1. SIR KEVAN COLLINS Education Endowment Foundation
Putting evidence to work Learning from EEF research studies to close the attainment gap and improve outcomes for all
My first year of teaching the Phyliss Mitchell story
Teaching as an iterative and continuously improving act…
The next two hours – what one thing would you like to see more of and one thing you would like to see less of in your classroom?
The children will…
To support the children do more of X I will need to learn more about Y
To support the teachers do more of Y and in turn the children do more of X as the head teacher or leader I will need to do more Z
I need my teachers to be able to…
SIR KEVAN COLLINS
Education Endowment Foundation

2. It’s not broken - but it’s not working well enough for some…
My top three - today…
Early Years Self regulation, language and communication, parental engagement
Teaching - best bets
Meta cognition, improving feedback, securing early literacy, going beyond academics
Post 16 and the ’forgotten 40%’
Tackling misconceptions, diagnostic assessment and planned learning programmes
What are your top three today?
How much precision do we command
Early years is a great example – a bit more wont cut it and frankly isn’t worth the effort – health/education and families
We’ve got to spot them ad intervene at 3 particularly around language development
Tawney???
Schools – I’m simply not interested in structures. – the evidence is clear we’re dancing on pin heads when we try to prove otherwise
The emerging benefits of technology.. AR but more flops than hits
Post 16 – from school to work – must be about a place based solution because frankly this group aren’t / can’t go anywhere else
Section 106
Business rate rebate
Long term planning and economic prospects

3. Disciplined innovation…
Start from what we know John Hattie’s work, the toolkit and other sources of evidence provide a platform for professional dialogue. If not evidence then what….
Put energy into evaluation we need to keep innovating but be much smarter and robust about the impact particularly for the most disadvantaged – bringing wisdom not ideology to the system
Sharing success – and failure!
We need to build greater trust right across the system and build up from the evidence rather than the one off events that mask the lived education of our children

4. Consider an important change: what/who informed your approach?
Colleagues and professional conversations
Intuition and personal experience
Local action research
Professional communities and sources of trusted evidence
School policies and management obligations
Government guidance and regulations
Other sources…

5. Three functions
Evidence
Generation
Adoption
Synthesis

6. 60 10 12 Towards an evidence informed education system Using evidence
Generating evidence
Using evidence
Summarise existing evidence
Clear and actionable guidance for schools
Share and promote ‘what has worked’
We need to work with you on both sides of the equation
Mobilising knowledge and suing the evidence particularly
We’re not going to recruit a field force we’re looking for partners and new emerging arrangements
TA guidance with training materials
183,000 downloads 87,000 unique users
Toolkit 67%
10,000 hits a month
Literacy guidance sent to all schools middle of the following week well over 25,000 downloads
We’ve spoken to more than 10,000 heads. - alone my running total is 6,000 or 1:4
There’s an appetite and opportunity
Publish independent, rigorous evaluations
Scale-up
evidence-based programmes
Fund innovative projects
Practical support to bring evidence to life 10
Research Schools 60
reports 12
Advocate-partners
106
RCTs

7. Teaching and Learning Toolkit

8. Disciplined Innovation
As teachers we always have more to learn and much to share:
Build on existing evidence – marginal gains
Improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils
Meet new education challenges and social, economic and personal demands
Generate significant new understanding of ‘what worked’
Can be replicated cost effectively if proven to work

9. Innovations we’re trialling…
Teaching and pedagogy
Can peer observation by and of teachers, improve practice?
Do hand held response devices increase the pace and quality of learning?
Does teaching children to play chess boost their attainment in Maths?
What are the best ways of grouping students?
Family and wider community activities
Do financial incentives improve parental engagement?
Can texting improve attendance and achievement?
Does involvement in the Fire Brigade Cadets improve wider outcomes?
School organisation
What are the best ways of training and supporting Teaching Assistants?
What impact, if any, does giving children breakfast in schools have?
Does delaying school start times for adolescents boost Key Stage 4 attainment?

