Which Term 3 pressure points worry you the most? Scan the code with your mobile phone or click here to share your top concerns.  
   
 
  ON THE
DDD CALENDAR
   
  UPCOMING TRAINING:
  The clock's already running on Term 3, so our upcoming webinars cover both ends of the data cycle: closing out what's just been submitted, and digging into why the numbers look the way they do. Click any button below for more information, or to book your seat:
   
  TOPIC: End-of-term submissions – closing the loop before Term 3 gets going. In this session, you'll learn what's required for accurate end-of-term submissions, the rules around resubmission, and how to avoid the most common challenges schools run into when submitting their data.
   
 
   
 
   
  TOPIC: Root cause analysis & the School Achievement report. Learn how to analyse school and subject performance, investigate how many learners are failing a particular subject, and get to grips with the data behind the DDD Dashboard's downloadable Excel report. Then use it to build a targeted plan of action based on the root cause, not just the symptom.
   
 
   
   
 
  DATA NEWS
AND UPDATES
   
  They’re planning for the best!
   
 
   
  TOP: Geluksdal Secondary School’s principal, Mr Tshepo Chaka, and his management team in Gauteng East used DDD throughout Term 2 to profile learners and pinpoint exactly who needed support.

ABOVE: Meanwhile, EMIS officers from Capricorn North in Limpopo used Term 2 to identify circuits still needing learner-profiling training, thus ensuring that no circuit is left behind.
 
 
     
 
   
                     
 

ARE YOU COMPARING, OR JUST REPORTING?

A single term’s numbers are a snapshot, but Term 1 set against Term 2 is a trend. Before Term 3’s clock starts running, view your school’s data over time on the Subject Trends report – don't view one term in isolation.

    

HAVE YOU LOOKED AHEAD?

Term 2 data isn’t only a past record, it can be a precursor of what’s to come. View it as part of the Term 4 Promotion report, because this shows where your learners are headed if nothing changes – while there’s still time to address it. 		 

DOES YOUR TEAM SEE WHAT YOU SEE?

A dashboard insight only becomes a school plan once it's shared. As Term 3 begins, walk your school management team through the insights that Term 2 data reveals, and your approach. Term 3 is too short for your first decisions to be made alone.		  
                     
 
     
 
         
  TERM 3 IS GO TIME. TEN WEEKS IS ALL YOU GET …  
 
 

Every other term this year gave you room to plan. Term 3 doesn’t. It’s the shortest on the calendar, and somewhere inside it your province will set the trial exam timetable, after which your window to prepare only narrows.

The good news is that both Term 1 and Term 2 data are now in, which means the dashboard has more to work with than at any point in 2026. The only question is whether you use the runway while it’s still there.

Here’s where to start:

1. See where you’re heading:
Open the DDD Dashboard’s Term 4 Promotion report, scroll to the table at the bottom, expand the circuit/cluster you wish to view and sort the “Forecast vs PY” column ascending. The schools expected to decline against last year rise straight to the top. This is your prioritised action list.

2. Catch the slide while it’s still a wobble:
The Trends section on the dashboard shows enrolment, promotion and attendance across several years. Look for the downward drift – this is far easier to correct in July than to explain in December.

3. Give each role its own view:
The dashboard’s Role-Specific Views tailor what principals, curriculum and management users each see. Point your team to the view most relevant to them, so that everyone starts the term reading the numbers that matter most to their job.

Ten weeks isn’t long, but used well, it’s long enough. Log in to DDD today.

  
         
 
       
 
    WHY THE BOYS WEREN'T COMING TO SCHOOL:
Meet the trainer who knows a report is only half the answer
 
 

Every year, in the same months, the boys stopped coming to school.

On Phumudzo Mafune’s computer screen, the DDD attendance report showed the pattern clearly enough: boys’ attendance falling away across several schools in Limpopo’s Capricorn South District, days at a stretch, at the same point in the calendar. What the dashboard could not tell her was why.

So she went out to the schools and asked. The answer was initiation school – a cultural passage that had been part of the community long before anyone was tracking attendance, and one the schools could now plan around, knowing who would be away and when.

An EMIS official since 2010 and today one of Limpopo's DDD master trainers, Mafune has built her working life on that distinction. While the dashboard tells her where to look, working out what she is looking at still means turning up in person.

In this edition of DataPoint, she shares how the dashboard changed her work, the two reports she can no longer do without, and how she wins over colleagues who believe it is too late in their careers to learn. Click here to read Mafune's full story.

 
           
           
 

To share feedback on
this newsletter email:
Communication@newleaders.co.za		       For DDD technical
assistance contact:
help@dbedashboard.co.za		        
     
   
 
     
 

dbedashboard   The DDD programme is an initiative of the Department of
Basic Education, in collaboration with the Michael & Susan Dell
Foundation and New Leaders Foundation.		  
     

This email was sent to [email address suppressed]. If you are no longer interested you can unsubscribe instantly.