The MAT MIS series: How to make data-driven decisions for your MAT

Amy Underdown - 31 January, 2022

Category : Blog

The MAT MIS series: How to make data-driven decisions for your MAT

As a MAT central team, it can be difficult to make sure you are getting the most out of your data and making data-driven decisions. Whether you have many or fewer schools, making sure you have the right data to hand without the right tools in place can often be manual and time-consuming. We’ve put

As a MAT central team, it can be difficult to make sure you are getting the most out of your data and making data-driven decisions. Whether you have many or fewer schools, making sure you have the right data to hand without the right tools in place can often be manual and time-consuming. We’ve put together five top tips on how to make the most of your data using your MIS, without the hassle of having to do everything manually.

 

1. Start with the basics: Identify what data you want to track, and make sure you can track it

Once you’ve identified this, map out which systems the data sits in, how you get it out to analyse, and how often you want to do this.

MATs using Arbor can see this kind of data immediately on login, no fiddly setup required. Our dashboards are designed so that you can monitor your KPIs and see them in context. 

This live overview is designed to give you the most important data at-a-glance, where you can benchmark phases, demographics and individual schools against one another. 

As soon as you login, you’ll be able to see:

  • Attendance data across your trust, meaning you can spot persistent absentees right away. 
  • Behaviour data, such as exclusions information 
  • Assessments data, so that you can instantly recognise which subjects you are still waiting on for assessment marks.  

2. Use the best tools for the job

As a MAT central team, sharing data with governors and stakeholders is a key part of your strategy – but it is often challenging to gather this data easily and quickly. Your MIS should help rather than hinder you with this process, as well as complementing your favourite integrations.

All your at-a-glance updates are available on your Arbor dashboard, but for instances where you need to create in-depth reports to show to the board, there’s plenty more in your toolkit as you explore your data further. 

Arbor’s Custom Report Builder, for example, is designed so that you can make in-depth reports in minutes. The end results are easy to read and share with governors or stakeholders, and you can schedule them to send weekly, monthly or termly.

For more bespoke analysis, use the software you already know and love – such as Microsoft Power BI, Excel and Google Data Studio. If you’re using Arbor, our Built-In Live Feeds allow you to export your data to all these integrations. 

3. Take advantage of MAT MIS as your mission control

It can be challenging to zero in on individual pupils within your MAT, but this doesn’t mean it’s not important. 

Having a holistic view over all your schools is crucial to the overall strategy of your MAT, but it’s equally vital that any blips at a student-level don’t get lost in the system. 

Did you know that, with Arbor, you can see every assessment mark for each student in your trust over time? This is designed so that you can quickly identify any actions you need to take, be it trust-wide or student level, giving you just one example of how your MIS helps you to zoom in and out of the data you need.

4. Make sure your reporting is consistent

Trying to compare data when individual schools are measuring themselves against different benchmarks is a challenge. 

Encourage your schools to think as a consistent unit. You can help to lead this way of thinking by creating consistency in reporting. By setting up user defined fields (UDFs) that are unique to your trust, you can push down standard ways of reporting across each of your schools. 

If, for instance, you wanted to know how many students across your whole trust walk to school or have a personal laptop, you can set these up as a unique field in Arbor MIS. All of these details will then show up on each student profile, letting you see and compare responses across all your schools. 

5. Leave the hard work to your MIS

In short, your MIS is a powerful system – let it do the heavy lifting for you! 

We believe your MIS should be a mission control for your MAT, with all the data you need at your fingertips. Making the most of what your MIS has to offer means you can easily act on the data points that will help your overall trust improvement plan, be it preparing for the next Ofsted inspection or to help rethink your internal policies. 

Arbor’s MAT MIS is designed to be intuitive, so that nothing has to stand between you and your data. We take pride in making sure our software works around your MAT. It actively helps you work towards your goals, giving you the right data when you need it. 

Get started with using some of these exciting features for your data-driven strategy right away – login to MAT MIS here. 

Not yet using Arbor MIS across your trust? Click here to learn more.

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