Using data to create a whole-student view, supporting learning and evidencing impact

KBZA launched in the 2022-23 academic year, with a vision to create a homegrown and globally competitive approach to education in the UAE. Being able to assess the impact that their curriculum was having was vital, as well as informing and personalising learning, so the school began using GL Education’s Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT4) to look at ability and potential. 

In 2024 they added GL’s New Group Reading Test (NGRT), Progress Test Series (PT Series) English, Maths and Science and the Pupil Attitudes to Self and School (PASS) survey to their assessments to support decision-making, teaching and learning at every level.

Christopher Nourse, Executive Principal, explains more: “We chose GL Education’s assessments because I needed to be able to show my board, who are the leaders of the country and the Minister for Education, that what we’re doing is working. The assessments provide an independent external benchmark that shows our leadership the progress that we’re seeing in lessons and books is genuine, and that our youngsters are going to be globally competitive.”

Graham Mallen, Head of Curriculum and Assessment goes on: “The GL Education assessments provide an objective standardised measure of attainment and progress which is essential for us as we work to raise standards. 

We’ve just launched our transition to IB PYP and MYP – our current grade 7s are going to be the first diploma cohort – so using this objective data will be essential to make sure that they’re meeting those standards.”

The school now deliver CAT4 at the start of each academic year, NGRT in August and May, and PT Series in May and June, allowing them a holistic, student-focused approach to assessment that helps them better understand every child, and personalise learning to individual needs.

The data is used in regular pupil progress meetings. Graham explains more: “We really dig into the data now – and the pupil progress meetings are where that data comes to life. We look at cognitive potential, we look at attainment and see where students could develop and grow and where interventions might be needed. 

“For example, for our grade 8s for Progress Test in Maths (PTM) – there’s three students that are below progress, so we’re able to go into their individual reports and really think about what specific interventions we can put in place for them.

“We also look at the CAT4 verbal deficit (where a student’s verbal reasoning score is significantly lower than their non-verbal score) to see where EAL support might be needed – and compare this to NGRT scores to dig deeper into their reading or decoding requirements.

“The key is to really use the data and make it come to life in the classroom. The strategies that come with some of the individual reports have been really useful to the teaching team. It’s important to use the data to our benefit, not just to have it sitting on a spreadsheet.”

With a range of English proficiency levels amongst the students, and around three quarters having English as an additional language (EAL), reading and language acquisition is a key focus for the team.

NGRT provides information on students’ reading ages but also helps to identify the needs of EAL students where reading might not be an issue, but comprehension might be weak.

Christopher explains: “We use NGRT to help us with groupings and intervention strategies. NGRT allows us to assess if Read Write Inc (our phonics programme) has worked, if our English curriculum is working, if tutor time reading is working. It gives us a number to say, for example, we’ve made three years progress in one with many of our year groups this year.”

Graham goes on: “Read Write Inc. is a really powerful tool, but once they come off the programme in grade 2, many of our students still have decoding issues. So having the sentence completion score and the passage comprehension score that NGRT provides, has been really insightful.

“We had some very effective training on this from GL – previously many of us were focusing on the mean score alone, but when you dig into the detail you can see so much more. The Reading Support Pathways have also been really powerful, helping us to personalise learning.”

The Reading Support Pathway is a framework to help understand and address individual student needs in reading. It goes beyond metrics like reading age to identify specific strengths and challenges in reading comprehension and fluency. This allows teachers to tailor interventions and target support to help students become more confident and skilled readers.

“NGRT has helped us to scaffold, for example, tier 3 language – especially in science where the language in subjects like Chemistry can be challenging. We are able to look at those who have got a highlighted difference between the sentence completion and passage comprehension scores and then see how we can address their decoding gaps.”

The school has seen a big improvement since the implementation of their new curriculum – supported and informed by assessment data.

Christopher elaborates: “It’s been so useful to show teachers that maybe they need to raise their expectations of children. Because if there’s one thing that has led to an improvement across our school in the last couple of years, it’s been us teaching unapologetically at grade level, moderating work at the correct level.

“The GL data has allowed us an international benchmark of what we’re doing – and if you want to really do your students justice, they’ve got to be globally competitive.”

Graham goes on: “Data has got to be rigorous, relevant and responsive. But it’s the latter that’s really important because unless you’re responding to the data then you’re not using it to its best capacity. It can turn good schools into great schools if it’s used effectively.

“Data has not just allowed us to demonstrate impact, it’s informed our curriculum. For example, we’ve amended some of the timings of our maths lessons because of the data, looking at question level analysis and seeing where the gaps are.”

Christopher sums up: “The GL assessments are a very useful tool. I don’t think there’s another product on the market that is backed by so much rigorous data that is as accurate with its predictions, and where the pupil level reports are as useful in terms of assessment for learning and next steps that teachers can use to adapt the curriculum.”

“The whole suite of CAT4, PT Series, NGRT and PASS gives you a good all-round view, helping schools support students to learn to their best ability.

“I have a termly board meeting with my Governance Group, and at the meeting coming up, I’m able to report to them that in our latest school inspection (which relies on GL data to evidence Performance Standard 1: progress and attainment), the school has gone up a whole grade to solidly good across the board. And when I’m reporting on standards next week, I’ll be showing growth in CAT4, NGRT, PT Series and PASS as well.

“It’s very good to be able to say – look, here’s external evidence to show that what we’re doing here works with local children.”