Question Level Analysis

What do you find in a DAISI QLA?

DAISI Education have been making Question Level Analysis since 2014, helping many schools find the marginal gains they needed to improve their results. 

By examining your assessment data in forensic detail, you can uncover small gains that guide interventions, address learning gaps, and achieve much more.

What is it? How can it help my school?

Described by some as the magic bullet, Question Level Analysis is now becoming more popular in schools across the country. Putting it simply, it breaks assessment data down into groups – looking instead at topics and cohorts rather than the individual answers themselves. This aggregation allows you to see patterns emerging to guide interventions and address learning gaps.

Guided by the evidence from QLA, small differences can be made over time enabling the bigger change to come. This is where the true power of QLA lies. If imbedded as a clear part of school improvement planning – it can really make a difference both in the classroom now and across the whole school.

So what does our Question Level Analysis actually contain?

The Answer? Meaningful Insight by Summary , Topic , Question , Cohort and Pupil.

Summary

We always start with an overall view of assessment results (e.g., pass rates) and important topic strands to see how the school is performing. This helps produce clear next steps for pupils.

This analysis provides a clear starting point, focusing on key headlines and areas for deeper analysis.

“Thank you ever so much for the QLA reports & the subsequent updates. The service we have received from yourselves & the attention to detail have been fantastic. We have found the reports to be incredibly useful & they are helping us to shape our school improvement priorities for the coming year.”

Headteacher, Holy Trinity CE Junior School, Ripon

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QLA Home | Summary | Topic | Question | Pupil | Cohort | Maths Assessments

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Topic Insight

Question Level Analysis looking at topics or cohorts rather than individual answers. This aggregation allows you to see patterns emerging which can be the drivers to implement change.

Our Topic Insight enables teachers to create tailored lesson plans to address learning gaps on certain areas from the start of the year.

This page shows strengths and weaknesses for all pupils, comparing boys and girls, the entire year, and national averages. For example:

• Girls excelled in ‘Ratio and proportion,’ while boys did not.
• Boys performed well in the first four topics, whereas girls did not.

This analysis allows you to look at your subject as a whole to see what teaching could be improved and implement targeted interventions for groups that need additional support.

“I think they are a great tool and really help us to analyse our data in great detail. I have been telling everyone how good they are & how they have saved hours of work. This has allowed me to focus on how we can improve teaching and learning rather than spending time on the data analysis – a very welcome change.”

Headteacher, Captain Cook Primary School, Middlesbrough (James Cook Learning Trust)

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QLA Home | Summary | Topic | Question | Pupil | Cohort | Maths Assessments

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Question Analysis

This analysis has been designed to help teachers identify questions that pupils found difficult or easier than average. For example, 8827 divided by 97 might be a common problem, highlighting issues with approximation.

It also shows areas where pupils outperform national averages, which can be extended for advanced students or allow time to focus on other topics.

This analysis can be used as evidence to update your curriculum to include more practice and instruction in areas where pupils struggle or indeed more advanced topics for areas where pupils excel.

“These reports are so thorough and useful. Subject leaders and Raising Standards Leaders in each primary school are going to be able to use this information to inform teaching and learning opportunities , not just in Year 6, but across the school. Some of the graphs used were new to me – it’s always good to be challenged by  information presented in a different way!“

Headteacher, Ravensthorpe Primary School (Peterborough Keys Trust)

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QLA Home | Summary | Topic | Question | Pupil | Cohort | Maths Assessments

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Cohort Breakdown

For a full analysis of your results, you will need to look more than at your school overall or the overall score per pupil. By looking in detail at your various cohorts, you can see a more collective and forensic picture emerging. This is where the true power of QLA to change your school lies. 

We break the results down in your various cohorts – gender, disadvantaged, SEN, EAL and prior attainment. This analysis is very powerful when looking back to find areas for school improvement.

For example, maybe when you look at your girls, you find that fractions are currently a problem, as evidenced by the results of certain questions compared with the National Average, and compared with your boys’ answers to the same question.

This analysis helps you focus on different cohorts within your year group and address areas in need. Small changes to specific cohorts can significantly improve school results. When these changes are embedded in school improvement planning, they can make a substantial difference.

“We struggled historically with reading results at the end of KS2 and have used DAISI QLA to drill down into the reasons why reading was significantly lower than maths. Using QLA we found that the issues were EAL pupils struggling with vocabulary -we introduced word of the week, then realising we needed more, word of the day. We also put on additional pre teaching sessions with an EAL teacher. We also identified that inference was a massive problem and we made it our whole school target, had loads of CPD and this made a massive difference.

In 2016, our reading EXP was 54%. In 2017, it was 68% and in 2018, it was 79%. All down to QLA.“

Deputy Headteacher, Seely Primary & Nursery School, Nottingham

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QLA Home | Summary | Topic | Question | Pupil | Cohort | Maths Assessments

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Pupil Profiles

When preparing for exams, our Individual Pupil Profiles are the most powerful aspect of our QLA. Very simply and clearly, you can see each pupil’s strengths and challenges and be able to work with them to change this. By breaking down a test result into different areas, it enables the pupil to focus on these topics knowing the overall improvement will come.

For example, Jane might be doing 12% better than the National Average for Punctuation, but is doing 13% below for Grammatical terms and word classes. With that knowledge, you might want to investigate why that is the case.

You can use the profiles to pinpoint specific challenges each pupil faces – providing additional resources or one-on-one tutoring – or indeed Incorporate activities that leverage pupils’ strengths to boost confidence and engagement.

This analysis is perfect for tutors and individual teaching assistants as they focus on the areas to aid catch-up or bespoke intervention.

“In regards to the QLA as we have such a large cohort – it is good to look for areas/types of questions where children have struggled and we need to focus on further in the future. The QLA for each individual child is useful when looking at specific children within groups SEN, FSM, PP looking particularly at their individual progress in each subject.”

Headteacher, Fernwood Primary School, Nottingham

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QLA Home | Summary | Topic | Question | Pupil | Cohort | Maths Assessments

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DAISI Education Question Level Analysis

There are many schools who have bought and used our analysis over the years. Many of whom returned year after year wanting the analysis over and over again. You can read their feedback by clicking here.

Looking back at an impact on results, we recently worked out that 80% of schools who used DAISI QLA consistently over three years have seen an increase in their attainment. We cannot take the credit for this as it is up to how the school uses the analysis provided but we know it clearly made a difference.

Click here to find out how we can help your school today

“Fantastic and so simple to use. In addition, it would have taken us an inordinate length of time to produce anything quite like it… Thank you! In Ofsted speak Outstanding Best Value!!!

Broadway Junior School, Sunderland

“After showing our Executive Headteacher the quality of the analysis you have provided, she has asked me to let you know how impressed we are with the analysis, including the speed we received it. We really appreciate the program you have developed to do this for our benefit. We could never have achieved the same depth of analysis with the equivalent cost of staff time.“

Assistant Headteacher,Gleadless Primary School, Sheffield

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