Creating Outcome Sets for Focus Areas (Admin)

What are Outcome Sets?

Outcome sets can be used for grading or adding judgements to records, for example an outcome set with a 1-4 scale can be created to review lesson performance. These are very flexible, and the outcomes entered whilst observing lessons are collated in the reports. When creating outcome sets (detailed below) you can add up to 10 unique outcomes per set, and these outcomes can include up to 15 characters.

Outcome sets are not only useful for grading! If you have moved away from grading to a quality assurance approach, you can set up outcome sets for this too! This involves monitoring areas of strength and areas for development, rather than traditional Ofsted-style grading.

Another example could be a CPD Priority outcome set including Use of ICT, Behaviour, Challenge, Progress, Use of LSA, etc. Again, once set up, this will allow this information to become available for analysis in the reports.

Outcome sets are used alongside focus areas and define the analysis available within the
reports. By default, you are supplied with two outcome sets:

• Ofsted style 1-4 (Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, Inadequate)
• Yes/No

These default outcome sets provided by Observe cannot be edited, but you are able to add outcome weightings to calculate average outcomes in the reports or change the colour labels displayed in the reports. You are also able to create your own additional outcome sets.

Creating an Outcome Set

To create a new outcome set, navigate to Admin > Templates > Outcome Set > then click Create Outcome Set. 

Next, you can enter an outcome set name. This will appear in the reports, so we would recommend ensuring this is clear and concise, then click Create.

You can then create up to 10 outcomes within your new outcome set. To create an outcome, firstly enter a 'code' which will be displayed in the columns of the reports allowing you to analyse the data. This can be between 1 and 15 characters. Then enter a 'description', which can be between 1 and 30 characters.

You can also enter an optional value which would be used as a weighting for the outcome to provide an average outcome in the reports. For example, 'Outstanding' should have a higher value than 'Good'. If you do not want averages then leave all the values for outcomes within an outcome set blank. Values entered however, must be positive and less than 10,000. 

When you’re ready, click Create. You can then repeat the process for any additional outcomes you want to create.

Once you’ve finished creating your outcomes, click Cancel and you’ll be able to see an overview of your outcome set. Click Edit Outcome Set  if you need to edit the name.

Outcome sets will be set to 'Inactive' by default. You will need to click the green play button to activate the outcome set before it can be used within focus areas.

Once the outcome set is created, it will be listed on your Outcome Set List. The buttons under the Actions column allow you to edit the outcome set name, activate or deactivate the outcome set, and delete any outcome sets not in use.

Each outcome set will become a table in the reports, listing the focus areas that have been associated with it and the count/percentage of each outcome. In the below example, the outcome set ‘1-4 Book Look’ is associated with the focus areas listed within the table. You can use different outcome sets to create different sections in your reports, e.g. Ofsted, Areas of Strength/Development, Follow-Up Needed, etc.

Once you are happy with the outcome sets you have created, you can then begin creating focus areas. Focus areas make up the templates created within Observe. Focus areas can be linked to the outcome sets created as above, to form the reports.

Thanks for reading!