Secondary education
Grades in Magister or Somtoday, exam results, absence, progression and the pupil survey: at a secondary school everything sits in a different system. The team leader who wants to know why a department scores below the national average pastes that together themselves. TRIPS puts those data in one environment, so that the time goes not into calculating but into the question why the results are what they are. That helps in the accountability to the school board and the Inspectorate, and above all in the conversation with departments, colleagues and parents.
How the implementation goes
Implementing TRIPS follows the same five steps at every school. What goes into it differs per school: your own source systems, your own school standards and your own questions. Allow about two years before the whole school works with data. From two weeks after the data inventory you can already log in and look at the first data.
From the school it takes a small data team that checks the data and learns to work with TRIPS, and someone who arranges access to the source systems. Below you can read what each step involves and what it means for a secondary school.
1. Data inventory: what you already record
We start with a conversation of about two hours at the school. In it we map out together which data the school already records, in which systems and who works with them. We also discuss which questions you want to answer with those data and which agreements are still missing for that.
At a secondary school it is about grades and reports from Magister or Somtoday, exam results and progression per division and per department, absence, and the results of pupil and satisfaction surveys. The team leader and the quality officer are at this conversation. They know what the school currently accounts for and which overviews are made by hand every year.
After this conversation you know which questions you can already answer with data, where data are missing and what the school still has to arrange itself. That overview is also useful if you do not go on with TRIPS.
2. Which systems we connect
After the data inventory we know which data are needed. Our developers connect the school’s source systems to your own TRIPS environment. That takes about two to three months, depending on the number of systems and how quickly the supplier gives access. From two weeks after the data inventory you can log in and look at the first data; the rest follows as soon as a connection is ready.
Source systems in secondary education we connect to: Magister, Somtoday, Presentis and SWIS. The exam results and the national benchmark, an Excel file with your own school standards or a record of your own, for example of lesson observations, can be added too.
3. Delivery: the first visualisations
At the delivery the standard visualisations are ready. Together with the school’s data team we go through the data. Is everything right? Does the team recognise the figures? Usually it then turns out that certain data need cleaning up or completing: missing pupil data, or a proliferation of absence reasons. That clean-up is the school’s work and is part of the process.
Not all colleagues start working with TRIPS Explore straight away. The data team, at a secondary school often a team leader, the quality officer and a head of department, first gets workshops to work with it.
How do the grades of the school exam and the central exam compare per subject? Which division has the most downward transfers, and from which year? How do teachers score in the pupil survey, and what about absence per class? Together with the data team we turn such questions into analysis questions: questions that can be answered with data.
For example: ‘How large is the difference per subject between the school exam and the central exam, per year, compared with the national average?’ With a question like that we help to make the fitting visualisation.
Explore: all data in one overview
Explore is the part where all data come together: grades and exam results from Magister or Somtoday, absence, progression and the results of surveys, for the whole school, per division, per department and per teacher. You start with the standard visualisations from the delivery and then make the chart that answers a question yourself. The product page briefly explains all parts of TRIPS.
4. Start programme and hands-on training
After the delivery a start programme of three months begins. In that time the school cleans up the data and practises with what is there. That is how the data team discovers what is possible and which questions are still open.
In the hands-on training the data team learns to build visualisations itself: what each button does, how you filter and which chart fits which question. After that the data team can answer questions in TRIPS on its own. For a secondary school that is, for example, the question whether downward transfers in the lower years are related to absence in the first year.
Combining intuition and research for the best development of pupils and teachers
5. Evaluation: what goes well and what not yet
Halfway through the start programme, after six weeks, the TRIPS coach discusses with the data team how it is going. What works already, what not yet, and which adjustments to the TRIPS environment are needed? Then the team works for another six weeks. At the end of the three months there is a final evaluation. Then you decide together how to go on: more users, an extra module, or first carrying on as it is.
From here the school works with the data itself; the coach remains available. At a secondary school the team leader is often the pivot: they bring the visualisations into the department meeting and into the review of the exam results, so that the department sees for itself what the cause is.
In conversation with the teacher
With TRIPS Guide you hold the development conversations with teachers based on what is in Explore: the grades of their classes, the pupil survey and the lesson observations. The teacher chooses what they want to work on and prepares the conversation with the team leader using their own data. Agreements are then based on information the teacher knows and can check. The teacher remains the owner of their own file; the data are an aid in the conversation, not the verdict.
Asking questions at the moment it matters
With TRIPS Quest you send out short surveys to pupils and colleagues: after a test week, with a new timetable, or in a department that wants to know how pupils experience the lessons. One satisfaction survey a year misses what happens in the classroom the rest of the year. The results are shown in Explore next to the grades and absence, so that you see where a team is strong and where development is possible.
Explore is always the first step. After the final evaluation you decide whether and when Guide and Quest are added.
Evaluating and improving education with data in TRIPS
Introductory call, no obligation
Would you like to know what this looks like at your school? In a video call of about half an hour we show TRIPS and discuss which systems and school standards your school has and what the programme asks of you.