Critical DevelopmentsFrom First Principles Works

Critical Developments · Product 02

DAS Board

Turn pupil information into timely, accountable action.

Pupil progress, interventions and access arrangements.

See DAS Board in actionSee what it solves

The gap

Evidence should discipline judgement, not impersonate it.

Pupil support fails in two opposite ways. Important observations can disappear into scattered notes and inboxes; or they can be gathered into a dashboard whose apparent precision exceeds what anyone genuinely knows. DAS Board is built around the space between those failures: enough structure to make action accountable, with professional judgement left visibly human.

  1. 01

    Observations, interventions and review actions live in separate records.

    Staff can see fragments without being able to reconstruct what happened next.

    One pupil context connects evidence, goals, interventions, access-arrangement work, annual reviews and controlled reports without pretending they are the same record.

  2. 02

    Requests for evidence are sent informally.

    Recipients, due dates, gaps and returned contributions become difficult to track fairly.

    Governed round robins preserve purpose, prompts, recipients, response states, coverage and named review before a response becomes evidence.

  3. 03

    A dashboard converts record presence into a judgement.

    Missing data can be mistaken for low need; a high count for strong evidence.

    Operational views state definitions, denominators, exclusions and source dates without manufacturing readiness, risk, quality or eligibility scores.

  4. 04

    Intervention progress is reduced to one attractive percentage.

    Absence, non-delivery, no measurement and no progress are blurred together.

    Versioned measures calculate where valid and retain narrative or milestone review where a calculation would be dishonest.

  5. 05

    Configuration authority is treated as access to every pupil record.

    Sensitive information is disclosed beyond the professional task.

    Pupil views require a current capability and exact caseload or assignment; administration alone is not a master key.

Feature map

Find the tools for the task.

Choose a school task to see the relevant tools and their boundaries, then open the walkthrough.

Browse by area

Areas 8Features 39

School tasks, the tools that help and the boundaries to keep in view.

Understand each pupil

  • Find a permitted record

    Search the school directory, then narrow your permitted dossiers by recorded need, intervention, evidence or review state. Lists and counts describe what has been recorded; access to a directory match does not open a pupil dossier or specialist record.

  • Agree the classroom picture

    Bring practical strategies and support needs into a current Pupil Passport or Support Snapshot. Keep source versions available and distinguish a draft from the classroom guidance that has been reviewed and published.

  • Keep pupil voice separate

    Record the pupil's words as a separate contribution, with their own review and publication. Keep adult interpretation distinct from the pupil's account.

  • Use relevant views and contacts

    Open classroom, progress or specialist views within your current permissions. Restricted and audit material requires additional designation. Keep a verified key contact, conversation dates and agreed next steps with the permitted record; creating a contact entry does not send an email.

Pupil voice and contact entries are staff-managed. Contact records do not send messages or replace safeguarding procedures. Drafting and publication have separate permissions.

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Gather and review evidence

  • Capture useful observations

    Capture the pupil, lesson context, support used and observed response using a school-approved form. Versioned prompts also support structured learning walks. Staff record what they observed; the form does not diagnose, judge eligibility or impose an evidence quota.

  • Request purposeful contributions

    Choose the purpose, approved prompts, named recipients and due date. Colleagues can save drafts, submit or decline a response. See outstanding contributions and send in-app reminders, while keeping received responses separate from reviewed evidence.

  • Review and retain corrections

    A named reviewer can accept the current evidence or ask for clarification. Preserve earlier wording and reasons when a source is corrected or retracted. Changed evidence needs review again, while earlier report versions keep their own history.

  • Keep differences and gaps visible

    Compare conflicting accepted accounts and record a professional resolution or reopening. Coverage views show recorded sources, contexts, contributors and request returns using stated definitions and dates. These counts help organise follow-up; they do not measure evidence quality, sufficiency or readiness.

Requests and reminders stay within DAS. Accepted evidence records a named professional review; it does not certify reliability, eligibility or overall sufficiency. Resolving different accounts remains a professional decision.

