Success For All: Success for All Foundation

The EEF is funding a £1.4 million randomised controlled trial of Success for All in 50 schools. Success for All is a training and support package that provides primary schools with the strategies, skills and materials to teach their pupils to read well.

The programme was developed by the leading education academic Robert Slavin. It is built on a range of proven teaching strategies, and pulls them altogether in a practical, school-focused way. Schools first take part in whole-staff training in the teaching strategies that underpin the programme (such as cooperative learning and synthetic phonics), but also in the management approaches that are compulsory. Extensive data analysis is frequently collected on all pupils’ progress, and pupils are grouped (and regularly re-grouped) into classes based on their reading ability, not their age. Teachers are provided with structured daily lesson plans, and are provided with materials to support these (such as children’s stories and planning sheets). In class, pupils work closely together and they speak about their learning at least as much as the teacher talks. Additional catch up support, such as computer-assisted learning, is provided to pupils struggling to learn to read.

There is very strong evidence for the approaches used (such as phonics). Furthermore, there is encouraging evidence from research in the US of the Success for All model itself, including a randomised controlled trial which found an effect of 0.2-0.33 on literacy outcomes. A small matched-controlled study in the UK found similar impacts. The developers have led on many of the existing evaluations and there is a need for independent analysis of its impact.

This is an evidence-based programme with a strong delivery model, but that has not been thoroughly trialled in English schools. With EEF support and an oversight from an independent evaluation team, Success for All will recruit 50 schools who want to participate, and randomly allocate which group begin receiving training first. If proven to be effective, it offers struggling schools a comprehensive, structured way to raise their literacy standards.

Queen's University, Belfast will evaluate the impact of the approach.