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School accountability is a crucial part of most education systems. The UK is a world leader in the use of school accountability and Professor Simon Burgess's research at Bristol has had a significant impact on national policy on school accountability in England and Wales. He has also provided advice on this policy internationally. His research showed that the abolition of comparative school performance information in Wales significantly damaged pupil attainment, and widespread public reporting of his results contributed to the reversal of this policy in 2011. In England, his work influenced changes in the content of the school `league tables' in 2011, leading directly to an improvement in their usefulness for parents in their school choice and government in its role as funder and regulator. In both cases, pupils are likely to benefit from the changes following Burgess's work by achieving higher grades in their crucial GCSE exams and thereby from higher lifetime income.
Since 2008, UK and overseas policies, practices and tools aimed at evaluating and promoting quality in schools and supporting student learning, attainment and progress have been profoundly influenced by research conducted at the University of Bristol. The work began in 2001 in the Graduate School of Education; from 2005, the School's efforts were complemented by those of the Centre for Multilevel Modelling. The research has generated original knowledge about school performance measures and school, teacher and context factors which promote student learning. This knowledge has transformed government and institutional policies and practices. New improved methods of evaluating schools and interventions in education (and other sectors) have been demonstrated and widely disseminated, thereby enhancing public understanding of institutional league tables and facilitating the scaling-up of new approaches nationally. The development of statistical methodology and MLwiN software and training has enabled more rigorous and sensitive quantitative analysis of educational datasets around the world, as well as wider take-up of this methodology by non academics.
The education and life chances of children are closely related to the performance of the school they attend. Researchers at the IEPR have been involved in research on school performance for some years now, and the research outlined below has made significant conceptual and empirical contributions to current debates about the effects of policy changes on secondary school performance. This is demonstrated by citations in evidence to the House of Commons Select Committees and national media. The main impact of our research has been on policy-makers, and those individuals whose lives have been affected by the work of policy-makers.
Educational effectiveness and improvement research by the University of Southampton School of Education has contributed significantly to the design and implementation of educational policy and practice at both national and international levels. Impact has been predominantly in the area of policy, but the School's ground-breaking research has also shown the effects of (and practice within) `good' schools and has pioneered novel approaches to school improvement, school organisation and the use of data in schools. The Educational Effectiveness and Improvement Group has helped establish the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI) and given it a global reach; its research has directly informed policy implementation through academy chains, schools and local authorities in the UK generally and in Wales in particular, and internationally in the US, China, Sweden, Cyprus and Chile. The School's worldwide reach is among the most widespread in Education.
The research impacted on the Coalition Government's decisions to (a) discontinue the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) national strategy (2011), and (b) roll out the Achievement for All (AfA) pilot programme at a national level (2011). Both of these major decisions on public policy and professional practice were underpinned by the findings of large-scale national evaluation projects.
The Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM) at Durham University has pioneered the conceptualisation and development of fair and accurate school performance monitoring systems, which report the relative progress of pupils (value-added). Schools, local authorities and jurisdictions use the data generated by these systems to inform their strategy and practice with the aim of improving pupils' educational outcomes. Around 6,000 schools a year from the UK and across the world collaborate in this distributed research network established by CEM. In addition to the direct benefits to the three quarters of a million pupils assessed each year, their parents and their schools, the analyses of the unique longitudinal datasets generated by CEM's monitoring systems have significantly impacted on educational policy.
The landmark research project described in this case study has caused national policy-makers, education bodies, inspectors, local authorities and schools to reconsider the once-routine practice of assigning teaching assistants (TAs) to work with lower-attaining pupils and those with special educational needs (SEN). It has led to:
The study's findings are also influencing education policy thinking in other countries.
Extended schools research and related projects have contributed to debate and policy-making in the UK and in countries in Europe, Asia and Australasia post-2008 on the role of the school in relation to disadvantage. Our research has strongly informed English government policy 2008-11 and the actions (including funding and scaling up extended schools) taken to develop community-oriented, full-service and extended schools to help address the impact of disadvantage on educational outcomes. We have had sustained and far-reaching impact on the policy and actions of schools and local authorities (LAs) in their development of extended schools. Professional practice changes include greater willingness to collaborate across agencies and an amendment to policy on `raising aspirations' to become `reaching aspirations'. Additionally our innovative research methodology, a version of theory of change, has been taken up and used by schools, LAs and other organisations.
A sustained and substantial research programme on teacher's lives and careers has influenced policy development, informed communities of practice and shaped leadership training materials and programmes. The work provides new insights into the complexity of teacher development which has been taken up widely around the world and used extensively by government policy makers and school leaders in the assessment of professional competencies and targeting of support to improve performance and enhance retention in the profession.
The IOE researchers featured in this case study have had a major and sustained impact on education in the Indian sub-continent. Geeta Kingdon has shaped UK government policy on educational aid to India. She has also helped to ensure that millions of poor children in Uttar Pradesh — India's most populous state — qualify for free places in private schools. Angela Little's work in Sri Lanka has raised the profile of primary education, which has been hampered by low status and inadequate funding. She has also done much to improve the life chances of the country's disadvantaged children — particularly those growing up on tea plantations.