Data and performance: can education and health learn from each other?

Abstract

At a time when all public sector institutions in England are under increasing pressure to do more with less1 and are often judged on simple numerical scores reflecting aspects of performance, now may be a good time for different sectors to work together to understand the benefits and challenges of collecting and publishing data. In both health and education, data are collected and published about a multitude of inputs and outcomes, and are frequently used to understand performance, inform policy and practice, as well as to judge and rank institutions and, sometimes, individuals. I have worked in primary and secondary education for 20 years and am now involved in analysing health data. I have been intrigued by some of the differences in the approach to data in these two important public sector areas and this article highlights two areas which may be of particular interest to people working in general practice, focusing on school settings and general practices in England. Staff in English schools know who they are teaching to an amazing level of detail. They know about pupils’ progress, achievement, and attendance, but also about the interventions they have received and their participation in extra-curricular activities. Pupils are tracked in terms of national and local targets as well as school-based targets. This is known for individual children and year groups. Schools also know this in terms of groups of pupils; for example, whether pupils in receipt of the pupil premium, (extra funding given to schools for children from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds) are making as much progress as pupils who aren’t. In addition, they know about the progress of sub-groups; for example, whether girls in receipt of the pupil premium and who have English as an additional language are making good progress in comparison to their peers. This information …