Impact case study database

The Toolkit remains central to the work of the EEF who identify it as “transformational in communicating the key messages of educational research to teachers and senior leaders” [E1]. The current EEF Toolkit website receives approximately 28,000 unique page views per month, an increase from 6,500 per month in 2012 [E2]. The Toolkit also directly informs the work that the EEF funds. Since 2014, it has committed approximately GBP96,000,000 to test the impact of 160 high-potential programmes, using the evidence in the Toolkit as a guide when commissioning. Its reach has been extensive and has involved approximately 10,000 schools and more than 1,000,000 children and young people in England [E1], [E2]. The Toolkit has also underpinned an EEF and Northern Rock campaign costing GBP10,000,000 over five years (between 2016 and 2021) to improve literacy achievement in primary schools in the North-East of England [E1]. The Toolkit entries on the impact of 1-to-1 and small group tuition have been “pivotal” to the design of the National Tutoring Programme [E2].

The Toolkit is used directly by schools in England as a source of information for decision-making on pupil premium spending (approximately GBP16,000,000,000 of targeted funding between 2014 and 2020) [E3]. It has a direct influence on the spending decisions of schools in England [E1], [E4]. In 2015, the Toolkit was used by 64% of schools in England (an increase from 36% in 2012) according to the National Audit Office [E4]. By 2019 this had increased to 67% [E2]. Analysis of school websites indicates that more than 13,000 schools mention the Toolkit by name, as an influence their allocation of pupil premium resources [E5].

UK Government has acknowledged that the Toolkit is a key part of its policy on the education of disadvantaged children, with 4 citations in the March 2016 White Paper [E6]. It acknowledged that the Toolkit “is helping teachers to find and use evidence about the most effective teaching methods to improve standards for all children, including the most disadvantaged” and cites the Toolkit an example of the evidence-base which sets out “what works and what doesn’t, and which develops and evolves over time”. The Government committed to ensuring that the EEF will continue to have a role in improving the education evidence-base through its role as the designated What Works Centre for education [E6: 2.54; 2.58; 2.63].

The Toolkit is identified as a model for other UK ‘What Works’ Centres and has influenced the design of 4 other evidence comparison ‘toolkits’ in the network [E3], [E8]. The Toolkit is also cited in the media in the UK and US as an authority for education research [E7].

The EEF has established partnerships with a number of global organisations [E8] based around the Toolkit and its potential development in different parts of the world. In 2014, they began working with school systems in Australia to develop a localised version of the Teaching & Learning Toolkit, taking the global evidence base that underpins the Toolkit and contextualising it with recent examples of local research to enhance its relevance for Australian teachers [E8], [E9]. In 2016, CommBank supported this work with AUS50,000,000 (GBP28,000,000 (09-2020)) and is working in partnership with Social Ventures Australia to commission three large-scale randomised controlled trials, which will provide further evidence of impact that will be added to the Toolkit analysis [E10].

The Australian work was extended in February 2017 by Education Scotland, with the development of a Scottish version of the Toolkit [E8] to strengthen the use of evidence underpinning the Scottish Attainment Challenge. In July 2017, the EEF entered into a new partnership in Latin America and the Caribbean with SUMMA (the Laboratory of Education Research and Innovation for Latin America and the Caribbean). This partnership has seen the translation of the Toolkit into Spanish and Portuguese, along with the integration of more than 250 recent local studies that help contextualise the evidence for Latin American and Caribbean teachers, and contribute to the global knowledge about the Toolkit strands [E8].

In June 2018, EEF, in partnership with BHP Billiton Foundation, announced a 5-year GBP9,800,000 fund aiming to improve learning outcomes for disadvantaged pupils across the world by building a global evidence network with the development of the Toolkit as a central aim [E1]. As a result of this development, the EEF entered into partnership with EduCaixa (Fundación Bancaria “la Caixa”) to develop a Spanish version of the Teaching & Learning Toolkit. This partnership has seen the translation of the global evidence base into Spanish and Catalan, providing teachers across Spain with access to robust evidence about effective educational approaches [E2], [E8].

In 2019 the EEF established a partnership with the Queen Rania Foundation which will see the translation and contextualisation of the Teaching and Learning Toolkit into Arabic for teachers and policymakers in the Middle East and North Africa region. A similar agreement with Effective Basic Services Africa (eBASE) will see the adaptation of the Teaching and Learning Toolkit for teachers in Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad, and Niger and will include a French translation [E2].