Until now, the focus of pupil tracking has been firmly on the data.
How to collect the data, when to enter it and who should see it. The problem is, it’s sometimes hard to tell what the numbers on a screen are saying about the pupils in the classroom. That’s why the time has come to switch the focus from the data to the child.
Headteachers still need data from a tracker to tell them what their pupils can do, but can you imagine how much more powerful it would be to track progress that links to the creative curriculum your teachers deliver? Or if your system could help you share and celebrate achievement with the child and their parents?
The future is so much more than just tracking pupil progress; it’s about driving whole-child outcomes.
So how is Juniper Education Shaping that Future?
Helping You See the Invisible
We are evolving our existing trackers into one brand new online assessment and progress solution, which brings together the three key areas you need to think about as a teacher or school leader – tracking, curriculum and parental engagement. We’re calling it Sonar because it helps you see beneath the surface of your data to get a clearer picture of the pupils in your school. There are three key components of the new solution. The first is our new Sonar Tracker, which takes tracking to the next level. The new system makes it much easier for teachers to record what their pupils can do and whether or not they are meeting age-related expectations.
Because it’s so much easier for teachers to use as they walk around the classroom, the system captures more accurate academic and pastoral information about every pupil, helping you visualise that child, their abilities and their needs.
You can use this information to detect the pupil who might otherwise slip through the net or the child who needs more of a challenge.
Our assessment experts have created a better way for schools to gain insights around every child to make more informed decisions about how to help their pupils learn and thrive.
Read more: A Tracking Solution That Can Help Boost Pupil Outcomes
Designing and Teaching an Inspiring Curriculum
One of the most important of those decisions is how best to deliver your curriculum.
Have you ever wanted to create a flexible curriculum that’s right for your pupils and track their progress against it?
Our curriculum experts have devised a completely brilliant new way of designing and delivering the curriculum right across your school, and this solution is embedded in the pupil tracker.
Sonar Curriculum doesn’t provide detailed lesson plans or tell teachers how to teach. It shows you exactly what pupils need to know at each stage of their learning in each subject and links these objectives to digital content such as posters and online activities. You are free to decide how to teach the content, knowing you are laying down the building blocks of every child’s learning in a full range of subjects. The new Ofsted focus on intent, implementation and impact encourage schools to think about what they expect pupils to know by certain points in their education. Sonar Curriculum clarifies the intent part by helping you work out which content you expect the children to learn.
You can be more flexible in the implementation, too, as Sonar Curriculum allows teachers to be creative, choosing how they teach the content and helping children discover a love for a subject while building firm foundations in it. After all, why teach history when you can grow a historian?
Finally, the impact is measured in depth by the Sonar tracker, which is linked to your school’s own creative curriculum.
Engaging Pupils and Parents in Learning
When children are making measurable progress, you need to provide encouragement to keep up the good work. Rewarding children and sharing their achievements with parents can work wonders and is a great way for schools to bridge the home-school divide.
However, the problem with existing award systems in schools is that they don’t necessarily reward the children who need it most. The time has come for a more inclusive approach that praises a child for their maths or sports ability and rewards a pupil who has helped their teacher hand out the books or listened quietly during storytime.
Sonar Awards is an innovative tool which takes the traditional paper sticker and transforms it into a digital award which is sent home when a child has completed a piece of work, achieved a milestone or been kind to a classmate.
These digital awards come in the form of badges which are exciting for both pupil and parent to receive. Children collect their badges in a digital backpack, and they provide an ongoing record of the child’s learning, personal development and school achievements. By sending out frequent personalised bite-sized recognition, schools can maintain a dialogue with parents on their child’s attainment, involving everyone in their child’s progress at school.
Whole-Child Outcomes
At a time when schools are working hard to identify learning losses and close educational gaps, the ability to get beneath the surface of the data to uncover hidden issues has never been so vital. School leaders need a solution which can help them inspire pupils, build their self-esteem and help them make progress.
This is exactly what we aim to achieve with Juniper Sonar. Our ground-breaking approach is made possible by our team of education specialists’ rich pool of knowledge and expertise. The best brains in pupil assessment, curriculum delivery and parental engagement have come together to give schools a more child-centred approach to teaching and learning.
Combining these three elements into one seamless solution, Juniper Education puts the child, not the data, at the centre. It’s a new way of thinking and a new dawn for pupil progress tracking, which will help schools give children the best possible start in life.
