Department for

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Department for Education and Skills
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Welcome
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Ian Watson

• DfES Information Strategy Team and
• Redcar and Cleveland LEA

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Michael Davidson

• DfES Analytical Services

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PLASC- A Success Story

• Michael Davidson
• Schools Statistics Unit
• DfES

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PLASC

• How it was for us
• Did it make a difference?
• Where next?

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HEADLINES

• All but 2 of 23,000 expected school PLASC returns
  were received
• Only 1 SLASC return not received
• 7 other schools returns were poor
• Data quality overall was very good

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RETURNS WERE QUICKER
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ERRORS WERE CLEARED QUICKER
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DATA QUALITY ISSUES

• Some 19,000 duplicate UPN queries were raised
  with LEAs nearly all were resolved
• Permanent exclusion numbers queried with LEAs
  some queries unresolved
• Year on year checks showed broad stability in the
  data with the following exceptions
• National Curriculum Year Group (incorrect coding)
• Mother Tongue (change in coding)
• Ethnicity (change in coding)
• SEN without statements (change in coding)

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LESSONS LEARNT

• Quality of MIS- Software supplier meetings
• Quality of DAZ- clarify actions to rectify
  validation errors
• Quality of Guidance- issue earlier clarify some
  definitions
• Quality of DfES Help Desk- more responsive and
  better informed
• LEA effectiveness- good practice

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DID IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

• Underlying pupil numbers in funding (RSG)
• Policy monitoring, evaluation and development
• Contributing pupil information for other key
  exercises e.g. LEA Comparative Tables, School
  Performance Tables, OFSTED Form 4, PANDAs QCA
• Key National Statistics publications SFRs
  (Statistical First Releases), Bulletins and
  Volumes (www.dfes.gov.uk/statistics)
• National Pupil Database (NPD). The NPD brings
  together pupil data from PLASC and attainment
  data allowing a wide range of analysis

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POSTCODE ANALYSIS

• 94.7 of the pupils live and go to school in the
  same authority
• 99.4 of the pupils live and go to school in the
  same GOR
• Lowest Lambeth (64) Highest Cumbria (99.8).
  The majority (80) of LEAs have over 90 of their
  pupils living in the same LEA
• Outside London, the extent of inter-authority
  movement is very small

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ETHNICITY v FSM
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ETHNICITY v EAL
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SEN v FSM
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KS2-3 PROGRESS BY ETHNICITY
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THE FUTURE

• LSC requirements in 2004
• Data rationalisation project
• QCA DC2 Pilot
• Mini-PLASCs to replace Sept surveys

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT!!
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Department for Education and Skills
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Colin Street

• DfES Information Strategy Team and Somerset LEA

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CHANGES IN PLASC 2003PUPIL DATA

• Ethnicity and Source of Ethnicity
• Year Groups and Key Stage
• Connexions Assent
• SEN
• In-Care (or Looked After)
• Part-time Pupils Boarders and FSM
• Post-16 Courses

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CHANGES IN PLASC 2003PUPIL DATA

• Ethnic Category and Source for all 5
• PLASC wont check against the LEAs approved
  list, but reports in School summary
• Includes REFU, NOBT
• Data Collections
• Year Groups and Key Stage
• N1, N2
• Actual Curriculum Year
• Foundation Reception and below

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CHANGES IN PLASC 2003PUPIL DATA

• Connexions Assent (Year 8)
• Default Unsought (UNS)
• Sought, No Reply (SNR) Yes No
• New SEN Code of Practice
• N(default) A P Q S
• No mapping from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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CHANGES IN PLASC 2003PUPIL DATA

• In Care and In Care at Current School
• See explanatory notes at www.teachernet.gov.uk/Man
  agement/tools/ict/IMS/IMS_CBDS/
• Part-time now valid all ages
• NB In part time education cf enrol status
• Boarders can have Free School Meals!
• Courses of Study required for year 12
• Not 16. In the sixth form.

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CHANGES IN PLASC 2003SCHOOL DATA

• Governance Intake
• Intake What is the most important Criterion?
• Governance Community, VA, VC, etc
• Lowest Highest NC Year (as approved)
• Phase
• PS, MP, MS, SS
• Not Specials

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CHANGES IN PLASC 2003 CLASS PUPIL
RECONCILIATION

• Key Stage F(oundation)
• Reception and below
• Class does not need a teacher!
• No need to balance
• PT pupils not in for all school types

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CHANGES IN PLASC 2003STAFF

• Simplified Teacher types
• Head no longer separate category
• QT, LQ, UN
• Long-term Absence removed
• Non-Teachers
• Full time and Part-time counts
• Total Hours by Category

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Department for Education and Skills
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Terry Keane

• DfES Information Strategy Team and Manchester LEA

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PLASC 2003

• Good practice and preparation

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PREPARATION

• Data
• Systems
• At school
• At LEA
• Personnel
• Processes

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DATA PREPARATION

• When was school data last checked?
• Do you have regular data transfer to LEA systems?
• How easy did schools find the September pupil
  count (secondary/special) or Infant Class Size
  count (primary/infant)?

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DATA PREPARATION

• Experience supports the view that good data makes
  for an easier return
• Any mechanism available to the LEA to quality
  check school data will help PLASC preparation

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DATA PREPARATION

• Is your LEA planning to compare each schools
  PLASC return with
• Last years return
• LEA data on numbers of SEN pupils
• LEA data on FSM pupils

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SCHOOL SYSTEMS

• Will all schools have up to date software for
  the exercise?
• Are plans being prepared for the distribution and
  installation of the upgrades?
• Will schools be advised of new data collection
  requirements for PLASC 2003?

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SCHOOL SYSTEMS

• How advanced is the collection of new data items
  in schools?
• Ethnicity
• Are schools with boarding pupils aware of the
  need to collect and record data on the
  eligibility of pupils for Free School Meals?

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SCHOOL SYSTEMS

• Stress the requirement to get the new requirement
  for youngest year group correct it may help
  remove last years problems!
• Stress the need to check PT to FT when pupils
  move from N2 to R year groups
• Advise schools to check the summary before
  sending the return to the LEA

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LEA SYSTEMS

• Is it clear who will manage the receipt,
  checking, return of files from schools?
• Are you ready for the volume of files bearing in
  mind the number of first attempts returned to
  schools in 2002?
• Have you thought about how you will deal with
  files submitted by schools?

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LEA SYSTEMS

• Who will need to use the DAZ software in the LEA?
• What support is available to them?
• Or, more likely, her/him?

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PERSONNEL

• What training and support are you providing for
  PLASC 2003?
• For whom?
• School based staff
• LEA staff
• Who will provide any training?

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PERSONNEL

• Are you planning to target training for 2003?
• Possible target groups
• Schools with new staff
• Schools who had problems in 2002
• Schools who had problems with the September
  counts

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PROCESSES

• Are LEA stats/data collection staff talking to
  software support staff?
• What advice/guidance notes are you planning to
  distribute to schools?
• Who will take lead responsibility for dealing
  with queries from schools?

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PROCESSES

• Are you planning any briefing sessions for school
  staff?
• Will there be a special helpline for PLASC
  queries from schools?

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PROCESSES

• Is your LEA one of the 40 who signed up with QCA
  to return all PLASC files by 12 February 2003?
• Does this require any special action to deliver
  the promise?

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CONCLUSION

• Do you feel you are prepared for PLASC 2003?
• Or do you just feel lucky?

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Department for Education and Skills
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Mike Battle

• DfES Analytical Services

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Ian Watson

• DfES Information Strategy Team and
• Redcar and Cleveland LEA

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Helen Stannard

• DfES Iformation Strategy Team and Ealing LEA

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PLASC - NEW FOR ASC 2003
LEA DAZ/PLASC (Data Collection Survey System)
New facilities

• Check for duplicate UPNs within an LEA
• Export to Access will include error tables
• Key Aggregate Variable report enhanced
• E-mail notification to LEA named contact on
• loading progress

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PLASC - NEW FOR ASC 2003

• DAZ (Data Collection Survey System)
• Bug Fixes
• Load screen will show the full filename

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(No Transcript)
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PLASC - NEW FOR ASC 2003

• ASC Website www.dfes.gov.uk/datacollection/asc/
• 2002 and 2003 split
• Web hit counter updated
• Updates of guides on website
• Ability to feed back issues
• ASC 2003 Development and Publication Timetable
  (PowerPoint Document)
• Lessons Learnt (PowerPoint document)

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PLASC - NEW FOR ASC 2003

• Database Creation Unit (DCU) Helpdesk
• Operational from late November 2002 to End March
  2003
• New Script for operators
• New voicemail message covering options
• Calls to be logged against key word rather than
  a summary. Should make it easier to search for
  other such problems while caller on line and
  reduce number of referrals

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PLASC - NEW FOR ASC 2003

• ASC 2003 Key Dates
• Annual Schools Census 16 January 2003
• PLASC and QCA Pilot Return date 12 February 2003
• QCA Pilot database frozen by 21 February 2003 at
  the latest
• ASC Database frozen 31 March 2003
• (All duplicate UPN, Year on Year checking
  complete)

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Department for Education and Skills
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Malcolm Grills

• DfES Information Strategy Team

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SECURE DATA TRANSFER

• What have we delivered
• Common transfer form (CTF) includes more data
  from June
• School to School (s2s) secure data transfer
  site introduced in June
• Lost pupils database and reports for LEAs
  available from October

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COMMON TRANSFER FILE

• Compatible with different school software
• Can be used to update LEA databases
• Now includes 63 data items

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SCHOOL TO SCHOOL (s2s)

• Simple process to transfer CTF to any maintained
  school in England
• Email to inform school a file has been sent
• Email to inform school a file has been received
• Copy of every CTF available to download by LEA

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LOST PUPILS DATABASE

• XXXXXXX to show destination not known
• MMMMMMM to show moved to an independent school or
  outside England
• LEA access to search for pupils who move to a
  school in the LEA
• Reports available to LEA and DfES

