1. Previous Output Formats - Previous STHC output formats are still available on request, as is our STHC School Pack service.

2. Analysis Modules - The STHC analysis results are arranged into different modules in this portal according to the specific purpose and nature of the analysis (though there may be some overlap between them in terms of the data reported). Additional modules may be added over time but the current ones briefly are as follows:-

• Pupil Travel Distance & Mode - The foundation of the STHC output since its' beginning, this module quantifies how far pupils travel to school, by what mode and the carbon & calorie footprints of the journeys (if pupil usual mode of travel data has been supplied by the school).
  
  


• Road Traffic Accident (STATS 19) Data Analysis - This module shows details of all the reported personal injury road accidents that have taken place in the local authority area on public roads recorded through the STATS19 accident reporting system used by the police.
  
  
  
  
• Proximity & Pupil Choice Analysis - This module quantifies the proximity of schools to their pupils, pupils to their nearest schools, and schools to each other. From this are derived current pupil choice by distance ranking, "doorstep leakage" of pupils to schools that are not the nearest one (& the extra "child miles" this involves) and the numerical and geodemographic impact on roles if all pupils attended their nearest school.
  Note: Proximity & Pupil Choice Analysis results are only available for schools selected by the local authority.
  
  
  
  

The STHC shows that, even in the absence of Pupil Usual Mode of Travel data, meaningful pupil-level results can still be derived from spatial analysis of core National School Census data and other publicly available datasets. That said, this portal makes the case for collecting Pupil Usual Mode of Travel data self-evident when viewers see how much more useful it makes the analysis results to them.

3. Reporting Levels of Results (Geographic) - Each page in this portal contains analysis results reported at 1 of 3 possible aggregate levels:-

• Individual School - All results for a school are reported in the same place. The school is selected from the drop-down list at the top of the page and the contents - bar charts, line charts, tables & maps - will update accordingly. You can only view one school at a time, but there is nothing to stop users opening up the pages in another browser window so schools could be compared side by side.
  
  
• All-Schools - Key results for all individual schools in the authority are reported side-by-side, enabling direct comparison between them. These are presented as interactive tables or a Geostatistical Atlas of maps, charts & tables that can be ranked from highest to lowest for a variety of criteria so you can see how a given school compares to the others.
  
  
• Whole Authority (LA) - Results of all individual school are aggregated together to give a "whole authority" figure.

4. Reporting Levels of Results (Temporal) - Pages are also organised by the number of years of analysis results they contain:-

• Latest Year -The most recent year of results only.
  
  
• All Years - Results for all the years we have undertaken the STHC analysis for the authority. Note the interactive maps pages are only available for the latest year.

5. Log-in Requirements - It is the aim of the STHC to make our analysis results as accessible as possible to all stakeholders. However as pupil-level data is involved we need to balance availability with data protection issues, such as ensuring anonymity. To that end most of the content is freely available to all users, but the map pages will require users to log-in to see them rendered with individual pupil icons (otherwise they are shown as a "hot-spot" style map). Log-n account details have been provided to your school in the STHC pack that was sent out in October 2014. Please contact us if you have require any assistance to log-in.

6. Browser Compatibility - The dynamic features of this portal - the maps and charts and some formatting elements - will only be displayed properly if your internet browser is HTML5 compatible. This shouldn't be a problem for most users but (as usual) the main issues are with Internet Explorer. Alas there is no way round this, apart from to change your browser.

7. 'Fluid' Page Layout - The page design is "fluid", which means things will move about depending on a combination of screen size, browser window width and browser zoom settings. By using a fluid design the content can be seen more easily in mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets, which have smaller screens than computers. Users should experiment to optimise the view for their set-up.

8. Incorporated Free Web-Services - The portal incorporates free web-services provided by external providers such as Google Maps and GoogleCharts as integral components. These provide a great free technical resource that greatly enhance visualisation of the data at no extra cost to users - what better tool is there for visualising a journey than actually viewing it in StreetView within the Google Maps window? However it means that the users' device must have an active internet connection in order for the portal to work properly (although their is no problem with the HTML page files themselves sitting on the device). Also these external web-services are not within our control and so we ask users to please be patient as some pages, or some elements within a page, may take noticeably longer to load at peak Internet usage times.