Blog
9.7.2024

Building with the sector – highlights from our focus groups

We are driven by feedback, aiming to build the service for and with sector leaders. If you weren’t able to attend, you can read a summary below. If you are a current partner and want to share feedback, please get in touch.

We held focus groups exploring the results of psychometric testing on our fixed question set, partners’ experiences of our digital platform, and the effectiveness of our support and resources We were joined by central trust data and HR leads, headteachers, and a deputy head who kindly gave up their time to hear our ideas and iterate on our practices.

Iterating the question set: exploring questions and drivers

Professor John Jerrim, our Director of Research completed psychometric testing on our question set and explored various drivers and questions with the first group, capturing potential overlaps and ensuring we only measure what we need to. Various solutions were discussed: follow-up questions, removing, adding, or editing questions, or developing qualitative free-text answers. It was helpful to get insights from our leaders on what would be most useful. Along with the feedback, the team will use psychometric testing over the summer to iterate on the question set for the new academic year.

Digital Platform enhancements: features and feedback

Our director, Steph, led the second session, focusing on the current digital platform and exploring new features to be added. We shared upcoming features such as comment moderation, data insights, and comparison views across schools and trusts. Leaders explained how the trust-wide view helped them monitor response rates. We gained useful feedback on the platform’s usability and the location of key features, and it was great to hear users find the platform intuitive.

Feeding back on support and resources

Emily ran the final focus group, exploring the support and resources we offer. Leaders and users explained the usefulness of the personal touch alongside automated emails reminding them to complete key actions. Schools who have taken us up on 1-to-1 data review calls found these useful. It was great to explore the potential to connect leaders across TEP to support each other and build networks, as well as considering how a leader opening tougher TEP results could be supported.

Steph and the team have ideas, solutions, and questions to reflect on over the summer break – we thank all our participants for their insightful ideas, their solution-focused attitudes, and their support. If you’re a current partner who couldn’t make it to the focus group but would like to share your thoughts, please email Emily or Steph.

Want to find out more about TEP for your institution? Get in touch at hello@tep.uk today.

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