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New book identifies the strategies of effective primary schools

18 September 2019

The strategies of effective schools have been highlighted in a new book by UCL Institute of Education Press.

Primary school teacher and class

‘Teaching in Effective Primary Schools: Research into pedagogy and children's learning’ reveals that there is significant variation in teacher practice and effectiveness across schools.

The book focuses on findings from the UK’s 17-year Effective Provision of Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education research project (EPPSE, 1997–2014) conducted by UCL Institute of Education along with academics from the University of Oxford and Birkbeck, University of London. This was a large-scale, longitudinal, mixed-method study following the progress of more than 3,000 children from their early years to past their 16th birthdays. It provides important insights into the nature of teaching in effective primary schools.

The book outlines the historical background of researching teaching in effective schools and shows how over many years, the scholarly focus had shifted slowly from what is taught to how it is taught. 

Several chapters in the book summarise the results of the research while others describe the variations in teaching practice and the associations between teaching quality and pupil outcomes. The book highlights 11 pedagogical strategies that are more prevalent in the classrooms of teachers working in effective schools. They describe the practices and bring these ‘alive’ with extensive observations of real life interactions between teachers and children. 

Writing a foreword in the book, Sir Kevan Collins, Chief Executive Education Endowment Foundation, said: "Highlighting the features of teaching in effective schools provides a useful guide and should reassure teachers that what they do matters. This work reminds us that what seems to separate effective schools from less successful ones aren’t huge matters that require legislative change or structural overhaul. Instead they are matters that can be shaped by and determined inside individual classrooms and largely by individual teachers’ day-to-day practices."

Brenda Taggart, one of the book’s authors and researcher on the EPPSE project, said: "This book has some important messages, particularly for teachers who are seeking to improve their pedagogy. The book is grounded in classroom practice with the findings drawn from extensive observations of routine lessons. The researchers had the privilege of observing teachers who focus on teaching and who ran their classrooms to maximise the learning of all of their pupils. It has been an honour to work with such inspirational teachers."

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