Education Endowment Foundation | Schools Week

Mixed-ability classes barely exist in schools, researchers find

Teaching pupils in mixed-ability groups is so unpopular that researchers struggled to find enough examples to complete a recent study into the practice. They found that factors driving schools to avoid such classes included the “fear that parents may respond negatively and results will be endangered”, according to a new paper from the British Educational […]

Scaled-up literacy scheme fails to produce positive results

A scaled-up scheme to train teaching assistants to deliver literacy interventions to struggling pupils has not produced the positive results of an earlier pilot. Switch-on, a 10-week programme which saw TAs trained to deliver intensive reading interventions, had a “promising” initial trial in 2014, achieving an extra three months of progress to year 7 pupils. […]

12-minute lessons best for pupil memories, study finds

Pupils who are taught in 12-minute lessons that are repeated 24 hours later remember material much better, new research suggests. A trial of “spaced learning” showed pupils seemed to benefit from a short physics lesson, followed by a 10-minute break of another activity, then a short chemistry lesson, then another break, then a final, short, […]

Pupils who record own learning make four months’ progress in maths – and two other EEF trials

A programme that develops pupils’ ability to reflect on their own learning has returned promising results for attainment in maths – but had negative impacts on reading, according to researchers. Evaluators at the University of Manchester found that 10-year-olds who took part in the ReflectED programme, in which they took photographs, made notes and kept […]