Postcards from literacy classrooms: possibilities for teacher-generated data visualisation

Against the background of a data-driven education system that has detrimental effects on teachers’ personal and professional lives, we report on an exploratory project in which seven primary teachers in England shared experiences of literacy teaching through generating ‘small’ data visualised on postcards. Thematic analysis of their data-sharing discussions identified three purposes for which they used data: demonstrating to others; reflection on practice; reviewing professional lives. We propose that the project worked – albeit temporarily – to recalibrate teachers’ relations with data, foregrounding relational, embodied and ethical dimensions of teaching, and argue for the professional importance of open-ended, teacher-led data engagements.