Episode 3: Are You Really Adding Value? Benchmarking Progress in International Schools

How do you know whether your school is moving pupils as far as it could, when there’s no national dataset to compare yourself against? This week on Limelight, host Ian Hunter is joined by Pete Collison, Sales and Marketing Director at FFT Education. FFT is a UK-based not-for-profit that helps schools around the world understand their data and make insight-informed decisions, and it champions reading as a foundational skill for every student. Pete explains why British international schools find it so hard to understand and benchmark the progress their pupils make. These schools are diverse, they’re growing fast, and their students are among the most mobile anywhere in the world. That makes for messy data, while expectations from parents, students and schools stay rightly high. In this episode: Why absolute attainment (the grades) is only part of the story, and why progress matters just as much What value add really means: the gap between where a pupil was expected to get to and where they actually got Why schools in England have plenty of benchmarking data, and why international schools mostly don’t How FFT Aspire gives international schools pupil-level and subject-level estimates for IGCSE and IB, using CAT4 as the anchor for prior attainment Why heads of department are often the most powerful users, and how school groups can spot which of their schools excel at which subjects Why insight on its own changes nothing, and action without insight is a gamble What PISA tells us about the global appetite for comparing schools and systems If you’re a school leader, a head of department, a group operator or a data lead in an international school, this one’s for you. Meet FFT at GESS Dubai and FOBISIA FFT will be at both conferences with its latest International Value Added Benchmarking Report. Pop over and say hello. Find FFT Education Website: https://fft.org.uk FFT Aspire International: https://fft.org.uk/fft-aspire/interna... LinkedIn:   / fft-education   Connect with Pete:   / petecollison   Find Lime EDU Website: https://www.limeedu.co.uk Facebook:   / thelimeinc   Connect with Ian:   / ianhunter7