Your school holds more data on its students than ever, and the hardest question still goes unanswered: who are they?

This day is about closing that gap, and about going home able to close it again without me.

Workshop participants will play a school through a year and watch what their data choices cost. They learn a method for asking students directly, then use it with real students the same day. They rebuild one thing their own school sends out – a report, a dashboard, a referral form, a handover sheet – so that it can carry what they heard. And the day closes as a recorded episode of the Data Talks podcast, with participants as the credited guests.

Everything in the day travels. You’ll leave with the method, the protocols, the materials and the permission to run all of it in their own school, with their own students, the week they return.

Who Should Attend?

• Data and assessment leaders.
• Heads, deputies and vice principals.
• Wellbeing, safeguarding, inclusion and counselling leads – the day sits directly alongside the conference’s mental health strand.
• Middle leaders who carry data upwards and downwards.

Any Pre-requisites?

Pairs from the same school get the most from it. No technical background needed. No preparation required beyond bringing one document.

Key Takeaways

• What the students said. Both labs are recorded in full, and every delegate is in the room for both. Two weeks later, everyone receives the complete anonymised record as a single document.
• The game. Print-ready files, to run with staff, a department or a leadership team.
• Their own artefact, rebuilt. Prototyped, stress-tested by peers, ready to pilot – plus the constraint set and stress-test protocol, which work on any document their school produces.
• A published Data Talks episode. Credited, shareable, and theirs – with their own Monday commitment inside it.