROL will ‘allocate’ NSN for all first time NZ enrolments

When will my SMS update ENROL? • From Oct ‘08: Student leaver details can be moved from your SMS to ENROL. A fuller student record can be uploaded to the SRT library (for the destination school to download) From January ‘09: Arrivers information from the SMS can update ENROL and copies of a fuller student record can be downloaded from the SRT library From mid 2009: Functionality for earlier processing of ‘pre-leavers’ and ‘pre-arrivers’ available

How does this data sharing look? ENROL NSI/NSN SRT Library Sending school SMS Ministry Environment Web service eReturns Receiving school SMS

SMS, ENROL and SRT: Some points to remember? • Good things take time: While some schools will start doing this this year (maybe 5-10%) it will take 3-5 years before most are Urgency c.f. accuracy: Set an expectation with your vendor that this is urgent, but be patient also Trust is the essential ingredient: Sending schools must have accurate and useful (especially assessment) records; receiving schools must not use this for fishing; and the Ministry must not mine the data

Time for a break 2.50 - 3.00 10.20 – 10.30 Early notification available to most schools 4.05 - 4.30 11.35 - 12.00 e-asTTle for 2008 3.40 - 4.05 11.10 - 11.35 Privacy and security 3.00 - 3.40 10.30 - 11.10 SMS – LMS interoperability with MUSAC and KnowledgeNet 2.30 - 2.50 10.00 - 10.20 Refreshments 2.15 - 2.30 9.45 – 10.00 ENROL, SMS, NSN & SRT: What are these? 1.30 - 2.15 9.00 - 9.45 Electronic attendance registers for 2008 1.00 - 1.30 8.30 – 9.00 Data Sharing follows accreditation

Early notification and messaging • Using your SMS to quickly communicate with the parents of students away with no reason (i.e. managing unexplained absences) • School-Links offers both EN and general messaging TxtStream is the other approved message provider, doing EN only • Questions?

SMS to LMS: What is an LMS? • What exactly is an LMS? “ A software package to manage and deliver learning content and resources to students, usually comprising a variety of applications amalgamated as an “integrated” package and used within a managed OLE (See also VLE)” • on TKI, search for MOLE (Managed online Learning Environment) • or check out other online sources, like Derek Wenmoth’s blog • How do I choose an LMS/OLE? ▫ Visit TKI for the multipart guidelines ( Part 1 and Part 2 )

Three schools – Red Beach School, Northcross Intermediate and Takapuna Grammar School Two vendors – MUSAC and KnowledgeNET One Ministry – there only to help SMS to LMS: What is an LMS?

Connecting with parents: 21 st century style parent/caregiver log-in SMS LMS 6 Stage Summary Comment Next Learning Step Can estimate answers and solve addition and subtraction tasks involving whole numbers Number fact activities for advanced additive children Numeracy Merit Result Summary Comment Next Learning Step Paul has consistently demonstrated the ability to solve common problems using measurement Try this DLO for level 2 measurement MATH 1.3 - Solve problems involving measurement of everyday objects (02 - 9014902E)

Putting children at the centre “ When children have a stake in their learning, when they own responsibility for that learning and when they feel a sense of increasing control over themselves and their actions, powerful things happen. They become committed to their learning, and so are motivated to learn ” Collis & Dalton , 1990

The next step… Learning Stories Assessments that start in the LMS e-Reflections

e-Reflections Teacher Eventually this data could move back to the SMS. Feedback Options Parent Peer Create a way to keep time . Student’s reflection Optional grading Could be linked to a rubric

Learning stories Based on Margaret Carr’s work around assessing dispositions/competencies A story that gives evidence about the achievement of an aspect of a disposition/competency Ability to have ‘multiple voices’ telling a story

Learning stories Key Competency: Managing Self Learning target: To keep on trying even when the learning gets tough. Tuesday 20 November (Teacher) Today during reading time I noticed Christopher that you chose a book to read that was quite tricky. There were some words in the story that you were unsure of but instead of giving up or just looking at the pictures I noticed that you used some of the strategies we had been practices during reading group. I noticed that you read onto the end of the sentence and then went back to the start and put the starting sound on your tongue and then tried a word that made sense. I also noticed that you went back to check that the word was right. Wednesday 21 November (Parent) I love hearing about how hard you are working at school Christopher. I have noticed that at home when you help your sister with her reading and she comes across a word that she does not know that you tell her to read on to the full stop. You are also very encouraging to her when she works out a tricky word. You are becoming a fabulous reader. Thursday 22 November (Student) During silent reading time I have been choosing books to read rather than books that have interesting pictures to look at. Now when I come across a tricky word I don’t give up and turn the page I try really hard to be a ‘word detective’ and I usually get the word right.

