The shape of the six weeks

Two cohorts can end the six weeks in the same place and get there completely differently. The shape of the six weeks is the view that shows the journey, not just the destination: how settled a cohort felt week by week, laid over what was weighing on them at each point in the arc.

It sits in Insights → Pulse, below the cohort totals, and it is the one read that turns a pile of check-ins into a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

What it shows

It is a single continuous timeline across the weeks. Not six separate boxes. With the arc read left to right:

• The settled-sentiment line. For each week, the share of the cohort that was thriving or finding their feet. This is the number that actually moves; watch its direction across the arc rather than any single week.
• The concern band. Underneath, the top thing weighing on students, laid out by week. Consecutive weeks that share a concern merge into a phase, so a shift like belonging → money → academic reads across the page as one movement rather than six disconnected labels.
• Participation. Under each week, how much of the cohort actually checked in that week, so you can weigh how much to read into it.

The pattern this exposes is the genuinely new part. Concerns tend to arrive on a schedule you can almost predict: belonging early, when everything is unfamiliar; money around census, when the fee decision becomes real; academics once the first marks land. Seeing when each one peaks is what lets you get ahead of it. A belonging push in week one, a money-and-support briefing before census, an academic-skills nudge before the first assessment.

Reading it well

1. Read the sentiment line as a curve

   Direction over weeks beats any single week's height. A two-week slide in the settled line is a signal; one quiet week is noise. Weeks with too few responses show a dash rather than a misleadingly precise number.

2. Let the phases tell you the sequence

   Don't over-read a one-week concern. The value is in the ordering. What comes first, what follows. Because that sequence is what you can plan against. A quiet stretch with no named concern is shown as a dash, not an empty gap.

3. Check participation before you conclude

   A dramatic-looking week sitting on a low check-in rate is thin evidence. High participation under a clear phase is where you can act with confidence.

4. Slice and compare when you need to

   The lens controls let you narrow the same view to a group, degree, or campus, or set another cohort side by side to see whether a shape is particular to this intake or a pattern you see every year.

The privacy line

The band is built on the same reason signal as what's weighing on students, so the same wall applies. Here, per week. A concern is only ever named in a week once at least five students have said the same one; below that it stays unnamed. The suppression is enforced in the database, so no week can be read back to an individual. Every week still appears in the timeline even when its concern is held back, so the arc always renders as a whole. You see the shape without seeing anyone.

Taking it off the screen

The whole report. The sentiment curve, the reason totals, and the per-week shape. Exports as a board-ready snapshot that carries the week-by-week history, so the trajectory travels to leadership or your institutional-research team without anyone needing console access. See exporting data.

Common questions

Related