Secondary literacy evidence review

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is commissioning an evidence review to update our guidance on supporting literacy at secondary school.

We want to update and expand our understanding of how:

• how socio-economic disadvantage interacts with literacy development.
• which literacy approaches and interventions have evidence of raising attainment. (Both in terms of literacy outcomes and cognitive outcomes from other subjects.)

We expect the review to use a broad definition of literacy and to include reading, writing, and oral language. We are interested in universal approaches to literacy as well as targeted approaches for struggling readers and writers.

We are also interested in evidence on the ways in which schools can effectively identify and support literacy needs, due to the increased policy and sector focus on identifying literacy needs and supporting pupils’ reading at the start of secondary school.

We would expect research teams to report on impact for disadvantaged pupils throughout the review. This would include where this might be a research gap and answering the broader research questions relating to this group of pupils.

Find out more about the scope of this review, the research questions, and the estimated budget in the full invitation to tender.

We welcome proposals from research teams with experience of conducting evidence synthesis in education.

We are interested in proposals from single research teams and consortia with complementary expertise, where the consortium can demonstrate that they will work well together to ensure the quality and efficiency of the project.

We accept applications from legally constituted organisations and not from individuals.

This call for proposals is open. Researchers do not need to be part of EEF’s panel of evaluators.

More detail on who should apply is available in the full invitation to tender.