How does this data sharing look? Receiving school ENROL NSI/NSN SRT Library Sending school SMS Ministry Environment Web service eReturns LMS LMS SMS

SMS – LMS: Vendor perspective MUSAC: What have they done for their schools since the pilot? Dataview: What have they done for their schools since the pilot? Ultranet (from edtech) is the latest LMS to be approved Project focus now on releasing version 2 to vendors in June What vendor are likely to support version 2 for 2009?

SMS – LMS: Closing points Technology must serve the needs of education Consider differences in the average age Marry up what you and your staff offer with what the parent has

Security & Privacy How many times can you afford to repeat mistakes with confidential information stored electronically

Security & Privacy The SMS project has become increasingly concerned at the very casual approach taken by many schools to data security. Examples include: • unsecured wireless networks • passwords on yellow stickies attached to monitor • passwords of principal and PA underneath keyboard • reliever asking students to remember the password • students using teachers’ laptops • many teachers asking students to ‘sort out’ their laptop • teachers’ laptops not timing out and going into safe mode

More examples • teachers allowing their own children to use their laptop • many staff knowing at least one other staff member’s password (it appears that two-thirds of all staff are in this category) • backup of important and sensitive data frequently lost and not held in hard copy • police vet clearance of local technicians • more and more sensitive data now being stored electronically • lack of awareness of issues around the privacy principles • no policy about staff access to, and use of, student data list of all passwords/logons pinned on staff notice board

Situation • schools are not storing, or accessing any more information than before; but: much of it is now stored electronically and therefore appropriate access controls must be exercised; but access control and security requirements of systems are foreign concepts to digital immigrants many schools have made the change to electronic storage but are struggling with, or are unaware of, the required security

What we have done With all this in mind we have written some material and collected together some references This has been presented to a number of sector representatives and most sector organisations Acceptance and support is very positive This material to able to be provided to schools on request and will be available for download from the website towards the end of the current roadshow

The Privacy Act The right to collect, use, and subsequent access to, student data is covered by the 12 Information Privacy Rules in the Privacy Act 1993. The most relevant of these is Privacy Principle 5 … This covers storage and security of personal information. Note that greatest strength or vulnerability of your system will be the integrity of the authorised users The system must also be able to cope with records of particularly vulnerable students, or especially sensitive data. (Abusive relationships, new identities, restraining orders etc) School policies and procedures must be able to handle such situations appropriately.

Staff awareness of data security (1) Physical access limitations to secure area break-in and/or theft Fire (and heat) temperature and humidity flooding disruption to electrical supply earthquake

Staff awareness of data security (2) Personal authorisation and access appropriate to role password/logon securely protected – no other person has knowledge password changes enforced laptops (and desktops) automatically switch to protection mode if left on and unattended laptops are student and family secure

Staff awareness of data security (3) Technical IT technicians and/or teachers must sign non disclosure statement service agents must sign non disclosure statement service agents/technicians to be police vetted odbc access is limited to specific required information fields sensitive data for all students must be flagged and secure at risk students’ records must have appropriate flags unsecured wireless networks are an open invitation laptops are student and family secure

Staff awareness of data security (4) Responsibilities – who is responsible? for determining authorisation and access rights? for handling at risk cases and or at risk data? to check that access codes/passwords are changed on a regular basis? to do background checks (police vet for example) on service agents/technicians? for off-site backup storage and rotation? to check the audit log for staff usage? to maintain the school IT usage policy?

We have draft generic documents for • enrolment form information sheet and declaration for parents • storage and security of data information sheet for schools and vendors • parental consent form for schools considering SMS/LMS • staff awareness of data security and the privacy act • Principle 5 • The Privacy Act

The greatest vulnerability in any system is the people working with it.

e-asTTle – SMS • What exactly is e-asTTle? How does it differ from the asTTle we currently know? Let’s ask John Hattie • Have you seen e-asTTle yet? • SMS vendors currently implementing solutions to enable: ▪ student demographic and class/group data to be uploaded into e-asTTle; and ▪ e-asTTle result data to be downloaded to the SMS • To register for the extended pilot please email [email_address]

The value of confession is in really changing

Have we met your expectations? 2.50 - 3.00 10.20 – 10.30 Early notification available to most schools 4.05 - 4.30 11.35 - 12.00 e-asTTle for 2008 3.40 - 4.05 11.10 - 11.35 Privacy and security 3.00 - 3.40 10.30 - 11.10 SMS – LMS interoperability with MUSAC and KnowledgeNet 2.30 - 2.50 10.00 - 10.20 Refreshments 2.15 - 2.30 9.45 – 10.00 ENROL, SMS, NSN & SRT: What are these? 1.30 - 2.15 9.00 - 9.45 Electronic attendance registers for 2008 1.00 - 1.30 8.30 – 9.00 Data Sharing follows accreditation

2008 Road Show

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2008 Road Show