Insight Data Sources & Methodology - Virtual School

CLA Matching & Inclusion in Insight

A CLA pupil that has been imported by your SSDA903 file will only be included in Insight if they are matched to attainment or absence data.

The system will attempt to make a match between attainment/absence data and the SSDA903 CLA census file using a match based on UPN, DOB and Sex - if one of these fields is different to the attainment data held for the same pupil, they will not be matched and hence not included in Insight.

Only CLA 12 month pupils are included in the Headlines and Intelligence pages of Insight. (The CLA Cohort page does allow the option to specify whether a child has been CLA 12 months+ or not). 

Data Sources

Check the table below for information about the CLA dataset that will be used for Insight (once available) and what attainment dataset we match that to. The wider availability of data for more recent years is also summarised here. (Covid-19 clearly disrupted the data sources for for 2019/20 and 2020/21 though LA also had the option to use Nexus Predicted Outcomes functionality to load assessment results for their CLA pupils in those years)

Insight works on cached data, this means you'll find pages load quickly, but you may have to wait until the following morning before it includes data you have imported via Keypas.

	Sources
Absence CLA Attainment	Keypas DfE
EYFSP CLA Attainment	Keypas Keypas
Phonics CLA Attainment	Keypas Keypas
KS1 CLA Attainment	DfE DfE
KS2** CLA Attainment	** **
KS4 CLA Attainment	DfE DfE

 ** For key stage 2 you will be able to choose your own data source on the Insight settings page. If you choose the NPD data source, both CLA and attainment data will be NPD, similarly, choosing a Keypas data source will mean both CLA and attainment data are Keypas.  

Significance Testing Methodology

Significance testing is done to determine whether a virtual school's value for an indicator is a strength, a challenge or within normal bounds.

Significance testing for KS2 progress is done at pupil level, all other indicators are school level.

School-level 5-sigma Confidence Interval Significance Test

NatStdDev = The national standard deviation of school-level indicator values.

NatAvg = The national average of school-level indicator values.

Coh = The number of eligible pupils in the focus domain (e.g. school).

CI = The 5-sigma confidence interval for the indicator of the focus domain.

Val = The indicator value of the focus domain being tested.

CI = 5 * (NatStdDev / SQRT(Coh))

Sig+ if Val - CI > NatAvg

Sig- if Val + CI < NatAvg

...else, not significant

Pupil-level 95% Confidence Interval Significance Test

NatStdDev = The national standard deviation of pupil-level indicator values.

NatAvg = The national average of pupil-level indicator values.

Coh = The number of eligible pupils in the focus domain (e.g. school).

CI = The 95% confidence interval for the indicator of the focus domain.

Val = The indicator value of the focus domain being tested.

CI = 1.96 * (NatStdDev / SQRT(Coh))

Sig+ if Val - CI > NatAvg

Sig- if Val + CI < NatAvg

...else, not significant

 

Key articles in this guide

Insight Headlines - Virtual School:  key data visualised and reinterpreted for access to a wider audience. 

Insight Intelligence - Virtual School: overview and detail of significance testing of results and data.

Insight CLA Cohort: contextual information from school census, SSDA903 and NPD attainment outcomes