Driving MAT transformation with better connected data

A recent survey conducted by IRIS Education found that Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) are struggling with data consolidation, management, and reporting1.

Over half of the MAT leaders surveyed without a data management team in place reported that it was ‘difficult’ or ‘very difficult’ for them to combine information from different sources to better understand pupil data and the performance of their trust.

Similarly, over a quarter of MATs with a staff member or team dedicated to data management expressed that effective data consolidation, analysis and interpretation is a key challenge for them.

All too often, by the time MATs have the data they require – manually extracted and consolidated from multiple disjointed systems and spreadsheets – it’s likely already out of date.

For MAT data to live up to its potential, it must be better connected.

The case for data consolidation

The ability to compare data – such as attendance, absence, and attainment – can reveal themes and help MAT leaders understand what is going on, from trust down to individual pupil level.

Better connected data can support trusts to make timely, effective interventions and develop evidence-based strategies to improve organisation-wide performance. For example, while a digital register can be a fantastic tool, being able to spot a pattern of absence, investigate why the pupil isn’t attending school, and put safeguarding interventions in place is even better.

Better connected data positively impacts MAT operations in four key ways:

Enabling early interventions

Empowers staff to make improvements

Enables standardisation and best practice across a trust

Supports mergers and acquisitions.

Unlock the potential of MAT data with IRIS Central

IRIS Central, supports MATs to harness the full potential of their data. It collates data from various systems and MIS platforms used by schools across the group, to provide a single, centralised view in real-time and comprehensive trust-wide reporting.

IRIS Central changes the way MATs use data. Dashboards present easy to digest information, helping MAT leaders understand the story their data is telling them. The intuitive system empowers MATs to track trends over time and drill down at a school, year, or pupil record level to understand why a year group is thriving or a pupil is struggling.

Having access to powerful, up-to-date analytics empowers MATs to make meaningful, data-driven decisions quickly and easily. With IRIS Central, it’s easy to track trends, replicate successes, and make early interventions where needed.

Functionality at your fingertips

Cloud-based and accessible anywhere, IRIS Central offers MATs a host of features and benefits designed to transform MAT performance for the better. Some favourites include:

• A trust-wide view of dataIRIS Central seamlessly pulls data from multiple sources and systems into one place, analyses this information and presents key findings in user-friendly, accessible and filterable dashboards.

• Focus on the data that is important to your trust – with more than 25 pre-built dashboards, plus the ability to build your own dashboards, you can take a more strategic approach with data. The Attendance dashboards are particularly popular. Cross reference with other information, such as key stage assessments, helps MATs to monitor absences, identify trends, and enable targeted and timely interventions.

• Benchmarking – external benchmarking data allows comparisons with the national or more local picture for attendance, results, staff absence and more. IRIS Central can bring data from many sources (including DfE, IDACI, OFSTED) into the picture seamlessly to give reliable benchmarks for schools and trusts.

“IRIS Central is an exciting, robust solution that is revolutionising our central Trust databases. It ensures our leaders are empowered to spend more time on creating a better experience for our pupils.”

Democratising data, improving MAT performance

Flexible by nature, IRIS Central makes data work for everyone - transcending the confines of the data manager’s office by allowing MATs to set up permissions so that staff across the group have access to the specific data they need to excel in their role.

And with all MAT data in one place, data becomes instantly actionable. Staff spend less time collecting data from various sources and spreadsheets and more time using the data insights to improve performance and champion better outcomes for pupils.