Live National Benchmarks on My Homepage

The Live National Benchmarks feature on the Arbor Homepage provides real-time comparisons of school attendance data against national averages and percentiles for Arbor schools. Currently focused on attendance metrics, it allows schools to see how they rank in terms of attendance, authorized and unauthorized absences, and persistent absentees. The benchmarks are calculated based on schools with at least 100 attendance records and will improve in accuracy over time.

With our Live National Benchmarks, you can see real-time year-to-date National Average and National Percentile data. The figures enable you to see how your school compares today with other Arbor schools across the country, right from your Arbor Homepage. 

• National Average - enables you to compare your school's attendance figures to the average for other Arbor schools.
• National Percentile - shows how your attendance compares to the attendance of other schools. For example, if your school is in the 90th percentile, your attendance is higher than 90% of other Arbor schools.

This feature is currently available for Attendance data only, but we'll be rolling out this functionality to other areas of the MIS in future. If you have any feedback, please submit it to our product team here: Live National Benchmarking

Using the benchmarking

On your homepage in the Attendance Key performance indicators (KPIs) for Attendance, you'll now see two more bars for National Average and National Percentile data for:

• Attendance
• Authorised Absent
• Unauthorised Absent
• Persistent Absentees (DfE Whole Year)

Benchmarking is not available for:

• Current Enrolment
• Statutory Attendance
• Late
• KPIs outside of Attendance

You can hover over to view more information.

• National Average will show on your Attendance, Statutory Authorised Absent and Statutory Unauthorised Absent KPIs.
• National Percentile will only show for your Attendance KPI.

Click into your figures to drill down into your data and see benchmarking broken down by student group or demographic. For example, your year 11's attendance may be low compared to the other year groups in your school but may be higher than other year 11 groups nationwide.

How are the benchmarks calculated?

The benchmarking looks at schools who have at least 100 attendance records.

When drilling down to look at data for different student groups, your data will only be compared with other schools where that specific student or demographic group has at least 100 attendance records.

This means that at the start of the academic year, these figures will show as N/A for a short period of time while the initial data is being collected. It becomes more accurate over time (especially for smaller demographic groups) as more data can be compared against.

Other useful details:

• These figures are based on attendance data collected year-to-date.
• These figures don't include blank marks from registers not taken yet or non-statistical marks e.g. X. You can see more about these marks here: Attendance codes and how they count towards statutory attendance
• Figures are not scaled for school size, so averages are not weighted based on the number of students. If you have two schools, one with 50% attendance and 2000 pupils and one with 80% attendance and 100 pupils, the average would be 65%.
• Because these figures are calculated using Arbor schools, they will vary from the DfE national attendance statistics that consider all schools.
• We compare your data to other Arbor schools like you. This is based on the School Phase selected on the School > School Details page.

FAQ

Who can use this feature?

All users at all schools who can access My Homepage for their school can see how their school compares to our national figures.

Will we be adding benchmarking to any other KPIs?

We're always looking to improve Arbor, so if you'd like us to consider adding this feature to more KPIs  in the future, please add your feedback here: Live National Benchmarking

Is this available on the MAT MIS?

You can see the Arbor National Whole School Attendance average when drilling down into your Whole school attendance, Authorised or Unauthorised Absence KPIs: Analyse aggregate data on the MAT MIS

Can we report on these figures in the Custom Report Writer?

It is not possible to report on National Average and National Percentile data in the Custom Report Writer.

Can we compare our current data to past data?

It is not possible to compare your current data to past data, such as for the previous academic year or term.

At the start of the new academic year, the figures for last year will no longer display.

Can we switch off the benchmarking?

It is not possible to switch this feature off.

Why are the figures showing as N/A?

At the start of the academic year, these figures will show as N/A for a short period of time while the initial data is being collected.

Please note that if you are an all-through school, your figures will always display as N/A. This is because we are able to compare data across Primary, Secondary and Special schools only.