National Tracking Project
Data for School Improvement
Who’s Involved?
 Standards of Excellence and Learning
(SEA+L)
 Brock University
 Coral Mitchell, Department of Education
 Brock Business Consulting Group – MBA
students
 41 SEA+L schools across Canada
Motivation for the
National Tracking Project
 Canadian independent schools declare themselves to
be excellent university preparatory schools
 Most schools have detailed data on university
acceptance but little or no concrete information on
post-secondary performance
 SEA+L standards require schools to track graduate
performance
 SEA+L defines its member schools as “providing
outstanding academic preparation for higher
education”
Why quantitative data?
 For reflection
 To confirm or refute our predictions
 To establish trends and drive
decision making
 To build community discussions
 To improve teaching and learning in
our schools
What data is being collected?
 Academic achievements of
graduating class
 Extra-curricular participation by
graduating class
 University and college transcripts for
past graduates each spring
 National data – comparing results
between SEA+L schools
History
 Two pioneer schools
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Rothesay Netherwood School
Balmoral Hall School
 2006 - Pilot Project
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19 schools from across Canada
Creation of the NTP Advisory Group
Donna Alexander (BHS) - NTP coordinator
Partnership with Coral Mitchell, Brock University & Larry
Sackney, University of Saskatchewan
Development of a comprehensive support manual and
training programme for data collection for participating
schools
History
 2007
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40 schools involved in tracking
 2008
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Kim Tulloch (LCC) appointed NTP Coordinator
Brock Business Consulting Group joins in to do data
collection and analysis
Preliminary cross-Canada data analysis results are shared
with NTP schools
 2009
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42 schools across Canada involved in tracking
Brock Business Consulting Group providing data analysis
for individual schools
Process
 Graduating students (& parents) are asked
to sign five/six transcript release forms
 School submits transcript release forms to
receiving universities beginning 13 months
after secondary graduation
 School collects transcripts, enters data and
submits aggregate information to NTP
coordinator
Process
 National trends are identified and reported
back to participating schools for
comparative purposes
 “Soft” data on extra-curricular and cocurricular participation also collected and
correlated
 Schools maintain confidentiality of data for
first five years of project
Timeline for NTP
Fall 2010
 Speak to students and parents, about the intent of project.
(This will be on-going throughout the school year)
Spring 2011
 Ask students to complete on-line survey – link sent to you
by NTP coordinator. Survey results will be sent back to you
as an Excel worksheet.
 Ask graduating students to sign transcript release form with
their full name and date of birth
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University name and ID number is not necessary.
Requiring parent’s signature is at the discretion of each
individual school.
Enter graduates’ final high school marks in the Excel
worksheet once the students complete the survey and it is
sent to you.
Timeline for NTP
Fall 2011
 Speak to students and parents, about the intent of project. (This
will be on-going throughout the school year)
Spring/summer 2012
 Separate 2011 graduates’ transcript release forms by university
 Determine cost of transcripts (use hyperlinks from NTP manual)
 Arrange payment and send transcript release forms to universities
 Once transcripts are received, enter the university results in the
above worksheet for the 2011 graduates
 Enter the 2012 graduates’ high school marks in their worksheet
Fall 2012
 Send your first year (2011 grad) results to SEAL/Brock Business
Consulting Group
Student Involvement
Where are the resources?
http://www.seal.edu/
Resources
NTP manual and templates are available from the SEA+L website:
http://www.seal.edu
Resources
 Brock Business Consulting Group
 Doing data collection and analysis for all
participating NTP schools
 Individual school data analysis
 Cross analysis with national data
 Providing technical support for data
entry
 Will complete data entry for NTP schools
for a small fee
Resources & Support
 Kimberly Tulloch-Wynn,
 Project Co-ordinator – ntp@seal.edu
 Lindsay Ireland ,
 Administrative Assistant SEA+L – lireland@seal.edu
 David Bungay,
 Brock Business Consulting – bcs@brocku.ca
Outcomes
 Early results have been tabulated,
shared and compared with published,
aggregate university data
 Schools have been reflecting on
programme needs and university
selection process
NTP in the future
 In conjunction with Brock Business
Consulting Group, we’re working to make the
NTP process more “user friendly” for
individual NTP coordinators:
 Streamlining of data collection
 Providing analysis of data that is relevant
for each individual school
 Student surveys that are shorter and more
specifically relevant for each individual
school
Conclusions
 Reputation built on “good news” stories and
alumni profiles will come under greater
scrutiny
 Schools that collect concrete data on graduate
performance will be able to:
 accurately assess the success of their
programmes
 have the data they need to effect significant and
targeted school improvement strategies