Hello! After writing about my first impressions of the project in the previous blog, I’ve now been asked to write about how I found starting to use the site.
I’ve found the few last bits of data to get my school profile complete and I’ve started working with our absence administrator to get the data uploaded. I gave one of my tutor group a trusted student account and our absence administrator emails the both of us each Wednesday with the previous week’s data. My helper can now upload a week’s data in just under 30 seconds!
Initial looks at the time trend graph are already picking up a few patterns. Our year 10s really seem to be letting the side down with their numbers constantly remaining above the average for the school. We can’t yet work out why this might be. Looking at year 7 at the start of the year was quite funny too as you could see them all keen at the start of the year flatlining on the graph and then after the first month, very rapidly slipping into a more natural variation about the Y7-11 mean line. This coincided with the time they started getting cocky!
Whilst I don’t plan on teaching the lessons ’til after Christmas when I’m doing disease units, I have told my classes about what we’re doing and have been showing them the time trend graph at the start of lessons. Whilst peaks and troughs appear in the absence data, the tension waiting to see something appear in the blue line is palpable. It’s been interesting to see how the national absence data has changed as more schools come on board – what I thought before were peaks have ironed out and other peaks have appeared in their place.
Our sixth form science committee are taking charge of the Outbreak Investigation for me. They’ve set up a questionnaire on the school’s VLE but it won’t go live ’til after Christmas as we have to wait to see if any parents opt out. One has written back to ask for more information about how DMD is handling the data and I was able to point him in this direction.
I’m really looking forward to getting a look at the data after Christmas as Dr Rob has pointed out that this is when it could all be kicking off!
