Your KPI stats are accurate but only quantify the past. Belonging data highlights at a MAT level which academies and cohorts are at risk of increased absence, behaviour and exclusion stats in the next 18 months.

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Belong Achieve Thrive Transition

1 3

5 224

Ascending Descending

District avg.

95% confidence

Cohort pillar scores

Belong · Showing 10 of 41 cohorts (min cohort size 5)

1. SEN (106) 4.5

2. CPP (5) 5.0

3. PP (28) 5.3

4. In Care (28) 5.3

5. Ever in Care (28) 5.3

6. EAL (41) 5.8

7. FSM (93) 6.5

8. Chinese (7) 6.9

9. Asian (84) 7.6

10. Female (326) 7.7

The problem, at board level

Belonging data straight from the source, not filtered through a headteacher report

Every MAT already receives an account of how each school is doing. It arrives in a different format, on a different timeline, written by a different person, which makes it impossible to compare and impossible to rank by risk.

Without Satchel Pulse

You hear how a school is doing

One person’s summary. Different format, different timing, every school.

With Satchel Pulse

You see how a school is doing

Straight from pupils, staff and families. Same questions, same method, every school.

Comparable data means comparable risk.
You will know exactly where to look first.

What we actually measure

Six topics pupils evaluate, as standardised questions

A student belongs when they feel safe, accepted, respected, understood and able to engage to succeed. A Trust dashboard cannot answer the questions below, and neither can attendance data.

Do adults here know and care about me?

Am I safe here?

Am I treated fairly?

Can I be myself here?

Will someone notice if I struggle?

Can I participate and succeed?

How it reaches you

From multiple schools to a single view

Nothing to chase and nothing to merge. The same process runs in every academy, and the Trust view assembles itself as responses come in.

Ashworth Academy1412 responses

Bridgemoor Community College388 responses

Ferndale High School601 responses

Kingsfield CofE Primary School74 responses

Meadowbrook Primary School519 responses

St. Cuthbert's CofE School333 responses

Ask everyone the same questions

Pupils, staff and families answer the same questions, at every school and academy, on the same cycle. No school runs its own version.

Data is rolled up automatically

No headteacher summaries to chase, no spreadsheets to merge. One live view across the whole Trust, updated as schools respond.

See what needs attention first

Dips in belonging, risk signals and outliers surface on their own, school by school and cohort by cohort, so you know where to look before your board does.

Direct support and show your work

Intervene with the schools that need it, target resources where they change something, and pull the evidence straight into your next board report.

Why now

The signals are visible now. Don't wait

Where it starts

1 in 4

or more pupils begin to disengage during Year 7, the first year of secondary school.

What follows

Pupils with low engagement scores are more likely to be persistently absent.

Where it has got to

point fall in secondary pupils’ sense of belonging across England, 2014 to 2022.

Sources: DfE, Every child achieving and thriving (2026); Ofsted school inspection toolkit, from September 2026.

What the risk is worth

What is low belonging already costing the Trust?

Not a savings calculator, and not a return on Pulse. This sizes the money already moving because pupils whose belonging is falling are found late, once the absence, the suspension or the placement has happened. Every rate behind it is a published national average.

Your numbers

Schools

In the Trust

Pupils

Across the Trust

Staff Hours

Teaching and support

Share of pupils in secondary60%

All primaryAll secondary

Annual staff turnover12%

0%40%

Prefilled with national averages. The full calculator lets you replace every rate with your own and shows the source for each one.

Annual exposure attributable to belonging

£236,000 to £708,000

Of a total £2,009,000 a year moving through four cost lines.

Persistently absent

1,494

pupils

Suspensions

1,099

a year

Leaving the roll

pupils a year

Open the full calculator and change any assumption →

Volumes come from DfE absence (autumn term 2025/26) and exclusions (2024/25) statistics. Unit costs come from DfE alternative provision place funding, the 2026/27 national funding formula, STPCD and NJC pay scales. Only a conservative share of each line is attributed to belonging, and every one of those shares is shown and editable on the full calculator. The £30,614 replacement-cost figure widely quoted in the sector is deliberately not used; the full calculator explains why.

What you get out of it

Approach your board meetings with confidence

Can you answer these trustee questions without assumptions or anecdotes?

Questions you can now answer

Which cohorts of pupils feel safe and valued? Which do not?
What does your belonging data say is happening at each school right now?
Where is risk developing, before it shows up in your attendance, retention or safeguarding figures?
How will you use your belonging data to assure the board that you are moving in the right direction?

How it works

The early warning improvement cycle

Five disciplines, repeated every term. Together they transform belonging from a number somebody reports into work somebody owns.

Measure

Termly

One validated question set, 5 to 10 minutes, 70+ languages with audio read-aloud. Run across every academy in the same window so results are genuinely comparable.

Segment

Automatic

Cohorts generated from your MIS via Wonde. Year group, SEND, disadvantaged, EAL, children with a social worker, and the intersections between them.

Connect

MIS data

Belonging scores read alongside the attendance and behaviour data you already hold, so a low score is a leading indicator, not a standalone number.

Respond

Owned

Low-scoring cohorts become intervention groups inside the platform. Priority, named owner, action, review date. Two or three per academy per term, not twelve.

Assure

Exception-led

A termly board view for trustees: trend, gap, action, impact. Evidence of improvement, not pages of survey output.

Run once, this is a survey. Run every term, it becomes an improvement cycle.

Proof

Already measuring belonging at MAT and school level

A trusted solution across the globe. Belonging measured, segmented, acted on and evidenced, in the language trustees and inspectors already use.

10.8M

Survey questions answered.

by students in schools using Pulse. No paper, no data entry for staff.

6500

Free resources in your library.

Ready to use or assign to students and colleagues.

190

Languages supported.

In text and audio read-aloud, to better support EAL students.

Dr Kyri Chrysostomou

Senior Trust Education Director
South Lincolnshire Academies Trust

Satchel Pulse will help provide the tools to gather meaningful insights into student wellbeing, engagement, and sense of belonging. By investing time and effort into this platform, we can proactively identify areas for improvement, track progress, and implement strategies that align with our Trust priorities. This approach not only strengthens our compliance with national standards but also reflects our commitment to creating an inclusive environment where every student can succeed.

David Smith

Principal
Blue Coat Church of England Academy

The surveys helped us gain unique insight into how effective our drive to promote a sense of belonging has been with specific cohorts and groups within cohorts. The precision in the analysis has allowed us to effectively plan our response, based on clear evidence and supported by a wealth of ready to use resources within the Satchel Pulse platform. At a time when developing a sense of belonging is crucial within our schools and where inclusion is a system-wide priority, Satchel Pulse has provided us with a valuable tool which ensures that support and intervention is evidence-led and our response is shaped by tried and tested resources.

Rachel Usher

Headteacher
Ledbury Primary school

We have been thoroughly impressed by the quality of the platform and the accompanying resources. The insight it provides has the potential to support us in developing a deeper understanding of pupil and staff mental health and wellbeing. We feel confident that Satchel Pulse will offer useful and meaningful data to inform our ongoing work in this important area.

Belonging is a performance indicator, not a pastoral concern