The Evaluating School Performance ePD (electronic Professional Development) provides guidance, advice and examples to those involved in using data to evaluate and improve school performance. Focusing on how to select, interpret and apply data to meet school needs, it explores three questions.

What does the data mean?
What are the sources of data and how do they complement each other?
How can data be used to inform school improvement?

The learning units reflect the evolution of data literacy in schools and support recent developments including RAISEonline. They are designed to help the user:

understand the techniques and technical issues involved in data analysis;
use data to develop questions about performance and to assess priorities;
use RAISEonline to explore and analyse school performance data;
identify the main factors to consider in designing and evaluating a school's use of performance data so that it informs the needs of a broad range of stakeholders.

There are five main units at present covering understanding data analysis, RAISEonline for primary schools, RAISEonline for secondary schools, the data cycle and resources.

The ePD can be found at: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/esp