An introduction to the WISERD Education Data Lab

By generating high quality research-based evidence, the newly established WISERD Education Data Lab aims to help inform and challenge our understanding of educational processes and outcomes and to support the Wales education sector to meet the aims set out by the Welsh Government in their national mission for 2017-2021.

In order to undertake this work, the WISERD Education Data Lab has requested data on pupil characteristics, performance, and attendance/absence, as well as school-level characteristics, and demographic and geographic data from the Welsh Government. This data was made available by SAIL in October 2019, and is spread out over a total of 79 datasets. Over time, more datasets will be added to this initial release.

Of the 79 datasets, 18 contain information on the performance of pupils at the end of the various Key Stages of the current Welsh National Curriculum, as well as programmes, courses, and learning activities followed and completed in post-compulsory education (which includes Key Stage 5 A-levels). Observations across the datasets start in the academic year 2001/2002 and run until academic year 2016/2017. As the first assessments of pupil performance are done at age 7 (at the end of Key Stage 1/Foundation Phase, or in Year 2 of the National Curriculum), and the last assessments in compulsory education are at age 16 (at the end of Key Stage 4, or in Year 11 of the National Curriculum), we are able to examine the complete educational career of eight birth year cohorts (see Table 1). With the addition of performance records for more recent academic years, this number will only go up.

¹ Number of pupils we have performance data on at this Key Stage, as well as all other Key Stages. NB: Birth year cohorts are colour coded over Key Stages.

As we know at which school each pupil is educated, we are able to link the pupil performance data with additional information on the schools, such as the size of the school, the number of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM), the number of pupils with special educational needs (SEN), the teacher/pupil and gender ratios, as well as the number of (unfilled) vacancies and applications in a given year and the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation for the school area. Combined with additional demographic information we have for each pupil (week of birth, gender, ethnicity, FSM eligibility, having special educational needs, and mother tongue), we will be able to examine various predictors of pupil and (by aggregating the pupil data) school performance.

Examples of some of the topics we will explore in our data, and in future blogs, are the identification and characteristics of More Able and Talented (MAT) pupils, the impact of GCSE early entry on pupil level outcomes and school-level measures of performance, school attendance and the patterns and predictors of school exclusions in Wales over time (both between and within academic years), by locality, and by school and school type.

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About the WISERD Education Data Lab:

WISERD Education Data Lab undertakes independent analysis of administrative education data, survey data and data linkage, alongside knowledge exchange and public dissemination of findings to inform national debate on some of the most contemporary and pressing educational issues facing Wales.

WISERD Education Data Lab is funded by Welsh Government, Economic and Social Research Council (award: ES/012435/1) and Cardiff University.

The statistics used in this report have been approved for publication by SAIL. This does not imply Welsh Government’s acceptance of the validity of the methods used to obtain these statistics, or of any analysis of the results. Rather, they have been deemed to be non-disclosive (i.e. individual pupils cannot be identified).