Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) Promising Programmes
While many education professionals are aware of and engage with the EEF's Teaching and Learning Toolkit, fewer may be aware of the EEF's Promising Programmes resource, which details programmes that have been through EEF trials and have successfully met the four criteria for Promising Programme status relating to impact, cost, implementation and evidence security.
School leaders are faced with an increasing number of programmes or interventions that claim to improve outcomes for pupils. But time and resources are limited, so it is essential that schools have access to the information they need to make informed choices. The EEF’s aim is to help schools identify those programmes whose claims of impact are backed by robust evidence.
"Our Promising Programmes resource cuts through the noise by highlighting programmes that have demonstrated meaningful, cost-effective improvements in pupil attainment through independent evaluation, particularly for socio-economically disadvantaged pupils.”
The Explore Programmes tab is searchable by phase. An overview of each programme gives a brief description, an indicator of its impact in terms of additional months of progress (similar to the Teaching and Learning Toolkit), the subject or aspect focus and whether it is a whole class or targeted approach.
Clicking on the programme name takes you to more detailed information.
As well as the familiar EEF visual ‘dashboard’ summary relating to cost, evidence strength and impact, the information also includes:
- A fuller description of the programme
- A summary of the evidence for the programme
- A description of how it is implemented
- Details of programme cost and availability
It also usefully includes details of the context in which the programme was trialled, which helps schools and settings to judge whether this is similar enough to their own to suggest that it might transfer effectively.
Used alongside the EEF Teaching and Learning and Early Years Toolkits, this is a useful resource to support school and setting leaders in making evidence-informed choices about which approaches and programmes are likely to have the greatest impact in their particular context.
It should be noted that the number of programmes for the secondary phase at the time of writing this Spotlight is limited to two, but as the resource is continually developing it is likely that this will increase over time.