NTLC - Pivot Stories 

​This case studies will give you a snapshot of the powerful collaborations playing out each and every day in the Territory. Where students have a genuine impact on the ‘core business’ of their school, the impact can be felt much further than the school gates. Building voice and agency into learning and providing for full participation in your school community enables better, stronger connections with community.

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Connecting the data dots;  

What is the connection between engagement and attendance? This was a big question for this primary

school, but it wasn’t asked by the usual suspects. Instead it was one that the Student Commissioners

put forward in 2019.

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These students chose to investigate with their peers, teacher and school leaders the impact that an

engaging (or lack of engaging) learning experiences were having on student attendance. A number of

the Pivot Student Perception Survey questions gather feedback on student engagement. The Pivot data

revealed that there was an opportunity to collaborate, and with 100 per cent of teachers surveyed by

Pivot in 2019 nominating that they intend to share (some or all) of their results with their students, we

know how powerful Pivot data is in sparking a conversation about how students and teachers can work

together to create more engaging, effective environments.

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• Engagement Data

• Information about students’ connectedness to their learning, their peers and the school.

• Attendance data, enrollment data, discipline records, Pivot data

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The Student Commissioners coupled their data investigations with some fail-safe, old-fashioned

positive reinforcements and ‘rewards’ to boost attendance alongside working with their teachers to

identify ‘what worked’ with students to keep them engaged. Student Commissioners took the time

to stand up at their school assembly to acknowledge and celebrate what their teachers do so well,

drawing on the whole-school Pivot data to call out teaching strengths at this primary school.

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When students become more agentic in their learning, impact is bigger than just a bump in a

standardised test score. Over the course of the year, this primary school found that conversations

around engagement in classrooms were occurring organically, and teachers were collaborating in

teams to co-design learning experiences that created that learning buzz well beyond the school bell at

the end of the day. Students were excited to reach the end of the year achieving many of their goals

around attendance and we’re sure that the teachers took the opportunity to celebrate their strong

Semester 2 Pivot results, too.

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“I liked that it was anonymous and that I could share that I was feeling bored, feeling disengaged. (When we reviewed the Pivot data) we realised we weren’t doing so well on self-management and collaboration.

We realised that we could work on our learner assets. After all, students are the best people to teach (in their school), because they are learners too”. Student Commissioner.

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“We’ve moved a long way in the last year, but we recognise we still have work to do. Pivot lends itself so well to this; feeding in beautifully to those conversations we are wanting to have in our school”. Principal Commissioner.

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