EEF has commissioned the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) to conduct secondary analysis using EEF archive data to generate useful evidence about the longitudinal impacts of KS3 and KS4 programmes on post-16 outcomes.
The project will link data from the EEF archive to the National Pupil Database (NPD), Higher Education and Statistics Agency (HESA), and the Individualised Learner Record (ILR) to examine long-term outcomes. The project will focus on two overarching research questions, 1. What is the impact of education programmes delivered in KS3 and KS4 on post-16 and HE attainment outcomes? 2. What is the impact of educational programmes delivered in KS3 and KS4 on educational progression? Impacts will be examined on outcome measures including highest qualification, percentage of pupils passing GCSE resits and percentage of pupils progressing to KS5, HE, or other post-16 settings. The project will also examine the impact on the sub-group of pupils receiving free school meals.
This project is part of a wider portfolio of projects to pilot and facilitate the creation of resources to enable researcher access to the EEF archive.
This project was funded by a grant from the Evaluation Task Force (Cabinet Office/HM Treasury) and its Evaluation Accelerator Fund.
In 2022, the EEF received funding from the Evaluation Accelerator Fund (EAF) to accelerate third-party access to the EEF Data Archive. Part of that funding was to commission two research projects in priority education areas to conduct secondary data analysis using EEF’s archive data. This project is one of them.
Findings of this project will provide valuable insights into individual and types of interventions that improve attainment and progression in pupils, with an additional focus on those that improve outcomes for pupils in receipt of free school meals.
The project is also designed to facilitate creation of resources to enable researcher access to the EEF Data Archive.
The evaluation report will be published in Summer 2026.