Education Policy Institute

GCSEs: Suspended pupils 12 months behind peers, research finds

Think tank’s research puts ‘a number on the suspension grades gap for the first time’

Great professional development for all teachers? It’s more affordable than you think

How much would it cost to give teachers a formal entitlement to continuing professional development? Not as much as you might think, writes James Zuccollo. Professional development for teachers is a surprisingly controversial topic. It is widely believed by policy wonks and researchers to have enormous potential, yet many teachers consider it a distraction. How […]

CPD entitlement would boost attainment by two-thirds of a grade, study claims

Giving teachers a formal entitlement to 35 hours of CPD training would boost pupil attainment by two-thirds of a GCSE grade, a think tank has said. The Education Policy Institute study also claimed introducing a right to high-quality CPD could result in around 12,000 extra teachers staying in the profession. But they warn a CPD […]

England outspends Wales and Northern Ireland on catch-up, but funding is ‘poorly-targeted’

England has committed the second highest amount of funding for pupil catch-up schemes out of the four nations in the UK, but its programmes are “poorly-targeted”, the Education Policy Institute has said. Analysis by the think tank found that funding for the catch-up premium and National Tutoring Programme in England worked out at £174 per […]

7 school policies to solve the Covid children mental health crisis

Aspiring school leaders should be encouraged to work in alternative provision settings before stepping up so they are better prepared to support children with mental and emotional health needs, a new report has said. The Education Policy Institute has published a new study into the mental health and wellbeing of young people, including how it […]

7 proposals to solve the 2021 exams conundrum

New benchmarking assessments should be used to provide “contingency grades” if summer exams cannot take place for most pupils, a think tank has suggested today. The Education Policy Institute say that while the government’s action of pushing exams back three weeks will make up for some lost learning, on its own it is not enough. […]

Coronavirus: Attendance rates vary hugely across England, finds EPI report

School attendance rates vary hugely across England, new research has found, prompting concerns that pupils in some parts of the country are more likely to be left behind. Analysis by the Education Policy Institute found that secondary school attendance rates in October ranged from 61 per cent in Knowsley in the north west to 94 […]

Attainment gaps begin to widen and 6 other key findings from the EPI annual report

The Education Policy Institute has published its annual report, which has found that the attainment gap between poorer pupils and their better-off peers has stopped closing for the first time in a decade. The report is based on government data for 2019, with warnings that gaps may be much wider still this year due to […]

EPI: Attainment gap has stopped closing for the first time in a decade

The attainment gap between poorer pupils and their better-off peers has stopped closing for the first time in 10 years, new research from the Education Policy Institute has found. The research, based on Department for Education data, found that disadvantaged pupils are now 18.1 months behind their more advantaged peers in terms of learning time […]