Maximising the Impact of your Results Analysis using Alps Connect and the Alps Cycle

A key focus of the autumn term for many schools and colleges is self-evaluation and improvement planning. Results analysis is integral to this, and an essential part of any improvement cycle. When systematic and effective approaches are applied to results analysis, providers can identify strengths, pinpoint areas that need improvement, and develop targeted strategies to enhance educational outcomes.

Within this blog, I discuss some key elements of effective results analysis and the role Alps Connect can play in supporting schools and colleges with this.

Results Analysis Part 1: Identifying Priorities

Results analysis provides senior and middle leaders with key information that can be used to evaluate and enhance the quality of education, inform future decision-making and drive improvement across educational settings. When analyzing examination outcomes, here are some key questions that you may want to consider:

• How do examination results compare with predictions from in-year monitoring and results from previous years?
• What priorities have emerged in terms of subject and student groups from the analysis of your exam results?
• Were outcomes consistent across different teaching sets?
• Were there any results that came as a shock?
• How accurate were predicted grades during the year and is any training required?
• Is Performance Measures data in line with predictions? How does it compare to previous years?

The easy and insightful analysis in Alps Connect can support school and college leaders in finding the answers to all these questions. Alps provides data that is accurate, accessible and actionable and during my time as a school leader, I found the Connect platform invaluable when evaluating examination outcomes and identifying priorities.

Within Alps Connect, you can analyse and evaluate outcomes at three key levels: strategic, subject and student level. It is also easy to track the academic progress of key student groups, i.e. by gender, disadvantaged/non-disadvantaged, EAL and SEND/ALN status.

In addition to this, it is also possible within the Connect platform to upload custom groups. For example, you may want to analyse the progress made by students who were new to your sixth form or investigate the impact poor attendance has had on your value-added outcomes.

Strategic Analysis – My Starting Point

Once examination data has been uploaded into Connect, my starting point was to analyse the data in the Strategic Analysis area. This gave me the opportunity to get an overview on the value-added progress made by whole cohort, and within this, specific groups for which I had particular interest.

The Strategic Analysis area was where I used the comparison group function to compare the progress made by different student groups, this gave me a powerful insight into my students’ overall progress.

So, how have you performed overall?

The Strategic Analysis Overview page provides you with a Quality Indicator (“QI”) score, which shows you how you have performed overall, compared to all schools in our national benchmarks. The QI score measures the total points amassed by your cohort or chosen student groups for each subject, against the total that would be generated if all Alps Minimum Expected Grades (MEGs) were achieved – measuring our ‘actual’ against ‘expected’.

This score is then ranked against other providers to generate an Alps grade, enabling schools and colleges to quickly see whether your outcomes match the Top 25%, lower 25% of middle 50% of providers in our national benchmark datasets.

Analysis of the Banded By Prior Attainment (BBPA) tables in Connect also allows you to see how students in each prior attainment band performed as a group – did each group perform as well as the other groups? Or are there clear patterns of disparity, for example, has your higher prior attainment band underperformed compared to your lower prior achievement band students?

Once you know this, you can start to ask the important questions – why? What can we do to close any gaps this year?

Subject and Student Level Results Analysis – the detail that makes the difference

The Subject Analysis area in Connect is key. This quickly shows you which subjects have performed well against national benchmarks for that subject. The 4-year trend in Alps Connect clearly indicate successes or issues over time.

The Student Analysis Overview areas in Connect allow you to explore whether students have made good progress in their subjects, and whether they have made similar progress across all their subjects. Again, by using the Connect comparison tools, you can focus on the progress made by different student groups as well as individual students.

Any surprises? How accurate was your monitoring in 2023-24?

For many senior and middle leaders, another key focus of self-evaluation will be the accuracy of the in-year monitoring data compared to examination outcomes.

If a set of examination results is selected as the main gradepoint within Alps Connect, alongside monitoring gradepoints from the same academic year, it is possible to swiftly and easily analyse and evaluate the accuracy of predicated outcomes for each subject using the Monitoring Accuracy area of the platform. Again, allowing the important questions to be asked – why are there any big surprises? Are there any patterns of over or under-estimates in the predicated grades? What can be done to avoid this in 2024-25?

Performance Measures (England) – available too

The Alps Analysis is a tool developed with the sole purpose of giving easy to use data to help education leaders understand their performance position, to enable the right questions to be asked and to be able to put in place strategies to raise student performance outcomes.

“I loved using Alps at my school, it worked, and we achieved great outcomes for our students. I have also seen great successes in the many schools I have worked with as an Alps consultant.”

In addition to the Alps indicators, within Alps Connect, providers can also track their students’ progress against the England KS4 and KS5 performance measures, adding to the platform’s power when analysing examination data.

Results Analysis Part 2: The Alps Cycle, supporting you throughout the year

The start of a new academic year will often be an incredibly busy time for senior leaders. As part of the self-evaluation, quality assurance and improvement planning, senior leaders will be reviewing strategic priorities from the previous academic year and establishing new priorities.

To further support schools and colleges, we have developed our Alps Cycle, a structured framework that can be used when evaluating current practices, identifying areas for improvement, and implementing changes to enhance the quality of education.

Within the Alps Cycle, each academic term is broken down into distinct phases that guide senior leaders through all aspects of the quality assurance process.

The cycle covers key elements such as:

• Results analysis
• Subject Reviews
• Target Setting
• In-Year Monitoring
• Staff Training

The cycle also provides a timeline of suggested activities, as well as supporting senior leaders by indicating the types of data to be collected and how this can be effectively analysed.

In the first part of the autumn term, the emphasis on the importance of subject reviews and target setting. Subject reviews are a key element of quality assurance, providing opportunities for senior and subject leaders to review results together, have robust, action-focused discussions and to set improvement targets if appropriate.

They also provide excellent opportunities to discuss the quality of teaching and learning, the effectiveness of assessment and intervention strategies, the accuracy of predicted grades, CPD (Continuing Professional Development) requirements and whether current students are following an appropriate curriculum for their needs and abilities. We will be posting more blogs on these topics over the coming weeks.

More Alps Resources

Alongside the Alps Cycle, we have produced a range of resources to support all staff in Alps schools and colleges involved in results analysis, subject reviews, and other elements of quality assurance. These resources include our Alps Champions Handbook for senior leaders and individual Staff Checklists. Each checklist contains lists of key questions for staff to consider when analysing both examination results and in-year monitoring data.

Further support with subject reviews and other aspects of quality assurance is available to our Alps schools and colleges through a series of free Champions Webinars, led by experienced team of educational consultants.

I hope that you have found the tips and links in this blog useful, and they help you when evaluating your examination outcomes and planning your quality assurance processes.

End note from Alps

We currently work with over 1,200 schools and colleges and 96 Groups and MATs in the UK and internationally, offering our high-quality analysis at both KS4 and KS5.

If you do not use Alps currently, and are interested in how Alps could support you to improve your outcomes, do not hesitate to contact one of our friendly team. You can also call us on 01484 887600 and we will be delighted to speak to you, or you can book a demo at a time convenient for you with one of our knowledgeable team.

About the author John Roe, Educational Consultant for Alps

John has worked in education for 22 years as a science teacher, Head of Department and Pastoral Lead. John is passionate about creating an aspirational culture and supporting students to achieve their full potential. Prior to joining Alps, John was Director of Radyr Sixth Form in Cardiff for 10 years, where he lead the transformation of the sixth form with student outcomes consistently matching the performance of the top 2% nationally.