The whole point of analytics is to act on them. Here's how to turn classroom data into targeted student support.
The "Students Need Support" Banner
When students fall below mastery thresholds or significantly behind on completion, you'll see a banner near the top of the Classroom Performance tab:
⚠ 9 students need support
The number reflects how many students are currently flagged. Clicking the banner takes you to a focused view of those specific students.
What Triggers "Needs Support"
A student is flagged as needing support when one or more of these are true:
Their accuracy on assessments has dropped below the mastery threshold for their assigned content
Their completion rate has fallen significantly behind their classmates
They've shown a sustained downward trend over the past 1–2 weeks
They have multiple lessons in the orange "Needs Support" Gradebook category
Intertwined uses a combination of these signals — no single metric flags a student on its own.
The Percentile Shift Distribution
Lower on the Classroom Performance tab, you'll see a card titled Percentile Shift Distribution. This shows how students' relative rankings within your class are changing over time:
Moving Up — Students whose performance is improving relative to their classmates
Stable — Students whose ranking hasn't changed significantly
Moving Down — Students whose performance is declining relative to their classmates
The card displays a count for each category, plus a horizontal bar chart showing the distribution.
How to Use Percentile Shifts
Percentile shifts are different from absolute performance. A student can have 80% accuracy and still be "Moving Down" if other students are improving faster. A student with 40% accuracy could be "Moving Up" if they were at 30% a month ago.
This is incredibly useful because:
"Moving Up" students are worth recognizing — momentum matters, even from a low base
"Moving Down" students need attention even if their current numbers look okay, because they're trending in the wrong direction
"Stable" students are usually fine, but check whether they're stably high or stably low
A Triage Workflow
Here's a simple weekly workflow for identifying who needs support:
Step 1: Check the banner Open Classroom Performance. Read the "X students need support" banner. If the number is 0, you're done for the week.
Step 2: Click into the banner The banner takes you to the list of flagged students.
Step 3: Cross-reference with Moving Down In the Percentile Shift Distribution, check who's Moving Down. Some students will overlap with the "Needs Support" list; others are new flags worth watching.
Step 4: Drill into individual students For each student of concern, switch to the Student Performance tab and select that student to see their full activity history. See 7.6 Student Performance Tab Deep-Dive.
Step 5: Take action Common interventions:
Reassign earlier foundational lessons
Pair the student with a peer for tutoring
Schedule a brief one-on-one check-in
Adjust the difficulty by switching to a more foundational module
Communicate with parents using the Parent & Guardian Letter template
Don't Wait for the Banner
The "needs support" banner is a lagging indicator — it appears after a student has fallen behind. To catch issues earlier:
Watch the Percentile Shift Distribution weekly for early "Moving Down" signals
Track the Improvement by Module chart (covered in 7.4) for which content is causing problems class-wide
Check Avg Time/Lesson — if a specific student is consistently spending 2x the class average on lessons, they may be struggling silently
Communicating with Struggling Students
When you identify a struggling student, lead with curiosity, not consequences:
"I noticed you've been spending a lot of time on the Budget lessons. What's coming up for you when you work on them?"
"I want to make sure you're getting what you need from this class. What's been working and what hasn't?"
"There are a few concepts I'd love to review together. Want to grab 10 minutes during lunch this week?"
The data is a starting point for a conversation, not a verdict.
Related articles:
7.1 Classroom Performance Tab Explained
7.4 Improvement by Module Chart
7.6 Student Performance Tab Deep-Dive