Ministers are set to publish data on the effectiveness of new RISE school improvement teams in the spring – but they won’t out individual advisers for poor performance.
Sixty-five experienced turnaround school leaders were appointed as advisers on the Labour programme, which launched last year.
They are appointed to struggling schools in their region to identify priorities and propose an outside organisation to deliver support.
Regional directors within the Department for Education then make final decisions, with up to £100,000 funding available for each school. No information on the scheme’s impact has so far been published.
But in response to a question from former education secretary Damian Hinds, Georgia Gould, the schools minister, said: “The department expects to start publishing that data with appropriate comparisons over time during 2026.”
She added the “impact of RISE intervention will rely on both a quantitative evaluation of the impact on pupils … and an evaluation on the process and delivery of RISE”.
‘Final’ RISE report
The DfE confirmed “an interim process evaluation report” will be published in the spring.
More “interim” assessments are planned before the release of a “final process evaluation” in 2028.
The assessments will involve “a range of outcome measures for targeted RISE schools”, comparing their data “to schools which are as similar as possible in their pupil characteristics and previous trends”, DfE said.
A Schools Week investigation last year found one in five of the schools receiving support are getting it from an organisation employing another RISE adviser.
One trust chief executive, who did not want to be named, said it “gives the perception of jobs for the boys”.
However Gould, when answering a question from shadow education minister Nick Timothy, confirmed the government “does not intend to publish individual adviser objectives”.
“These are part of personal performance management and may constitute personal data that cannot be disclosed under data protection requirements.”
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