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Plan support and follow progress

  • Personalise the starting point

    Build a pupil-specific draft from an approved school template. Adapt selected strategies, goals and measures from the school's libraries or original starters, retaining the version used. The school still chooses the pupil's baseline, target, dates and intended outcome.

  • Publish, review and renew

    Keep contributions attributed and preserve the published classroom plan while preparing its successor. Review the last cycle and deliberately choose what should carry forward, so the next agreed plan retains a clear relationship to the earlier one.

  • Measure individual progress

    Record agreed starting points, targets and repeated school-approved measures with their evidence and corrections. Keep each result in its task context. Missing measurements remain missing; the record does not predict an outcome or diagnose a need.

  • Prepare support documents

    Create school-branded internal PDFs from selected, personalised support-plan and Section F material, keeping the source versions used. Section F content remains a contribution to an EHCP; supplied layouts need mapping review before use.

Saving, professional review, publication and external sharing remain separate decisions. Document preparation does not issue an EHCP, provide legal approval or send a copy elsewhere.

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Organise and review interventions

  • Keep a clear school offer

    Define your school's provision, intended outcomes and available capacity. Keep a clear approved version when the offer changes, so later reviews can refer to the definition in use. Approval of the offer does not establish effectiveness or a pupil's eligibility.

  • Manage referrals and places

    Record referrals and triage, manage waiting lists and reserve an available place. An authorised colleague decides suitability and priority; referral approval, a capacity reservation and creation of the pupil's placement remain separate actions.

  • Organise and record delivery

    Arrange delivery series and rosters, with conflict checks against the available timetable information. Record actual delivery and participation separately from the plan. For linked enrolments, PASSport owns attendance recording; these operational marks are not statutory attendance.

  • Review the supporting evidence

    Review a pupil's placement using recorded goals, delivery, measurements and accepted evidence. A professional records the conclusion and prepares the intervention report, keeping the context behind that decision available.

Attendance and delivered sessions do not establish impact. Costing and staff-time allocation are outside this intervention record. Report approval, export and external issue remain distinct. Conflict checks are limited to the timetable information supplied.

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Manage access-arrangement casework

  • Gather relevant classroom evidence

    Open a case under the school's confirmed settings. Link accepted evidence with a recorded explanation of its relevance, and request normal-way-of-working observations using a suitable form, selected colleagues and an agreed purpose. In-app responses need named review before they become case evidence.

  • Record attributable assessments

    Keep signed-off assessment results with the instrument edition, source and named professional. Preserve later versions without losing the earlier result. Sensitive results and files remain available only to appropriately authorised colleagues.

  • Keep decisions and review distinct

    Record a proposal, separate approval and a later implementation review. Keep recorded review and expiry dates visible, with deliberate closure, reopening or renewal decisions and their sources. The app records these decisions; it does not select eligibility or renew an arrangement automatically.

  • Prepare the case paperwork

    Supported JCQ form templates help prepare case paperwork using recorded evidence and decisions. Confirm the applicable edition and school process before using a form, including Forms 8, 9 and 8RF.

Case records and forms do not certify compliance, secure examination-board acceptance or submit an application. The app does not infer eligibility thresholds or statutory deadlines. Date warnings depend on recorded school settings.

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Prepare annual reviews and follow through

  • Start from an agreed review date

    Record the confirmed review date and choose the school's preparation schedule. Track its milestones against that agreed date. These timings describe the school's plan; statutory deadlines and the review date remain separately confirmed.

  • Keep contributions identifiable

    Keep pupil, parent/carer and staff contributions separate, with named attribution, receipt states and correction history. Authorised staff manage the records, so received, missing and revised input can be understood without a parent-facing portal.

  • Build a clear meeting pack

    Select accepted evidence, support-plan and intervention material for a versioned meeting pack. Keep sources and their wording distinguishable from professional interpretation. A prepared pack supports the meeting; approval, final issue and sending remain separate.

