Engagement and Wellbeing – SmartWall

The SmartWall is a live, interactive data wall built into TrackEd. It replaces physical datawalls with a secure, password-protected alternative where student data stays current and searchable. You can build walls for any group of students, run live searches over the top to spot patterns, and return to saved walls at any point in the future.

The newer video below covers the instant SmartWall types (grid, ranked, circular) and live searching features added in 2023.

The older video below walks through building a manual SmartWall from scratch, including highlight controls, placement options, and colour-coded groupings.

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SmartWall types

TrackEd offers four SmartWall types. The first three are “instant” options that automatically sort students based on the data fields you choose. The fourth is the original manual option that gives you full control over placement.

Grid SmartWall sorts students into categories on both axes. For example, you could plot English results (A to E) on one axis and roll class on the other. This is likely the most popular of the instant options because it lets you compare any two data dimensions at a glance.

Ranked SmartWall works like a ProgressTracker layout. Students are ranked by one field (e.g. QCE points) and sorted into horizontal bands by another (e.g. QCE estimate range). This is useful for senior tracking walls where you want to see students ordered within risk categories.

Circular SmartWall arranges students in a circle, similar to a ClassMat but for any sized group. You could sort a whole cohort by GPA around the circle, for example.

Manual SmartWall starts with a blank page and a student list. You search for groups, then place them onto the grid in whatever arrangement you want. This gives the most flexibility but takes longer to set up. It is covered in more detail in the 2021 video.

Creating an instant SmartWall

Start by finding the group of students you want on the wall. You can work with a full cohort, or run a find first to narrow the group (e.g. all students with DDA, or all Year 9s at risk). From the Profile page, open the Reports menu and select SmartWall.

Choose one of the instant types (Grid, Ranked, or Circular). For a grid wall, you pick the vertical sort field and the horizontal sort field. TrackEd then asks you to choose a wall size: small, medium, large, or very large. Pick the smallest size that fits your group, keeping in mind that the wall needs some blank space around students to be readable.

The wall generates automatically. Students are placed into their categories based on the data fields you selected. From here you can run live searches, switch between related walls, and interact with individual students.

Building a manual SmartWall

To build a manual SmartWall, select your group from the Home page, go to Reports > SmartWall, and choose to make a new wall from the current found set. Select a wall size and give the wall a name. TrackEd loads a blank grid with all your students listed on the right-hand side.

The key tool here is the Highlight Controls panel. This lets you run a TrackEd find to highlight a group of students in green. Once you have a highlighted group, you use the “Place on Grid” options to position them on the wall.

A typical workflow is: run a find (e.g. failing in 3+ subjects), place that group in one corner, clear the highlight, run another find (e.g. failing in 1-2 subjects), place those in another corner, then use the “Not yet placed” option to grab everyone else and fill the remaining space. You can sort each group by GPA, name, a specific subject, or NAPLAN data as you place them.

If you need to place students by tagged groups (e.g. extend, progress, support), tag them first, then search for each tag and place them into their respective areas on the wall.

Placement options

When you place a highlighted group on the grid, TrackEd offers several layout options. You choose a starting corner or area and a fill direction. For example, you can start from the bottom-right corner and fill outward, or use a “book” layout that fills left-to-right, top-to-bottom within a quadrant. There are also options for placing into half the page (top half, bottom half, left or right), or into specific quadrant areas.

After choosing a layout, you select a sort order for the students within that placement. GPA is a common choice, but you can also sort by name, a subject result, or NAPLAN data. The students are then numbered and placed in sequence according to your chosen direction.

Interacting with students on the wall

Once students are on the wall, clicking a student opens a mini profile with key information. You can switch between several interaction modes using the controls at the top of the page.

Small profile mode shows a compact summary when you click a student. You can enter notes, internal notes, or jump straight to that student’s full profile. Full profile mode opens the complete TrackEd student profile, and closing it returns you to the SmartWall. Notes view and Internal notes view take you directly to the relevant notes fields, where you can type live on the screen.

Move and place mode lets you click on a student and then click an empty spot to relocate them. There is also a drag and drop mode where you pick up a student and physically move them to a new position. These modes are useful for making manual adjustments after the initial placement.

You can also display a data field underneath each student photo. The “User field” selector lets you choose from a range of options (e.g. GPA, roll class, or a specific subject result) to add context to the wall at a glance.

Live searching and benchmark mode

One of the most powerful features of the SmartWall is the ability to run live searches over the top of the displayed data. Type a search criterion (e.g. ATSI yes, EALD yes, out-of-home care, gender, or a specific roll class) and matching students highlight in green on the wall.

Switch into benchmark mode to make the highlights clearer. In this mode, matching students stand out sharply against the rest of the wall, making patterns much easier to spot during team conversations.

You can also search for attendance concerns (e.g. absences greater than 25), behaviour incidents (e.g. more than 10 for the year), or effort data (e.g. red effort band). These searches layer over whatever groupings you already have on the wall, so you can quickly see how risk factors overlap with achievement data.

Highlight colours and labels

On manual SmartWalls, you can store search results into colour-coded groups. After running a find through the Highlight Controls, apply the highlighted students to one of four stored colours (e.g. pink for high absences, orange for behaviour concerns). Each colour can be labelled so you and your team know what it represents.

These stored colours persist on the wall and appear when you print. You can label each group using the labels area (e.g. “Absence 25+”, “Behaviour 5+”), giving the wall a clear visual legend. Combined with live searching and benchmark mode, this lets you build a layered picture of student data on a single screen.

Toggle highlight mode

Toggle highlight mode lets you manually select individual students by clicking on them. Each click highlights the student in green and adds them to a running list. This is useful when you spot outliers or patterns on the wall and want to isolate a specific group for further investigation.

For example, on a grid wall comparing English results against NAPLAN reading bands, you might notice several students with low English grades but high reading bands. Click each of those students in toggle highlight mode to build a group, then copy that group to your clipboard. From there you can open the group as a list, view their profiles, generate a datawall for just that group, or paste them as a highlight on a different SmartWall to compare against other data.

SmartWall history and management

Every SmartWall you create is saved and accessible from the “Return to previously created SmartWalls” option. The history page lists all your walls, grouped by size (small, medium, large, very large). Each entry shows the wall name, date, type icon, and creator.

You can filter the history list by date range, cohort, wall type, and other criteria. Options include editing, recreating (which rebuilds the same wall configuration for a different cohort or point in time), duplicating, and deleting walls. Bulk delete is available for cleaning up old walls.

You can also select a group of walls and view them in a slideshow or toggle between them. This is handy for PLT meetings where you want to cycle through several related walls (e.g. English vs Maths vs Science for the same cohort).

Working with walls over time

SmartWalls are designed as ongoing working documents. You can return to a wall at any time, make changes, and save it again. To track progress over time, duplicate a wall before making changes. This gives you a snapshot you can compare against the updated version later.

When a student is archived (i.e. they leave the school), a yellow flag appears on their spot on the wall. Clicking the flag gives you the option to remove that student or remove all archived students from the wall. When you run a new search (e.g. a fresh Year 9 search), TrackEd will ask if you want to add any new students who are not already on the grid. This keeps the wall current without having to rebuild it from scratch.

The recreate function lets you rebuild a wall’s configuration for a new cohort or time period without setting up all the options again. Future updates will extend this to allow bulk recreation of a set of walls at once.