Dashboards have become the go-to solution for improving data use in schools. But here’s the truth few people say out loud:
Dashboards don’t fix workload. Dashboards don’t fix decisions.
Dashboards only fix the thing you already knew you wanted to look at.
And because of that, most schools unintentionally fall into one of two traps:
- “First-thought dashboards” → built around whatever someone remembers in the moment
- “Everything dashboards” → built around every data point anyone has ever mentioned
Both approaches lead to the same outcome:
beautiful dashboards that don’t actually change anything.
What schools really need isn’t more visualisation — it’s a data roadmap.
1. Dashboards follow questions — they don’t create them
When a school skips straight to designing dashboards, the process usually sounds like this:
“We need a behaviour dashboard — what should go on it?”
SLT list ideas.
Data leads add more charts “just in case.”
Pastoral staff request their preferred filters.
A governor asks for year-on-year trends.
Someone suggests adding national benchmarks.
Three weeks later, you have a dashboard that:
- looks impressive
- contains far too much
- still doesn’t help a leader make a decision faster
Why?
Because the questions weren’t defined first.
A data roadmap starts with:
- What decisions do we want to improve?
- Who needs the insight?
- When do they need it?
- What action should this data trigger?
Once you have those answers, the dashboard becomes obvious — and much smaller.
2. Without a roadmap, workload increases, not decreases
Schools often adopt dashboards to reduce workload, but without strategic boundaries, the opposite happens:
- endless requests for new pages
- duplicated work across pastoral, data, and SLT teams
- confusion about “which dashboard is correct”
- staff overwhelmed by filters, pages, and charts
A roadmap avoids this by defining:
- the minimum viable set of dashboards
- shared definitions (absence, incident, progress, etc.)
- who owns which decisions
- which metrics are essential vs optional
- when each dashboard should be used
Dashboards simplify work only when the mental load around them is designed out.
3. A roadmap prevents “data drift” across the school
Most schools start with good intentions. Six months later, dashboards show slightly different pupil groups, different date ranges, or inconsistent logic across subjects.
SLT lose confidence.
Middle leaders pick the version they prefer.
Governors see conflicting figures.
A roadmap prevents this by establishing:
- common structures
- phase-appropriate visual patterns
- consistent ways to present attendance, behaviour, and attainment
- fixed terminology and calculation logic
The result?
One source of truth, across the school, every time.
4. A roadmap guides the most powerful shift: from descriptive to diagnostic
Schools rarely have a problem describing data. They struggle to interpret it — and act on it.
A roadmap builds in diagnostic practice from day one:
- identify root-cause questions for each area
- connect behaviour ↔ attendance ↔ attainment
- plan dashboards to reveal patterns, not just numbers
- define how staff will use insights in meetings
- set expectations for conversation, challenge, and accountability
This is where impact lives.
Without diagnostic intent, dashboards become wallpaper.
5. With a roadmap, data becomes a driver of improvement — not a burden
When schools use dashboards without strategy, data becomes:
- reactive
- fragmented
- overwhelming
- questioned rather than trusted
With a roadmap, data becomes:
- purposeful
- coherent
- actionable
- trusted
- owned by everyone, not just “data people”
A roadmap turns data into a leadership tool, not a compliance artefact.
The bottom line
A dashboard shows you something.
A roadmap tells you why it matters — and what to do next.
Schools invest huge amounts of time cleaning, exporting, formatting, and explaining data. A roadmap ensures that effort converts into clarity, confidence, and better decisions.
Dashboards alone are not the strategy.
A data roadmap is how you make them matter.