  • Give agreed actions an owner

    Record meeting decisions and assign agreed follow-up to verified staff. Keep each action's progress visible. Report approval and final review completion remain separate steps, so a meeting record or an action update cannot finish the whole review.

Use the school's agreed processes for statutory deadlines and external issue. Action completion, report approval and final review completion remain separate responsibilities. Contributions are managed by staff; there is no automatic external delivery.

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Keep daily work in view

  • Know what needs your attention

    See addressed requests, returned contributions, professional review queues, owned cases and agreed actions in one permission-filtered work list. The list uses recorded dates and responsibilities so you can open the underlying work and understand why it appears.

  • Read reports with their definitions

    Review progress, provision, casework and data availability using stated definitions and exclusions. Keep unavailable information visible and distinguish it from zero activity. Reports describe the recorded scope; they do not rank staff, diagnose need or assign an intervention-effectiveness score.

  • Coordinate WorkPane appointments

    Where the school has both products and the configured connection, request, update or unlink permitted WorkPane-owned appointments for casework and agreed actions. Keep the appointment's status visible and check with its owner when a change needs attention. Bookings are not silently moved.

School setup required. Use each report's definitions and recorded dates when interpreting its totals. Calendar requests require WorkPane access, a configured connection and current permissions. Queue dates do not infer risk or statutory deadlines. WorkPane appointment delivery needs checked school setup and does not include an external-calendar connection. MIS integrations are available through Wonde with supported data and school-approved scope.

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Share and manage records responsibly

  • Match access to pupil responsibility

    Designated DAS Leads can manage ordinary DAS groups and pupil pools. Account continues to own school membership, product licences and special designations. Keep pupil access tied to current assignments, and remove the group-derived access when a group ends.

  • Trace versions and internal copies

    Let authorised colleagues inspect earlier versions and the recorded purpose and history of printed or downloaded copies. Recheck current access before opening or exporting a record. A printout or download remains an internal copy unless the school deliberately follows its separate issue process.

Account administration alone does not grant pupil or restricted professional access. Printed and downloaded copies retain their recorded purpose and history; external issue follows the school's separate authorised process.

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The programme does not claim live pupil processing, statutory issue, external submission or school approval.

Compare with competitors

Find the right fit.

Official published descriptions checked 27 August 2026. Feature sets change; procurement requires direct verification with each vendor.

  1. 01

    Tes Provision Map

    Tes foregrounds SEND management and provision mapping: plans, goals, progress monitoring, intervention analysis, collaboration and reporting. DAS Board overlaps in provision and progress but gives equal structural weight to the evidence before a decision: bounded observation, request campaigns, named review and exact-version links within one notice-to-report loop.

    Compare the complete cost Request a complete annual DAS Board quote including shared Account, Wonde MIS integration for the agreed scope, ordinary hosting and processing, standard setup, updates and remote support. Request a current quote for the same features, school size and support requirements. Supplier details · Request your complete annual quote

  2. 02

    Baobab

    Baobab foregrounds a continuous SEND structure spanning EHCP and SEN Support profiles, outcomes, goals, provisions, updates and reporting. DAS Board instead centres the provenance and state of professional work across a broader evidence-and-casework route, including controlled contributions, intervention delivery and access assessment.

    Compare the complete cost Request a complete annual DAS Board quote including shared Account, Wonde MIS integration for the agreed scope, ordinary hosting and processing, standard setup, updates and remote support. Compare equivalent users, features, integrations and support, including any usage charges, using current written quotes. Supplier details · Request your complete annual quote

Best fit
A SEND, inclusion or learning-support team that needs observations, interventions, access work and annual reviews to share one traceable route while preserving named professional responsibilities.
Not intended to replace
The MIS, safeguarding system, a clinical or diagnostic service, professional eligibility decisions, statutory authority, parent communication or the external routes through which reports and applications are issued.

