How to Use Studybugs to Provide Effective, Targeted Support to Schools

Local authorities and schools (of all types) are expected to have regular “Targeting Support Meetings” at least termly. But with so many schools to meet, it’s hard enough to even fulfil the requirement to meet, let alone identify where support is most needed.

How can you be expected to effectively target support when your picture of schools’ needs is incomplete?

That’s where Studybugs comes in. The tools we provide help you quickly identify where support is most needed, so you can make better use of your resources and give more comprehensive support to schools and pupils.

Here’s a three step guide to using Studybugs to help you target support more effectively.

Step 1: Prioritise Where You Can Make The Biggest Impact

Studybugs has been specifically designed for local authorities to take the work out of data analysis. It gives all the relevant teams information they can act upon.

As well as a complete overview of school attendance, you can quickly drill down into the data to identify the issues where you can provide support. For example, by looking at schools with severely absent pupils.

With the relevant information in hand, you can quickly prioritise which schools you need to work with first and which pupils need the most support.

Step 2: Have Informed Meetings With Schools

Being able to prepare properly ahead of a meeting means you’ll have more targeted, shorter meetings with schools where you can achieve more.

By bringing live attendance data to your termly Targeting Support Meetings, you can share how each school compares with their peers and the reasons for their current attendance position. You can also use our web portal to securely drill down into the attendance data for each school, pupil cohort, and individual pupil right there in the meeting.

All this makes it easier to use these meetings to work collaboratively with school attendance leads and agree what support the LA will provide – leading to a better outcome for the school and also meeting the requirements set out in the DfE guidance.

Step 3: Easily Track Actions and Monitor Improvements

Studybugs provides a secure, central location for local authorities and schools to log their actions. By having a shared platform to coordinate actions – and alert relevant staff (school and LA) when action is needed – early intervention can be taken to nip problems in the bud.

Actions can quickly and easily be monitored by both LA and school teams, giving you a secure place to manage improvement plans and determine their effectiveness.

It helps you identify what is working well and where changes need to be made, so that when you next meet with a school, you’re both already aware of where you stand, making subsequent meetings quicker and more constructive.

See It to Believe It

Many local authorities have already started using Studybugs and have quickly achieved 100% school participation, so they’re already seeing the benefits. Get in touch to talk through how we can help you make a bigger impact too.

— Lucas Abbott