Education Endowment Foundation:Leadership Lite – trial

Leadership Lite – trial

Carmel Education Trust
Implementation costThe cost estimates in the Toolkits are based on the average cost of delivering the intervention. 
Evidence strengthThis rating provides an overall estimate of the robustness of the evidence, to help support professional decision-making in schools.Not given for this trial
Impact (months)The impact measure shows the number of additional months of progress made, on average, by children and young people who received the intervention, compared to similar children and young people who did not.
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Project info

Independent Evaluator

NFER logo
NFER
Testing a leadership programme aimed at reducing unnecessary workload and empowering teachers
Schools: 70 Grant: £692,995
Cancelled

The project

Leadership Lite is a leadership development and school improvement intervention, focused on Continuing Professional Development (CPD) to reduce teacher workload and increase teacher satisfaction with the longer-term aim of improving teacher retention. Improving student attainment outcomes is also a goal of the school improvement programme.

Delivered over two years, the programme provides training for a senior leader, a governor, the head of the science department, and a nominated ​‘lead teacher’ from the science department, as well as all other science teaching staff. It includes direct face-to-face training, gap tasks in between training sessions, network meetings, additional in-school support as required, exemplar materials, policy guidance and templates, and online support.

The programme was developed and piloted (initially in science and maths departments) by Carmel Education Trust (now Bishop Hogarth Catholic Education Trust or BHCET) – a Multi-Academy Trust and Teaching School in the North East of England.

EEF Summary

Project type: Efficacy level evidenceKey Stage: Key Stage 3, Key Stage 4Subject: Science

In this trial the programme focuses on three aspects of the quality of provision in science departments: quality assurance procedures; marking and feedback; and classroom practice. Thus, the focus of this evaluation was on evaluating impact on science teachers and science departments.

The programme was intended to be evaluated using a randomised controlled trial. It was designed as a two-armed efficacy trial with randomisation at MAT-level. The aim was to include up to 140 secondary schools across two successive cohorts to support intervention delivery. Evaluation activities were scheduled to run from September 2018 to March 2025.

Due to the impact of Covid-19 school closures, it would have been challenging for schools to implement marking and feedback, classroom practice and quality assurance practices when normal practices were not taking place and therefore difficult to evaluate the impact of the intervention as intended. It was also not possible to collect reliable secondary attainment data due to the cancellation of GCSE exams. Therefore, it was jointly decided by the EEF, NFER and BHCET to cancel this trial and discontinue all remaining evaluation activities.

This report presents findings based on limited qualitative evaluation data collected between March 2019 and March 2020. This includes baseline surveys of participating heads of science and science teachers, Leadership Lite training observations, case-study visits and programme delivery management information (MI) data.

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