Achieve Together: Teach First, Teaching Leaders and Future Leaders

The EEF has awarded a grant of £1.8m, alongside a £1m grant from J.P. Morgan, to fund Achieve Together. This is an initiative delivered by three education charities - Teach First, Teaching Leaders and Future Leaders – working together for the first time to develop practical ways to attract, retain and develop excellent teachers, middle leaders and heads to raise standards in schools in low-income communities. 

Teaching and leadership can make a significant difference to children’s outcomes, but there is a need for better evidence about how to improve these aspects in schools in areas of high deprivation.

Through Achieve Together, we will be able to test the impact of having a unified focus on improving pupil attainment at all levels of teaching and leadership in a school. Around 50 schools in disadvantaged areas will be invited to participate, and half of them will join the 3-year programme. Future Leaders will develop existing senior members of staff or place senior leaders. Teaching Leaders will provide specialist training to promising middle leaders and Teach First will place selected new teachers in participating schools. Alongside this, schools will undertake school-wide impact projects with a focus on raising pupil attainment.

J.P. Morgan are funding a pilot of an area-focused approach in a small group of schools in Bournemouth. As well as benefiting from the services outlined above, these schools will also work closely together – and with external agencies, such as the local authority and local businesses – to see if greater collaboration can improve results. 

The programme is being independently evaluated by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and Ipsos MORI will undertake a qualitative process evaluation.