Dec 21

2021 Round-up: Our year at Mime

It’s been a very busy year at Mime. In 2021 we have welcomed fantastic new colleagues to the team, worked with a range of exciting new clients and continued to lead on data analysis in the education sector. We’ve launched new reports, improved our analysis services, and expanded our reach in new sectors, including health, anti-corruption and criminal justice.

Check out some of the highlights of our year below

Five exciting launches

    1. Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised – We’ve been working with Wandle since they first set up their Letters and Sounds phonics programme under the DfE. Now the Little Wandle programme is validated by the DfE, they have expanded far beyond their English Hub to thousands of schools across the country, and further afield! We provide detailed yet easy to understand analysis for their schools. This covers both their teacher CPD programme, as well as a comprehensive analysis of half-termly phonics assessments including facilities to highlight any gaps children have, and enable schools to better understand progression.
    2. Report: Data on teachers’ lives during the pandemic in partnership with the ODI and NASUWT – We linked the the NASUWT Big Question survey data to other public datasets on things like deprivation and COVID-19 infection rates. The analysis revealed that:
      • Teachers in deprived areas were far more likely to report that their pupils had fallen behind academically, however all groups of teachers were more concerned about their pupils’ mental health than academic ‘catch up’
      • Explore our interactive tool and open dataset, and read the full report here
    3. Report: The role of data in unlocking the potential of social prescribing with the ODI and Frontier Economics – As featured in Computer Weekly, UKAuthority and Local Gov, this new report and interactive tool explores the potential impact of open data on social prescribing.
      • Read the full report and explore the interactive tool and open dataset here
    4. EYFS Tracker: Birth to 5 Matters – In June, we announced that we would be supporting Birth to 5 Matters on the EYFS Tracker. Our users are now able to choose to follow the Birth to 5 Matters guidance, designed to support the introduction of the revised EYFS framework, or the standard DfE matters.
    5. Interactive SEND Dashboard – Our SEND Dashboard empowers local authorities to have better oversight of their services, more effective planning, and to make better decisions. This year, we’ve developed the Interactive SEND Dashboard, in response to feedback, to allow users to drill-down to understand what’s driving headline messages.
      • Get in touch to find out more about the new Interactive SEND Dashboard or arrange a demonstration

Highlights from the Mime blog

  • Teacher assessed grades were back in 2021, creating further uncertainty across the country. To help schools, multi academy trusts, and local authority partnerships understand their results, we produced free on-the-day analysis tools for exploring GCSE and A level grades by subject. At GCSE, our tool revealed increases in grades 7 or above and a widening gender gap. At A level, we saw a large rise in A*s
  • Following the publication of 2021 KS4 attainment, we revisited our 2020 analysis of the disadvantage gap, to see if the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers had grown. We found that the disadvantage gap has grown to the largest on record, now almost a grade and a half per GCSE.
  • We compared the destinations of disadvantaged pupils across local authorities and regions, as well as against their peers. We found that disadvantaged pupil destinations look very different in London and explored some possible explanations for this.
  • Looking at the latest data on SEND incidence and primary needs, we produced an interactive map to explore SEND incidence and need types across England. We then dug into the possible link between pupils with English as an additional language, and those with a primary need of Speech, Language, and Communication Needs.
  • We looked into the FSM attainment gap at age 19, exploring the difference in the rates of qualification to Level 2 and Level 3 between FSM eligible and other students. We found that the gaps remain persistently large. You can use our interactive map to understand the FSM gaps in your area.

Some of our other exciting projects

  • TASO – we’ve been working, alongside our partners at State of Life, on an exciting piece of research to explore the value of higher education for disadvantaged students
  • Future Frontiers – making use of the National Pupil Database, we’re producing analysis of the impact of their programme of face-to-face coaching and access to professional role models
  • Reach Foundation – we’re working with Reach to map local need and existing provision as part of a project to improve outcomes for young people in Feltham
  • User Voice – we’re delighted to have started working with this inspiring charity, helping them make better use of the data they hold to support the most marginalised people in and around the criminal justice system
  • Transparency International – we’ve continued our work on their annual anti-corruption benchmarking service, improving data processes for 2021 and producing new company profiles
  • SH24 – we’ve continued to support and expand the range of analysis services which this sexual health charity can tap into via Tableau. This enables them to better understand what their customer areas need and what new services could be offered
  • Swindon Inclusion Analysis – we’re analysing the data on inclusion of SEND pupils across the local authority to help identify best practice in their primary and secondary schools
  • Post-16 Trajectories LA Infographics – we’ve produced London local authority specific post-16 trajectories analysis. If you are from a London borough and haven’t seen yours already, get in touch for your free London local authority infographic
  • Comprehensive Locality Profiles – we’ve produced ward and cluster level profiles to give decision makers a clearer understanding of the demographic, economic, social and health data on their local area
  • Developing our analysis services – we’ve continued to grow and improve our range of analysis services this year, with more pupils than ever on the SS Tracker, updates and user workshops on Intelligent London, continued support for adult learning providers, and improvements to our range of school improvement reports and dashboards.

What we’re doing to support our community

We have made a donation on behalf of our team and partners to Crisis at Christmas. Unfortunately we have not been able to host any students from our local special school this year but we look forward to working with the school and Spark! in 2022 to provide real-life work experience for young people with SEND.

Looking forward to 2022

Firstly, we’re very excited to be welcoming another two new colleagues in January!

Over 2022, we will be growing our reach within the education sector, whilst continuing to help organisations in other public and charity sectors to do more with their data. We’re continuing our focus on young people with SEND, and will be updating our Inclusion Index (so look out for that!).

We look forward to working with you on many new challenging and exciting projects over 2022, and we wish you all a happy new year!

Get in touch if you would like to hear more about any of these projects, products or services

About The Author

Joe joined Mime in 2019 from the British Medical Association where he led on their analysis of NHS pressures data. Previously he worked at the Wellcome Trust, in their Education team working to improve science education. He studied Economics at Cambridge and has a masters in Public Policy. Volunteering as a tutor for two London-based education charities sparked his passion for using data to improve education outcomes.