Student engagement refers to the extent to which students identify with and value schooling outcomes and participate in academic and non-academic school activities. Measures of engagement may include affective dimensions such as enjoyment of school and relationships with teachers and peers; cognitive measures such as academic performance or attainment and behavioural dimensions such as attendance and participation in school activities. Research over the last 30 years has increasingly shown that student engagement is not only an important outcome in itself, but is also directly related to academic performance and future outcomes.
– Student engagement and wellbeing in NSW (CESE publication)

Scout provides a number of information reports which can be utilised to ascertain the extent of student engagement and wellbeing in your school.

The Daily Attendance report can be found in the Enrolments app.

Use the report to:

Identify trends in attendance at your school on a day to day basis. This information can be used to develop strategies to improve learning culture and student wellbeing that are appropriate to your school’s context.

Key questions

Why are there tall peaks? What was happening on these days? (e.g. last day of term? Athletics Carnival? Swimming Carnival?) How does this impact overall attendance?

What can we do to reduce the level of Unjustified leave?

Focus: Have our student engagement programs impacted student attendance?

1. Open the Daily Attendance report (found in the Enrolments app).
2. By hovering over peaks in the chart a pop up will appear with the break-down of types of leave and the date.
3. Keeping key dates (large peaks) in mind, choose the second tab at the bottom of the page named ‘Year on Year’. The black line shows 2019, the blue line shows 2018.
4. Open the Official Attendance Census report (found in the Enrolments app).
5. Choose the second tab at the bottom of the page named ‘Attendance Rate SSSG and State’. This shows your Attendance rate compared to your Statistically Significant School Group (SSSG) and State.
6. Use the slicers on the left-hand side (Gender, Aboriginal, Scholastic Year, School Term) to determine whether specific groups of students require further tailored intervention.

Consider

Has there been a change in the number of suspensions (by type or year group) in line with the implementation of Student Engagement programs? Be aware that if you are halfway through the current year and your suspensions are half of the previous year you are likely on track to have a similar number of suspensions year on year.

Focus: Have our student engagement programs impacted students’ wellbeing self-reports?

Open your Tell Them From Me Quadrants report (in the Tell Them From Me app).
This report compares the percentage of students responding positively to questions about Advocacy at School and Expectations for Success on the first tab and Belonging and Expectations for Success on the second tab. Both reports provide a point of comparison to the SSSG and State.

Triangulating the data

• Are there groups of students who have been identified across multiple reports who may require further support?
• How might the information across these reports be impacting on the student’s capacity to engage with their learning?

Once you have the data

You can use this information to contribute to an evaluation of student engagement programs implemented at your school. We highly recommend using Scout data in conjunction with internal data sources.

Where to next?

You can access resources, information and support relating to Secondary student engagement here:

NSW Quality Teaching Framework

CESE Publication: Student engagement and wellbeing in NSW

CESE Publication: Improving high school engagement, classroom practices and achievement

CESE Publication: Capturing and Measuring Student Voice

CESE Publication: Tell Them From Me: Gender and Engagement

CESE Publication: The role of student engagement in the transition from primary to secondary school