One of the key components of Sparx is personalised, achievable homework for every student. Sparx learns a student’s ability and speed, and adjusts their homework to the set length and level for the topic set by the teacher and the school’s scheme of work.
We create profiles of students so that we can understand their abilities and speed. Profiles are fully compliant with the ICO guidance on profiling, especially of children.
The profiles do not include the time of day, or how close to the due date they completed their homework, or other demographics such as gender, pupil premium, free school meals, or English as an additional language status.
Overriding automated levels
Because levels can be overridden at any time, the data subject's rights about automated decision-making do not apply.
The level a student is working at is judged after approximately 100 questions, and will continually adjust based on how the student performs in their homework. This level is shown to teachers within the Teacher Portal for each student and can be overridden within the product by teachers on a student-by-student basis.
When this is manually overridden, this means that the automatic algorithmic decision is discarded, and the overridden value is used when setting homework for these students. Teachers can revert to the Sparx algorithm working level for a student at any time. The Sparx level will be visible before they decide to change back.