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UCL Launches Educational Deprivation Dashboard

27 September 2023

A new Educational Deprivation Dashboard has been published bringing together publicly available data on schools and colleges in a new easy-to-digest format. Funded by UCL and produced in collaboration with Linking London.

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Originally launched in Autumn 2021, the newly updated dashboard provides a unique platform for users to obtain a detailed overview of educational deprivation in London schools and colleges using a range of metrics, all in one place. 

In recent years, it has become apparent that to understand educational disadvantage, we cannot rely on single metrics considered in isolation. The dashboard, developed by Karina Berzins and Aga Spytkowska, addresses these complexities and enables users to access intersectional data such as ethnicity, social class and achievement at school or college with a focus on the London area. Data within the dashboard can also be interrogated at school and college level as well as local authority levels.

The metrics within the dashboard include Indices of multiple deprivation (IMD), Participation of local areas (POLAR), Tracking underrepresentation by area (TUNDRA) and Key stage 4 and 5 attainment. This year a new metric has also been added – the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) - which provides a more relevant index when examining learner populations in schools.
 
The Further Education section of the dashboard has also been updated to include achievement, completion and retention data at all levels of study, which marks a significant step in making data more accessible for FE Colleges across London.

Access the dashboard

Lucie March, Head of Access and Widening Participation at UCL, says: 
“UCL takes a data-driven evidence-based approach to planning and evaluating our work. This dashboard will enable us to target our work to the schools and communities which need the most support. We thank Karina and Aga for their work updating the dashboard. We hope that our partners in the Linking London network find it as invaluable as we will.”

Karina Berzins, Independent Research Consultant, says: 
"Educational deprivation is a complex issue with far reaching consequences. The need for good robust data and metrics is essential for those who work in widening participation and fair access to higher education and lifelong learning.

Although the data is available in the public domain – that does not mean that it’s easy to access, or to understand. By creating this dashboard, we’ve developed an easy-to-use tool for practitioners and researchers alike that brings together all the essential metrics for London in one place." 

 Andrew Jones, Director of Linking London, says:  
"For anyone with an interest in gaining a greater understanding of educational deprivation in London, the latest version of our Dashboard will prove invaluable. The Dashboard provides users with a unique insight into the makeup of London schools and colleges, which we hope will contribute to wider efforts to improve social mobility in the capital."

The dashboard is likely to be of interest to education providers and those working in widening participation and outreach, researchers, evaluators and policy makers, as well as anyone with an interest in understanding educational disadvantage in London.

Developer, Karina Berzins, will be leading an online training session for those who wish to learn more about how to use the dashboard. This will take place on Tuesday 10th October at 10.00-11.30am.

Register here

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Educational Deprivation Dashboard Training Session

To help you understand how to navigate the Dashboard and to make the most out of the data available, Developer Karina Berzins has provided a recorded training session.

Watch now

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