Top 10 Pulse Alerts

I've been working closely with a number of schools so far this year, and each school has their own take on setting up Pulse Alerts to best suit their schools' context. Having said that, one of the most common questions I'm asked is:

"What are other schools doing
with Pulse Alerts?"

At the request of one of the lovely teachers I've recently worked with, I've sat down to write a list of the top 10 Pulse Alerts that I see schools using on a regular basis. Hopefully this will give you some food for thought for additional Pulse Alerts that you and your team might find useful!

For those who aren't in the know...

🔔 What are Pulse Alerts?

Pulse Alerts are customisable alerts available to premium Intellischool Analytics subscribers. The idea behind Pulse Alerts is to save teachers time and headspace in tracking down information that they'd normally have to source manually on their own. Instead, the Pulse Alert will give teachers a timely 'tap on the shoulder' when particular triggers and thresholds are met. They're sent to recipients in the form of an automated email, and are based on both academic and pastoral data coming directly from your school's LMS. There are a huge range of approaches to Pulse Alerts based on different roles within schools, based on who needs to know what information, and when they need to know it.

👉🏻 Whether you're a current subscriber and would like further support or training with Pulse Alerts, or are not yet subscribing and are keen to learn more, click here to get in touch!

⭐️ Top 10 Pulse Alerts

Without further ado, and in no particular order... here are my tips for the Top 10 Pulse Alerts I'm seeing used in schools this year. Click on the name of each of the alerts in the below list to read more.

1️⃣ Number of periods absent

🤔 Who might find this helpful?

• Homeroom teachers
• Pastoral/wellbeing leaders
• Year level coordinators

✏️ Example

Absenteeism has become an issue for the Year 10 cohort, so the Year Level Coordinator has set up a Pulse Alert that will trigger when any Year 10 student accumulates 3 periods absent within the space of a week. This will then prompt them to follow up with the student, their parents/carers, and if necessary relevant wellbeing leaders and teachers.

2️⃣ Late to class by subject

🤔 Who might find this helpful?

• Homeroom teachers
• Subject teachers

✏️ Example

Daniel's German teacher is concerned that he's developing a habit of arriving late to class. The German teacher has had a discussion with Daniel's Homeroom teacher, and they've set up an alert that they'll both receive if Daniel accumulates more than 2 late arrivals to German within the space of a week.

Daniel's Homeroom teacher could also set a general 'Late to class' alert, which could help to identify trends where late arrivals may be occurring more often in one subject than in others.

3️⃣ Late arrivals across a cohort

🤔 Who might find this helpful?

• Homeroom teachers
• Year level coordinators

✏️ Example

The Year 8 Boys Homeroom teachers have noticed that late arrivals are becoming more frequent as the term has progressed. They've set up an alert for both themselves and for the Year 8 Year Level Coordinator, which will trigger when any of the boys accumulates two late arrivals during a week. 

Setting up an alert like this will allow for staff to get in touch with parents/carers sooner rather than later to put in place appropriate interventions.

4️⃣ Overall attendance percentage

🤔 Who might find this helpful?

• Homeroom teachers
• Pastoral/wellbeing leaders
• Year level coordinators

✏️ Example

The Head of Wellbeing would like to be notified when any students across all year levels drops below an average of 90% attendance. Similar to the previous example, an alert like this will allow for wellbeing and teaching staff to get in touch with parents/carers sooner rather than later to put in place appropriate interventions.

5️⃣ Behavioural incidents

🤔 Who might find this helpful?

• Homeroom teachers
• Pastoral/wellbeing leaders
  
• Year level coordinators

✏️ Example

Note: This alert is highly contingent on teachers and school staff reporting behavioural incidents through the school's LMS in a timely manner and on a regular basis.

Greenfield College has a large cohort of students with behavioural concerns, which can make keeping up with on individual incidents time consuming and difficult to keep up with. Particularly for a large school like Greenfield, setting up an alert for behavioural incidents can take the leg work out of keeping tabs on the number of behavioural incidents that are accumulating, allowing staff to promptly intervene in accordance with school policies, and subsequently make contact with parents and carers. This alert could be set to trigger with any behavioural incident reported, or when a certain number of behavioural incidents are recorded within a threshold time period.

6️⃣ Drop in average subject result

🤔 Who might find this helpful?

• Homeroom teachers
• Subject teachers
  
• Year level coordinators

✏️ Example

Alex teaches Year 7 English across a cohort of 150 students, which can make keeping tabs on individual student growth and regression challenging. He's set up an alert to trigger when any of his Year 7 students drops below a 60% average in English, which will allow him to have timely conversations with relevant stakeholders (e.g. Homeroom teachers, other subject teachers, parents, etc.) and subsequently put interventions in place to make sure these students are best supported going forward.

7️⃣ Increase in average subject result

🤔 Who might find this helpful?

• Homeroom teachers
• Subject teachers
  
• Year level coordinators

✏️ Example

Note: This alert is highly contingent on percentage-based or letter grade-based performance data being captured in your LMS.

Brianna has been working with her Year 6 students to improve their numeracy skills, which they have historically struggled with as seen throughout both class-based and standardised testing results. She's set up an alert to trigger when the average result for any of her Year 6 students rises above 70%, which will remind her to make contact with parents/carers to pass on the good news, and to organise a certificate of recognition for the student.

8️⃣ Number of tasks due in threshold period

🤔 Who might find this helpful?

• Homeroom teachers
• Pastoral/wellbeing leaders
  
• Year level coordinators

✏️ Example

Carly is the Head of Middle School, and would like to know when the Year 7 students have 3 tasks due within the same week. As the Year 7 students are still learning to best manage their time and workloads, this alert will allow for Carly and the Homeroom teachers to be proactive about supporting the students with submitting their workload on time, and intervening with additional support where necessary.

9️⃣ Count of active tasks

🤔 Who might find this helpful?

• Homeroom teachers
• Pastoral/wellbeing leaders
  
• Year level coordinators

✏️ Example

Similar to the above example, Head of House Gary has set this alert to trigger when their Year 11 students reach 3 active tasks on the go at one time. This will allow them to have discussions with the students around workload and time management, and to help the students successfully prepare for upcoming deadlines.

🔟 Individual task result

🤔 Who might find this helpful?

• Homeroom teachers
• Subject teachers
• Head of department/subject
• Pastoral/wellbeing leaders

✏️ Example

This alert could be particularly helpful for teachers and departments with a large number of students to easily keep tabs on those students who have struggled with an individual task, such as setting an alert for any student who produces a result of below 40% for any individual task. As with many of the above alerts, this will allow for timely intervention with the student, and communication with relevant stakeholders including other teachers and parents/carers.