Data Dodger

This is not an inspiring or interesting photograph at all. No, not on any level. However, despite some rather nice view shots from the top of latrigg, this pretty much characterises my day.

I hear the word spreadsheet at work & I weep silently. To me, it is mental torment! Yes, I admire the linear organisation of such a thing and okay, I get why they’re produced; how very efficient to have two years worth of data for 210 students all in one place. Neat, very neat.

My job was to scrutinise, interpret and justify the data I had before me for my year 11 class so that the spreadsheet could go through just a few more versions of interpretative & value added scrutiny at SLT level, before it gets submitted to the exam boards. The exam boards will then use this information to help them to arrive at a “standardised & fair approach for awarding grades” to GCSE students across the nation. This process will replace the formal exams which the pandemic has prevented our GCSE students from being able to sit.

I had not realised how time consuming and painstaking this process would be...

Aside from my colossal levels of ineptitude with a spreadsheet, I couldn’t help but get rather flustered at a few ground level, let’s just say, more human considerations...

What happens with the student who spent most of the past two years, absent from school with a long term illness but returned fighting fit in February? We have no formal exam and assessment data for her but she was churning out some excellent pieces of work & I’m entirely confident, she was ready to go in to her exams and ace the hell out of them.

Similarly, what happens to the student who’s riddled with anxiety & goes to pieces in formal exam and assessment situations and so has a realm of ‘data’ which doesn’t reflect her true potential?... She & I know what she’s capable of producing & we’d only just managed to put some strategies in place to support her success in the upcoming exams.

The spreadsheet is necessary; it’s telling an excellent story of figures & percentages, over a two year period but sadly, it cannot take into account, the stories above.

There’s a teacher comments box on the spreadsheet but now I have added my own (admittedly, far too extensive) narratives of deep concern, I’ve probably messed up its configuration & now it’ll look pants.

What have I learned from this experience?
- I still can not use a spreadsheet properly.
- I’m a stereotypical English Teacher. And proud

Oops, another restorative job for our data manager! Oh well, I tried...