School Partnerships Programme: a school-level matched difference in differences evaluation of impact on pupil attainment
| ISRCTN | ISRCTN20687346 |
|---|---|
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN20687346 |
| Secondary identifying numbers | N/A |
- Submission date
- 17/04/2018
- Registration date
- 21/05/2018
- Last edited
- 08/09/2021
- Recruitment status
- No longer recruiting
- Overall study status
- Stopped
- Condition category
- Other
Plain English Summary
Background and study aims
The Education Development Trust (EDT)’s School Partnership Programme (SPP) is a structured approach to cluster-based school collaboration, through the provision of a coherent and consistent approach to peer review that aims to drive improvement across all schools involved in the cluster. The programme aims to develop a culture of partnership working through school self-evaluation, peer review and school-to-school support. The aim of this study is to estimate the effect of participating in the EDT School Partnerships Programme (SPP) for two years on pupils’ attainment.
Who can participate?
About 300 state-funded schools in England as part of pre-identified clusters of schools who are happy to commit to participating in the School Partnership Programme. The study focuses on the test scores of those in school Year 6 (age 10-11) when the two year programme ends.
What does the study involve?
300 schools are recruited to implement the SPP programme described above. The change in these schools' performance is compared to the change in specifically chosen comparison schools over the same period.
What are the possible benefits and risks of participating?
SPP is a peer review model that is intended to build capacity and capability across clusters so they can gradually take more responsibility for their own development and maturity, and lead their own improvement. Over time, local areas will own the SPP model, and continue to develop it so it has impact locally. SPP provides frameworks and tools, training and professional support, and is designed to incorporate and build on, not side line, schools’ existing best practice.
Where is the study run from?
The study is run by the Education Development Trust and the evaluation is being run by UCL Institute of Education. The study includes schools from across England.
When is the study starting and how long is it expected to run for?
May 2017 to December 2020
Who is funding the study?
Education Endowment Foundation (UK)
Who is the main contact?
Dr Jake Anders
Contact information
Scientific
UCL Institute of Education
20 Bedford Way
London
WC1H 0AL
United Kingdom
 ORCID ID |
0000-0003-0930-2884 |
|---|
Study information
| Study design | School-level matched difference in differences |
|---|---|
| Primary study design | Interventional |
| Secondary study design | Non randomised study |
| Study setting(s) | School |
| Study type | Quality of life |
| Participant information sheet | Not available in web format, please use the contact details to request a patient information sheet |
| Scientific title | School Partnerships Programme: a school-level matched difference in differences evaluation of impact on pupil attainment |
| Study hypothesis | Participation in the School Partnerships Programme for two years improves pupils' attainment |
| Ethics approval(s) | UCL Institute of Education Research Ethics Committee, 20/03/2018, ref: REC1040 |
| Condition | Academic attainment at age 11 |
| Intervention | This is a quasi-experimental intervention study. 300 schools will be recruited to implement the SPP programme. Treatment: The Education Development Trust (EDT)’s School Partnership Programme (SPP) is a structured approach to cluster-based school collaboration, through the provision of a coherent and consistent approach to peer review that aims to drive improvement across all schools involved in the cluster. The programme aims to develop a culture of partnership working through school self-evaluation, peer review and school-to-school support Comparison: Business as usual (300 matched comparison schools will be identified from administrative data) The trialists will then compare the change in these schools' performance to the change in specifically chosen comparator schools over the same period. The intervention continues across a two academic year period and follow up will be based on administrative data collected at the end of this second academic year. |
| Intervention type | Behavioural |
| Primary outcome measure | School average performance in KS2 maths tests (currently mat_average in administrative datasets) in pre- and post-treatment years, collected from publicly available school-level reports collected by schools from testing conducted during the summer term of each academic year and reported to the UK Department for Education (DfE) in line with national requirements |
| Secondary outcome measures | School average performance in KS2 reading tests (read_average in administrative datasets) in pre- and post-treatment years, collected from publicly available school-level reports collected by schools from testing conducted during the summer term of each academic year and reported to the UK Department for Education (DfE) in line with national requirements |
| Overall study start date | 04/05/2017 |
| Overall study end date | 31/12/2020 |
| Reason abandoned (if study stopped) | Pandemic |
Eligibility
| Participant type(s) | Other |
|---|---|
| Age group | Other |
| Sex | Both |
| Target number of participants | 300 intervention schools (300 matched comparison schools will be identified from administrative data) |
| Participant inclusion criteria | Target recruitment was 50 clusters of English state-funded primary schools to be recruited with an approximate cluster size of 6, making 300 schools in total, with the proviso that if cluster size is smaller than expected additional recruitment would be undertaken to bring the number of schools recruited up to 300. In the event, the project team (EDT) successfully recruited far more schools than anticipated, providing a sample of 437 English state-funded primary schools in 85 clusters (average cluster size of just over 5). All recruited schools will receive the intervention, while statistical matching methods will be used to identify the counterfactual group. In order to be considered, schools will have to agree to cooperate with the project and evaluation teams during the trial. The project team will advertise the trial and also approach schools through their existing networks. Where possible it will aim to recruit schools that have larger populations of individuals receiving FSM. For the evaluation, the study focuses on the test scores of those in school Year 6 (age 10-11) when the two year programme ends. |
| Participant exclusion criteria | 1. Independent schools 2. Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish schools |
| Recruitment start date | 01/10/2017 |
| Recruitment end date | 28/02/2018 |
Locations
Countries of recruitment
- England
- United Kingdom
Study participating centres
London
WC1H 0AL
United Kingdom
16-18 Duke Street
Reading
RG1 4RU
United Kingdom
Sponsor information
Charity
9th Floor
Millbank Tower
21-24 Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP
United Kingdom
| Phone | +44 (0)207 802 1676 |
|---|---|
| info@eefoundation.org.uk | |
| Website | http://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/ |
"ROR" |
https://ror.org/03bhd6288 |
Funders
Funder type
Charity
Private sector organisation / Trusts, charities, foundations (both public and private)
- Alternative name(s)
- EducEndowFoundn, Education Endowment Foundation | London, EEF
- Location
- United Kingdom
Results and Publications
| Intention to publish date | 01/03/2021 |
|---|---|
| Individual participant data (IPD) Intention to share | No |
| IPD sharing plan summary | Stored in repository |
| Publication and dissemination plan | The protocol will be made available shortly at the project webpage (https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/projects/schools-partnership-programme-spp/).There will also be a statistical analysis plan published later in the course of the project. The trialists will publish an Evaluation Report in Spring 2021, which will include the impact estimates for the primary and secondary outcomes. This will be published on the study page of the Education Endowment Foundation website. |
| IPD sharing plan | The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study will be stored in a publically available repository. School-level outcomes data from before, during and after the treatment period for participating and matched comparator schools will be uploaded to the EEF Data Archive (https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/evaluating-projects/eef-research-papers/). Access to these data are available to researchers on application to the EEF for analysis to understand educational attainment and inequality. The data we are submitting to this archive are extracted from publicly-available school performance data reported by the UK Data Service. |
Editorial Notes
08/09/2021: Due to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the outcomes data for this trial (which used administrative data on pupils’ performance in national tests) were not collected in either our intended year of outcome or the subsequent year (which we initially hoped to use as a substitute). As such, we, together with our funder the Education Endowment Foundation, took the decision not to continue with the impact evaluation. It was not felt to be realistic that results based on tests taken two years later than planned and with the significant pandemic disruption in between would have provided credible results based on our research design. As such, regretfully, we need to record that the trial was abandoned for this reason and, hence, there are no results to report.