Editorial perspective

The argument behind DAS Board.

Pupil support fails in two opposite ways. Important observations can disappear into scattered notes and inboxes; or they can be gathered into a dashboard whose apparent precision exceeds what anyone genuinely knows. DAS Board is built around the space between those failures: enough structure to make action accountable, with professional judgement left visibly human.

The problem is not simply missing data

Schools already produce a formidable quantity of information about pupils. A note sits in one system, the request for evidence in another, an intervention record in a spreadsheet and the next action in somebody's head. The fragments may all be reasonable; their relationship is not.

DAS Board begins with a loop rather than a score: notice, ask, collect, review, act, report. An observation is not yet accepted evidence. Accepted evidence is not yet a decision. Implementation without review is simply a hope with a date attached.

An amber box can attract attention. It cannot own the next action or explain why a decision was made.

Observation before interpretation

A useful pupil note preserves the distinction between what was observed and what was concluded. Ordinary learning observations can carry context and a possible next action. A safeguarding concern belongs in the school's approved safeguarding system, not in a general evidence box that happens to be conveniently open.

Corrections matter too. Quietly overwriting the original may produce a cleaner screen, but it produces a weaker account of how a judgement was reached.

Automation knows some excellent verbs

Software can prompt, collect, show what has not returned, preserve the version used in a report and remind an owner that a review is due. These gains protect the conditions in which sound judgement can occur.

It cannot legitimately infer a pupil's need, decide eligibility, approve a professional conclusion or issue a statutory report. DAS Board treats automation as an organiser of attention. The professional still decides what the evidence means.

Honest progress is harder than a percentage

Some outcomes can be represented through bounded values, frequencies or defined scales. Others are properly narrative or milestone-based. No measurement is not the same as no progress; a session not delivered is not evidence of pupil failure; attendance is not impact; volume is not quality.

Access follows the work, not the job title

DAS Board separates operational administration from professional access. The person who can manage settings does not thereby need access to every assessment, contribution or case history. Least privilege is the practical recognition that legitimate responsibilities have edges.

DAS Board cannot make a professional decision good. It can make the route to that decision visible: what was noticed, what was asked, what counted as evidence, who acted and what must be reviewed.

With and without

Where the work gets lighter.

The point is earlier follow-up, clear ownership and less time spent assembling records before useful work can begin.

  • Earlier follow-up
  • Clearer case ownership
  • Less duplicate checking

Weekly progress review

Without DAS Board
Assemble exports, local trackers and meeting notes before identifying the pupils who need attention.
With DAS Board
Open a filtered view and move directly from the pattern to the relevant pupil record and next action.

Intervention follow-up

Without DAS Board
Chase ownership and outcomes across email threads, documents and personal reminders.
With DAS Board
Review one action list showing owner, status, due point and recorded outcome.

Arrangement check

Without DAS Board
Locate the latest controlled spreadsheet or ask the colleague who is assumed to know.
With DAS Board
Use a permission-controlled reference with status and review information in the same pupil context.

Measure it properly. Any published time-saving figure will come from the same task measured before and during a school pilot.

Security · UK GDPR

School data deserves more than a padlock icon.

Security and data protection are part of the product boundary. Certification, school approval and live use remain separate decisions.

Collect less

Define the minimum fields needed for each job, validate imports and avoid copying wider MIS records into the product without a clear purpose.

Control access

Use role-based permissions, least-privilege defaults and auditable administrative actions for data that should not be visible to every member of staff.

Protect and delete

Treat encryption in transit and at rest, tested backups, retention controls and reliable deletion as baseline technical requirements.

Make procurement evidence available

Prepare a clear data map, processing agreement, subprocessor list, retention schedule, technical-measures summary and practical DPIA support before contracting.

School-facing boundary: the school will still need an appropriate lawful basis, privacy information, access policy, retention decisions and—where the risk requires it—a DPIA. The supplier’s job is to make those decisions informed, documented and technically enforceable.