Steve Preston, Author at Mime

Analysis, Insight Reports & Infographics School Improvement

Learning lessons on the performance of primary pupils through secondary education from longitudinal data

Our work tracking a cohort of primary pupils through to A-levels or equivalent found that a primary school’s performance at Key Stage 2 (KS2) often does not equate to success of those pupils in their secondary school. To improve the life chances of their pupils, primary and secondary schools need to understand the combined impact of their education. Background to the review We have undertaken a review of longitudinal data from the National Pupil Database (NPD) in partnership with Southwark Council and the Southwark Teaching Schools Alliance (STSA). A number of Southwark primary schools wanted to understand their impact on…

Steve PrestonMay 2, 2017

Data Management & Automation Universities, Adult Education & Careers

Matching Schools & Employers through the London Ambitions Portal

The London Ambitions Portal allowed schools and businesses to connect to provide young people in London with high quality careers education programmes, work experience, internships and apprenticeships. It matched requests for career opportunities from schools with offers from businesses. These ranged from work experience, internships, mentoring, school assembly presentations, work shadowing opportunities and more. We had to balance the disparate requirements for the portal from a range of stakeholders including schools, employers, the GLA and its partners. To do this, we used visioning workshops and interviews with numerous stakeholders to accommodate their needs. To make the set up process as…

Steve PrestonApril 25, 2017

Analysis, Insight Reports & Infographics Dashboards, Tableau & PowerBI School Improvement Tableau Viz

Level 3 transition matrices – 2015/16

We have recently updated our popular Level 3 value-add visualisation, based on the latest DfE published data from 2016 results. The analysis shows pupil progress from average GCSE (and equivalent) prior attainment bands to different grades on Level 3 qualifications. The analysis spans A Levels, AS Levels and a wide range of other Level 3 academic and vocational qualifications, across a huge range of subjects. The interactive visualisation is available here. Start by choosing the qualification and subject combination from the drop-downs on the left and the outcomes for that qualification are presented as stacked bar charts split out by…

Steve PrestonMarch 6, 2017

Company News

Welcome to the new Mime website

As you can see our website has had a face-lift! This is part of wider re-branding exercise that allows us to better reflect our values through our work and the way we communicate. We are excited to have a new logo and strapline to emphasise our unwavering focus on using data for social good. We feel the new website allows us to showcase our products, services and track record. We'd love to hear what you think. You can contact us here to let us know.

Steve PrestonDecember 20, 2016

Universities, Adult Education & Careers

Making change happen with Nominet Trust

Today marks a special occasion - we are now officially funded by Nominet Trust! As their website will tell you, the Social Tech Seed Fund run by Nominet Trust “is an open grant-funding programme that offers entrepreneurial organisations early-stage investment to develop innovative projects harnessing the power of the internet and digital technologies to deliver significant social change. The programme supports projects tackling pressing social challenges such as the environment and sustainability, education, employment and healthcare.” This funding will support us to test and refine the current version of Skills Route. And as a result we will be able to…

Steve PrestonFebruary 1, 2016

Analysis, Insight Reports & Infographics Local & Regional Government Mime Think Pieces School Improvement

Understanding London’s performance at Key Stage 5

At Key Stage 4, London is the top performing region for the key attainment and progress measures. By key stage 5, that position slipped to 5th and 6th out of 9 regions. As part of our work on the GLA annual education report for 2015, we reviewed the underpinning data to understand the causes. We found 4 interesting facts: Lower prior attainment - London schools are more likely to accept lower performing Key Stage 4 pupils into post-16 provision, especially on vocational courses. Whilst these pupils go on to achieve a full level 3 qualification, they are less likely to…

Steve PrestonJanuary 12, 2016

Universities, Adult Education & Careers

Skills Route at the Cabinet Office Jobs Hack Day

Our Director Steve was invited to take part in the Cabinet Office Job Hack Day yesterday, to bring his expertise on how data and technology can be used to help reduce long term youth unemployment. The event was attended by 60 volunteers from a range of government departments, charities and data companies. Steve discussed Skills Route with Cabinet Office Minister Matt Hancock who even had time for a quick demonstration! The ideas generated from the day will be presented to ministers on the Earn or Learn Taskforce, and will include Skills Route as an exemplar of what can be achieved.

Steve PrestonOctober 20, 2015

Company News Data Management & Automation Data Strategy & Advisory

Discussing data ‘interoperability’ with the DfE

We were recently invited to be on a panel advising the DfE on their plans for schools' data "interoperability" (i.e. getting the most out of the data that schools hold without putting additional burden on them). The session was organised by Ark Schools, one of our clients, and included representatives from the Cabinet Office, the Education Endowment Foundation and other companies working with educational data. It was a fascinating discussion, touching on the National Pupil Database, reducing burden on schools, dealing with life after levels and much more. We look forward to watching developments from the DfE.

Steve PrestonAugust 8, 2015

Company News Universities, Adult Education & Careers

Skills Match featured in the Evening Standard

If you happen to have picked up a copy of the Evening Standard today you may have spotted on page 53 that our tool Skills Match, developed in conjunction with London Councils, has been featured in a full page article in the ES Jobs section. The article discusses how the online tool aims to guide young people to find fulfilling courses and pathways that will lead to employment whilst addressing the skills gap in London. If you haven’t been able to snag a copy, click here to view the full article.

Steve PrestonJune 8, 2015

Company News Local & Regional Government Universities, Adult Education & Careers

Skills Match Public Beta

We have spent the last few months working hard on the data model behind Skills Match, following some exceptionally useful feedback from our steering group. We are now happy to announce that Skills Match is now publically accessible and available to use. Skills Match is an interactive tool allowing the exploration of the relationship between skills supply and employer demand in London. We are aware that Skills Match has the potential to revolutionise the way of providing labour market intelligence to careers practitioners. We are making it available for beta testing in order to get as much feedback as possible…

Steve PrestonMarch 30, 2015