Northfield School, Campus Puertos

The Argentinian school that uses data to learn about itself so that it can improve its teaching in real time

Northfield School, Campus Puertos, an independent kindergarten, primary and secondary school in Escobar, Buenos Aires, Argentina, has pioneered an institution that learns about itself through data that tracks what happens inside the school and then redesigns its pedagogy to improve teaching and learning in real time. After noticing a distinct gap in how learning decisions are made without structured evidence about how students are actually learning and functioning, the school developed the framework to collect data across academic, operational, and wellbeing domains, giving teachers early intervention strategies that are transforming the learning experience for its students.

Conceived as a ‘third educator’, the learning environment integrates flexible spaces, dynamic classrooms, and natural surroundings that promote autonomy, collaboration, and experimentation. Students are active participants who drive the model. From early childhood right through to secondary school, their academic progress, reading development, socio-emotional wellbeing and engagement patterns are monitored longitudinally to build a complete understanding of how they learn over time. The school is then able to proactively identify any difficulties and intervene before challenges become entrenched and adjust their support according to exactly what the child needs to succeed. Learners are given the opportunity to participate directly in research and innovation processes, with many joining projects as trainees who contribute to the interpretation and application of findings across the school.

Leaders work closely with the Research and Data Analytics departments, which function as strategic partners to pedagogical teams. School leaders and analytics specialists interpret patterns from dynamic dashboards and translate them into practical insights that are then given to teachers as a guide for their classroom strategies and student development paths. By no longer having to rely on just intuition, teachers can make evidence-informed decisions about a student’s learning gaps, wellbeing, and even their levels of engagement.

Families are also embedded into the system through 360-degree evaluations, longitudinal tracking processes and structured family engagement monitoring. Patterns that are tracked in family meetings, for example, help the school to better understand the relationship between home and school and its influence on learning. This helps to strengthen support systems, improve communication, and meet challenges before they become overwhelming for the students and their families.

What began at Northfield School, Campus Puertos has since expanded across the broader Red Educativa Itinere, which includes 10 schools across Argentina and Uruguay, allowing the model to move beyond a single campus into a scalable educational system. Practices and interventions are often piloted at Northfield School Campus Puertos before being adapted and implemented across the network, while shared data systems enable benchmarking, cross-school comparison and collaborative problem-solving between leadership and teaching teams.

In 2025, 2,449 students across the Red Educativa Itinere were assessed, with 72% of Grade 1 students reaching high levels of reading fluency. Early interventions were implemented for the remaining students before learning gaps deepened. In reading comprehension assessments across Grades 2 to secondary school, more than 70% of learners achieved sufficient or optimal levels.

Research into digital wellbeing also revealed that 26% of students showed indicators of problematic mobile phone use, findings that directly led to preventative interventions with students and families.

Beyond school, 95% of graduates move on into university studies, significantly above the national average, while 78% complete their first university year without interruption and 65% gain work experience before graduating through trainee programmes integrated into the model.