Critical Developments · Product 02
Turn pupil information into timely, accountable action.
Pupil progress, interventions and access arrangements.
The operational problem
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Capability map
DAS Board is an evidence-to-action system, not merely a progress dashboard.
Addressed requests, returned contributions, review actions, case blockers, source warnings and directly owned work in one permission-checked view.
Classroom, progress, specialist caseload, support planning, access arrangements, annual review and audit/history, assembled only for authorised users.
Bounded observation capture, fact and interpretation, files, review, correction, clarification, retraction and non-destructive history.
An early choice directs safeguarding concerns to the school's approved system rather than storing them as ordinary learning evidence.
Versioned forms, named recipients, due dates, reminders, response states, coverage and review before accepted evidence is created.
Baselines, intended outcomes, defined measures, evidence links, review history and narrative or milestone models where numbers would overclaim.
Definitions, referrals, capacity, placement, scheduling, delivery, check-ins, reviews and professional outcomes kept distinct.
Concern, triage, normal-way evidence, assessment, professional decision, internal application fields, implementation and review without automated eligibility.
Schedules, contribution campaigns, source-linked packs, meeting decisions, owned actions, approval and preserved superseded versions.
Source manifests, internal approval, digest-verified documents, staged imports, reconciliation, rollback, versioned definitions and configuration history.
The programme does not claim live pupil processing, statutory issue, external submission or school approval.
Working sequence
Each stage records a different responsibility. No coloured box is allowed to make the professional decision on somebody's behalf.
Bounded observation, with fact separate from interpretation.
Purpose, prompts, named recipients and due dates.
Returned contributions with visible gaps and provenance.
A named professional decides what counts as evidence.
Goals, intervention or casework with a clear owner.
A controlled snapshot that preserves its sources.
Product roadmap
Capture a useful observation quickly, attach its context and keep its review state visible.
Request bounded contributions, review what returns and reuse accepted evidence without copying the wider case.
Set a baseline, record a measure, assign an intervention and keep ownership, progress and review together.
Separate evidence, assessment and professional decision while making gaps, blockers and expiry visible.
Schedule the cycle, assemble contributions, record decisions and produce a controlled, traceable report.
How it differs
Official published descriptions checked 27 August 2026. Feature sets change; procurement requires direct verification with each vendor.
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.
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.
The practical difference
The point is earlier follow-up, clear ownership and less time spent assembling records before useful work can begin.
Measure it properly. Any published time-saving figure will come from the same task measured before and during a school pilot.
Editorial perspective
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Security · UK GDPR
Security and data protection are part of the product boundary. Certification, school approval and live use remain separate decisions.
Define the minimum fields needed for each job, validate imports and avoid copying wider MIS records into the product without a clear purpose.
Use role-based permissions, least-privilege defaults and auditable administrative actions for data that should not be visible to every member of staff.
Treat encryption in transit and at rest, tested backups, retention controls and reliable deletion as baseline technical requirements.
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.