10. EEF Findings: metacognition
Project
Summary
Students
Impact
Cost
Security
ReflectED
Using technology to promote meta cognition and independent learning
1,200 pupils
9-10 years old
+4 months
£19
Philosophy for Children
Helping children become more willing and able to question, reason, construct arguments, and collaborate with others
3,159 pupils
8-10 years old
+2 months
£16
Using Self-Regulation to Improve Writing
Using memorable experiences and self-regulation to support struggling writers
261 pupils
10-12 years old
+9 months
£52
Thinking, Doing, Talking Science
Making science lessons in primary schools more practical, creative and challenging.
655 pupils
+3 months
£26
Let’s Think Secondary Science
Testing a cognitive development programme for science.
8000 pupils
11-12 years old
0 months £4
Peer Tutoring in Secondary Schools
A paired reading programme for pupils in Years 7 and 9.
2,736 pupils
11-14 years old
-1 months
£10.50

12. Return to the guidance report.
You can also state that the literature review that the report is based on will be available imminently. Also, as a network, we will develop tools and training to support teachers and school leaders to further develop metacognition.

13. Introduce the recommendations. Possible discussion:
Recommendation 1: Knowing what metacognition is and what it isn’t is very important as there are lots of different notions of what teachers consider *it* is. The research literature is consistent that a shared technical language and a consistent understanding is required if teachers are to develop metacognition.
Recommendation 2: Planning, monitoring and evaluating (metacognitive self-regulation) is perhaps the most well-known aspect of metacognition. Crucially, however, most teachers consider that they ’do this already’. Later on, we challenge this notion.
Recommendation 3: Modelling, akin to rec 2, is more commonly understood amongst teachers.
Recommendation 4: The goldilocks degree of challenge relates back to slide 3. Here, teacher practice in raising the metacognitive knowledge of our pupils helps ensure that the degree of challenge is right. You may wish to reference cognitive load as a theoretical construct that offers us a way in to managing this degree of challenge.
Recommendation 5: Metacognitive talk. Although commonly agreed that high quality classroom dialogue aids thinking and metacognition, a shared understanding of the how is less well known. Dialogic talk is raised as an optional example of a model for talk that can foster development of metacognition and self-regulation.
Recommendation 6: Independent learning is a common goal for examination success and life beyond the school gates. Too often we may mistake that this means we should ensure pupils learn more independently earlier. The recommendations make clear that pupils have inaccurate judgments of their own learning. Explicit teaching is crucial to foster independent learning.
Recommendation 7. Teacher CPD. We return back to recommendation 1 – we need a shared technical language and we need to explicitly teach metacognition and self-regulation, and so we need the time, tools and training to do this well.

14. “To do things right, we need first of all to love what we do and then technique.”
Antoni Gaudí

15. The Evidence…

16. Implementation trumps the intervention

17. Conclusions
The new focus on evidence will support informed professional debate - it’s not a panacea
Education evidence is more accessible than ever before our professional obligation is to start from what we know and reject uninformed fads
Adopting an evidence led approach carries new obligations - informing and leading the professional debate
Delivering education’s contribution to drive social mobility demands the active engagement of more than schools and teachers it’s a societal challenge
My challenge is to be the best at getting better
Model is moving to social care
My moan about Buttle
WW approach is in medicine, justice, aging well, economic regeneration
Frankly, if not evidence then what?
And it’s a global enterprise

18. How to get involved Apply for funding Volunteer to take part
Our new general funding round opens this month.
Visit:
Volunteer to take part
We are always looking for schools to volunteer to take part in EEF-funded projects.
Visit:
Do it yourself
Our DIY Evaluation Guide, developed with Durham University, is a resource intended to help teachers and schools understand whether a particular intervention is effective within your own school context.
Visit:
We think the EEF is part of the picture – we’re not the solution, but we aim to work with others to get there.