Class Overview

On the Classes section of Taith360 you can access a variety of information about the pupils in your school on a class level.

The information is collected from various sources, such as your Management Information System, or ‘MIS’ (SIMS, Teacher Centre etc.) for group and attendance info, as well as pulling through information from the attainments you record against the descriptions of learning (DOLs). The data available on Classes enables you to plan for, track, and monitor your pupils.

If you have connected Taith360 with your ‘MIS’, then the data displayed for your pupils, groups, and attendance will automatically update overnight, meaning you are seeing the most up to date information on screen.

To access Classes, simply select the option from the menu. On this screen you can see some key information for each class in your school. However, to see a more detailed view of a class, select Class Overview on the right hand side of the page.

Taith360 is an ‘open’ system; any user can access any class in their school, regardless of whether they are assigned to that class. By default, you will see all classes assigned to you. However, by using the “My Classes” or “All Classes” selection at the top of this page you can access all classes across the school.

Scrolling Newsreel

System administrators can send messages via the system which appear in a scrolling newsreel across the top of the screen:

How you choose to use this is up to you. You could pass messages on about any upcoming key dates, when to update assessments or simply any information that you feel is important to be shared among your colleagues. In addition to these messages, any pupils in your class who have a birthday in the month you are in will show – each pupil’s date of birth is added to the system when the pupil is, so this is automatically populated.

Gender

As above with each pupil’s birthday, when a pupil is added to the system, we will also know their gender – this will pull through to the system in the same format depending on how you store this in you SIMS/Teacher centre etc. (Management Information Systems – MIS).

This overview gives you the number of each specified gender in your class in an easy to understand pie chart.

Attendance

If a link to your MIS has been established then Taith360 will also be able to pull through attendance data for your pupils which can be viewed at a class level. As with gender, the first image you see shows the overall statistics for your class based on the percentage recorded present, as well as the percentage of authorised and unauthorised absence for your pupils. Again, the data is shown using a pie chart:

However, to see more detailed information, including how these overall percentages are derived, click Attendance Details which then loads the following screen:

This chart allows you to see attendance data for all pupils in your class. On the chart you can see the breakdown for each pupil as well as the class and school average. Clicking the labels to filter the view can help you access the data you are looking for. For example, if you only wanted to see absence percentages, you simply click which labels you wish to remove from the chart.

Contextual Groups

Groups can be created for analysis purposes. If you have a sync with your MIS then these will automatically be pulled through to the system. However, if you do not have this connection, you will still be able to add your groups to Taith360. To see more of how these can be managed, see Classes, Sets & Groups.

You can of course still add any group to the system that you wish. By default you will have the following groups show on screen:
– Free School Meals
– Additional Learning Needs
– More Able and Talented
– English as an Additional Language
– Looked After Children
– Summer Born

Each of the core contextual groups have their own tile showing the number of pupils in each one (Clicking on one of those tiles shows you the pupils that belong to that group):

You can also see the percentage breakdown of the groups on the selected class by clicking Group Sub-Stats. If you have multiple years in that class, you can see this broken down:

Tracking

In this section you can see the current attainment and progress made this year averaged out for the class, or for the selected year group within that class. For each of the Progression Steps within each of the Areas of Learning and Experience (AOLEs), you will see a bar showing where the pupils were at the start of the year (the blue portion of the bar) and the progress that they have made this year (the yellow portion). You can also use the three buttons above the bars to switch between the progress bars (Chart), the numbers behind those bars (% Breakdown), and the learning stage attainment profile – emerging, developing, secure etc. (Stage).

Clicking on any of the Progression Steps for the selected class will show you a breakdown of attainment and progress for each pupil in that class. This will enable you to identify pupils that may be struggling so that you can then put steps in place to not only try and close that gap, but to also see where you can possibly focus more attention in order to stretch your pupils and embed their knowledge and skills.

Once you have identified a pupil to focus on, you can click on their name and this will take you straight to their Pupil Overview page where you can drill down further into the data to identify next steps for them. Please see the Individual Area Summaries section on Pupil Overview for more details.

Plans

Any plans that have been created for the selected class are visible on screen. This allows you to see an overview of what the class have been working on, along with what you still plan to cover this academic year. You can also see which teacher created them. By clicking on a plan, you will be able to view it in more detail as well as copy and edit it if you wish. For more information, please see Planning.

Attitude to Learning and Wellbeing

On either Classes or Class Overview, you can record a pupil’s Attitude to Learning and/or Wellbeing. Attitude to Learning can be recorded as both a general attitude or for Area specific attitudes, as needed.

How frequently you decide to use these features is your choice as a school/teacher – it depends on how useful you find the information and how you can use it to support what you do in school. Each feature is independent of the other, meaning that if you chose to only record wellbeing, and not attitude to learning, that is not a problem.

You may also wish to use them slightly differently too. For example, the initial recording at the beginning of the year may highlight issues that you want to keep on top of. Therefore, you may revisit these ratings for individual pupils in order to review how successful interventions have been.

You can do the whole class, a selection of pupils or one pupil, it’s up to you. Whatever you decide, the information entered will feed through to both Class Overview and Pupil Overview.

To enter a recording, click on either of the Input… buttons on screen:

From here you select a category for each pupil. For Attitude to Learning: Poor, Satisfactory, Good or Excellent. And for Wellbeing: choose the icon that best fits.

As with the stage names for assessment, we have deliberately left these categories open so schools can use them in the way that best works for them so we don’t have any specific definitions for them. In addition to selecting a category, you can also add a comment to the record if you feel one is suitable and helps explain the reason behind your selection.

Once you have finished, click Save and you will be returned to the Class Overview page where you will see the information you have just recorded:

By default, the pupils will be in a list based on the categories you assigned to them. Next to their name you will also see an indictor as to their previous recording. For example, in the above image you can see that Tarran Phillips’ wellbeing has improved (indicated by the upwards facing arrow) and it has improved from previously being low (indicated by the red colour of the arrow).

You are able to use the Student Name search to find a particular pupil or you can use the Sort by dropdown menu to sort on their name, date of recording, or their previous status.

By switching the view to Chart, using the toggle on the right-hand side, you can see the classes current ratings against their previous one. This can help you see if an intervention you have put in place has worked, or if a simple change in topic has been a success or not: