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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.
Educational performance tables — some comparing countries as well as schools — have come to assume great importance. They now influence not only parents' school choices but some national education policies. Tables can, however, mislead as well as enlighten. The three studies featured here demonstrate this and help to ensure that the public will be better informed in future. Two played a key role in convincing the government that it should revise England's school performance tables. The third gave civil servants and politicians good reason to be more circumspect about how they publicly interpret international pupil performance data.
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.
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 Pupil Premium Toolkit is an evidence-based resource for schools in England looking for guidance on spending their premium, which is in turn a funding policy to address the effects of poverty on attainment. The continuously developing Toolkit, created by researchers at Durham University, provides a unique cost/benefit summary of the relative impact of different teaching approaches in schools. Independent research suggests it is now used by at least 36% of school leaders in England in determining their spending priorities for the Pupil Premium and to review their support for disadvantaged pupils. It has had a direct impact on the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and its funding strategy for the £200 million it will spend over 15 years to reduce inequalities in school outcomes. The EEF's approach to commissioning research and evaluation is explicitly based on this synthesis of research evidence. The Toolkit has also directly influenced Government spending on education and the policy decisions of governments outside England. In March 2013, the Toolkit was identified as a model for the `What Works' network for social policy, which will inform over £200 billion of Government spending.
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.
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.
Impact is demonstrated through the ways in which research findings have been utilised by schools and Alternative Provision (AP) providers, to evaluate and remodel educational policies and practices. Evidence is presented to support the assertion that by seeking out the perspectives of children and young people, schools can become more critically aware of the complex educational, social, cultural and economic factors that serve to increase pupil exclusion, vulnerability and exposure to risk. An increase in professional understanding and awareness is demonstrated with reference to examples of personalised pastoral interventions, which respond directly to the needs of alienated and disaffected pupils.
The research described in this case study has had a significant impact on the policy debate on the economic role of independent schools in Britain and what might be learned to improve policy in state education. Moreover, the research has informed the government's approach to funding the teaching of STEM subjects and has led to better public awareness and understanding of the issues.
The findings have provided policy-makers in education and government economists with a better knowledge base with which to consider and evaluate the role of the independent education sector in Britain and to contribute to the debate on skills, social mobility and inter-generational transfer through educational outcomes. A better understanding of academic privilege is part of the key to understanding social disadvantage. The reach of the impact is mainly in England, and its significance is in encouraging the improvement of educational outcomes in state schools, which can change lives for the better.