Commenting on the announcement, Professor Becky Francis, CEO of the EEF, said:
NOTES:
- The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is an independent charity dedicated to breaking the link between family income and education achievement. We do this by supporting schools, colleges, and nurseries to improve teaching and learning through better use of evidence.
- The funding announced today will be invested in the post-16 sector in England over the course of the EEF’s current endowment, which runs until at least 2032.
- A recent review of evidence-informed practice in the post-16 sector, commissioned by the EEF and undertaken by Centre for Education and Youth and the University of Warwick, found that there is a growing appetite among post-16 setting to use evidence to support outcomes, but a lack of resources and support for doing so.
- Since 2011, the EEF has played a central role in embedding evidence in the English school system by putting robust evidence into the hands of teachers in an accessible and actionable way. It has done this by:
- Commissioning over 200 independent evaluations of teaching and learning approaches over the past decade, including over 150 large scale randomised controlled trials in schools.
- Reaching over 1.8m children and young people through its trials of high-potential programmes, including 500,000 pupils eligible for free school meals.
- Summarising and contextualising the best available evidence from across the world and presenting it in an accessible way through resources such as the Teaching and Learning Toolkit. The Toolkit is now used by 70% of English school leaders to inform their decision making.
- Putting evidence to use in ways that support teachers and school leaders to improve teaching and learning, primarily through the Research School Network (RSN). The RSN disseminates high-quality evidence-based training and support and brokers partnerships with schools serving high numbers of pupils eligible for free school meals
- Today’s funding will enable the EEF to significantly expand on this work in the post-16 space, by funding and evaluating programmes in settings, and providing direct support to colleges and their staff.