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LEA ROLE

• LEA mailbox on s2s to send and receive files to
  assist management of KS2/KS3
• 123school to log into mailbox
• 123LLLL as destination in file name
• LEA needs to monitor school use of s2s
• Lost pupils

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LEA (123) ACCESS
School
CTF
s2s
123LLLL
123school
CTF
XXXXXXX MMMMMMM
LEA (123) User
Lost Pupils
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S2s REPORTS

• For every school number of files and number of
  pupils
• Transfers between LEAs
• Data at school, LEA and national level

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FUTURE PLANS

• Welsh schools will be added to s2s and use a
  compatible CTF
• IMS investigating how management of cross-border
  transfer at KS2/3 can be improved
• Mini CTF to allow transfer of a sub-set of the
  CTF data between schools and between different
  software on a school network

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MORE INFORMATION

• Look at www.teachernet.gov.uk/s2s
• Gives access to
• School Lookup Table
• s2s
• Guidance notes

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EXPANSION OF s2s

• PLASC files from school to LEA
• PLASC files from LEA to DfES
• Foundation stage profiles from school to LEA
• Daily zipped download for LEAs

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On October 4th. Oct 16th Total Number of
Files 2879 Total Number of
Pupils 11107 Total Number of XXXXXXX
129 181 Total Number of MMMMMMM
222 276 Total Files uploaded 1938
Pupils 6420 Number of files rejected and
removed 45 Pupils 177 Number of files
rejected not removed 48 Pupils 162 Number
of files downloaded 893 Pupils 4525
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On October 4th. Total Number of Files
2879 Total Number of Pupils 11107 Total Number
of XXXXXXX 129 Total Number of MMMMMMM
222 Total Files uploaded 1938
Pupils 6420 Number of files rejected and
removed 45 Pupils 177 Number of files
rejected not removed 48 Pupils 162 Number
of files downloaded 893 Pupils
4525
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WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?

• If you have not issued guidance notes to schools
  because you wanted to see whether it would work
• It does, so do please
• If you have not registered someone to download
  files and access lost pupils
• Please do so
• Please check that schools download files

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ONE HEADTEACHERS COMMENT

• I just wanted to say that the s2s site was very
  easy to use and worked
• We tend not to be positive enough in Education,
  but on this occasion it has to be said...the
  system of s2s and teachernet secure transfer is
  brilliant!
• Many thanks!

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Department for Education and Skills
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John Bertram

• DfES Information Strategy Team and Derby City LEA

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Department for Education and Skills
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Michael Davidson

• DfES Analytical Services

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Nick Kew

• DfES Analytical Services

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NATIONAL PUPIL DATABASE - AIMS

• To provide a core of information, consistent
  across all LEAs and schools, on pupil performance
  and characteristics in order
• To benchmark school and LEA performance, set
  challenging but fair improvement targets, and
  monitor progress towards them
• To monitor the achievements of potentially
  vulnerable groups of pupils (ethnic minorities,
  SEN, looked after, etc)
• To strengthen school and LEA inspection processes
• To provide a central repository from which LEAs
  can retrieve information lost as pupils move from
  one school and LEA to another, and so help ensure
  that schools have the information they need to
  manage pupil learning effectively

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WHATS HAPPENED SO FAR

• Version 1 of NPD completed in August including
  provisional PLASC data plus KS results for 2001
  and earlier years
• LEA extracts issued to authorities on CD
• Extracts (usually anonymised) issued to DfES,
  OFSTED and LSC analysts, and to research
  organisations

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WHATS HAPPENING NOW

• Version 2 in preparation including final PLASC
  data plus KS and GCSE results for 2002
• Timing of release of version 2 to LEAs may depend
  on performance tables developments
• In addition to CD, LEA access (to pupil records)
  via Key to Success
• Interactive on-line analysis facility for LEAs
  being developed for January 2003

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KEY TO SUCCESS

• 2002 KS2 results (unmatched to NPD) recently
  placed on web site
• Version 2 of NPD to be placed on web site as soon
  as possible
• New arrangements for re-issue and periodic
  renewal of passwords
• Withdrawal of facility for bulk download of pupil
  records for neighbouring LEAs (necessary in order
  to comply with the Data Protection Act)

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LONGER TERM PLANS

• Development of DfES data warehouse enabling links
  between NPD and other data sets (e.g. on staffing
  and finance), and extending access to a wider
  range of users
• Extension of NPD to include 16-21 year olds in
  further and higher education or training
• Inclusion of further types of assessment, e.g. A
  levels, foundation stage profiles, entry level
  qualifications, progress tests
• Integration of performance tables with NPD
• Establishing a stable long term arrangement for
  data matching

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FEEDBACK AND QUESTIONS
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CLOSE

• Dates for your diaries
• 30th October CBDS Sub Rig London
• 21st November Data Collection Core group meeting,
  London
• 28th November Data Collection Sub Rig Birmingham

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Department for Education and Skills