Sector Research

This page is updated with research reports on education.

EEF: Updated EEF Early Years Toolkit (February 2023)

An updated version of the Education Endowment Foundation’s (EEF) Early Years Toolkit has been published today. The Toolkit includes evidence on ten topics, including parental engagement (+ five months) and giving children extra hours of early years provision (+ three months). For each topic, it presents an average impact in months progress, alongside information on cost and the strength of the evidence base.

According to pre-pandemic estimates, the attainment gap between socio-economically disadvantaged five-year-olds and their classmates was around 4.6 months in 2019. Research by the EEF found that there were, on average, three more children per class, not reaching the expected levels of development by the end of reception class in 2021, when compared to pre-pandemic levels.

State of the nation 2022: children and young people’s wellbeing (February 2023)

This DfE Research Report brings together a range of published information from government, academic, voluntary, and private sector organisations to provide a clear narrative for all those
interested in the wellbeing of children and young people in England. Key findings:

• Children and young people’s subjective wellbeing, measured annually, appears to have dipped in 2020 and recovered close to pre-pandemic levels by 2021, remaining at similar levels in 2022. During the 2021/22 academic year, while wellbeing on most measures remained consistent, anxiousness among both primary and secondary-age pupils appears to have increased and is higher than in 2020/21.
• The percentage of children and young people reporting low happiness with their health appears to have increased in recent years. Rates of probable mental disorders and eating problems remain at elevated levels compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Children in year 6s have consistently been more likely to be obese than those of reception age. Rates of obesity among year 6s remain higher than before the pandemic
• Sleep problems were more prevalent in older children and young people, specifically young women.
• In June 2022, most secondary-age children and young people reported being motivated to learn, were managing to concentrate in class, felt safe at school, enjoyed being at school, and felt that they belonged at school.
• While children and young people’s happiness with school has remained at a similar level to previous years on average, the percentage of those reporting low happiness with school appears to have increased.

Research Focus: School Environment and Leadership Evidence Review (September 2022)

Evidence Based Education have published the School Environment and Leadership: Evidence Review which marks the next phase in the Great Teaching Toolkit project.

Students’ academic learning in schools is primarily determined by what classroom teachers do. However, the evidence review shows that there is good evidence that the professional environment in the school can also affect students’ learning, in a range of ways. The responsibility for creating and maintaining the most conducive professional environment lies with school leaders.

Despite the undoubted importance of school leadership, the authors say that existing research tells us little that is trustworthy about what skills and knowledge school leaders should have, what they should do in any given situation, how we should train and support them, or exactly how their actions may be expected to benefit students, in terms of both attainment and equity.

To cater for different audiences, Evidence Based Education have split the findings from their evidence review into four separate but inter-related documents:

• A Model for School Environment and Leadership: This document draws on a comprehensive review of existing literature (112 studies) and identifies a set of school factors for which there is good evidence that they are related to student outcomes. The authors claim that these school-level factors are our current best bets for school leaders to pay attention to. The document is intended to have a constructive, action focus and includes recommendations to school leaders on how to use the model.

• Methodological challenges in school leadership research: This second documents sets out in technical detail the key methodological problems faced by research in school leadership, and hence why Evidence Based Education are sceptical of many of its claims.

• Evidence that school leadership and environment matter: This third document identifies a selection of studies that the authors believe contain the most defensible claims and the strongest evidence about the factors they have included in the Model for School Environment and Leadership.

• Methodology underpinning the evidence review: This fourth document provides technical details of the literature search and synthesis process that underpins the other three. In this document you will find a set of research questions and search strategies, along with a list of 112 studies identified through the search and screening process.

NFER Research: ‘Comparative analysis of teacher attrition rates in England and Wales' (September 2022)

New analysis conducted by National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) and funded by the Nuffield Foundation uses newly available teacher census data to make teacher retention rate comparisons between England and Wales. The study compares the retention rates of teachers in Wales with the retention rates of teachers in schools in areas of England that have similar economic and contextual characteristics to Wales, such as unemployment rates, wage levels outside of teaching and levels of pupil disadvantage.

Key findings highlighted by NFER:

• The retention rate among secondary school teachers is higher in Wales, but it is the reverse for primary school teachers.
• Retention rates for teachers with more than twenty years of experience in Wales are higher compared to their counterparts in comparator primary and secondary schools in England.
• Teachers in Wales work fewer working hours per week on average and have slightly better perceptions of their working hours compared to England.
• Part-time teachers have significantly higher retention rates in Wales compared to comparator schools in England. Substantially more of the teaching workforce in Wales works part-time, which suggests that greater attention is paid in Wales to making part-time working opportunities available for teachers.

Children’s Commissioner - Back to school: new insights into school absence (July 2022)

The Children’s Commissioner has published a new report, Back into schools: new insights into school absence which draws on evidence from three Trusts as part of the work on the Attendance Audit. The Children’s Commissioner’s office has conducted new analysis of daily attendance records from three Multi-Academy Trusts. These Trusts are geographically dispersed, including primary, secondary, and all-through schools, with a total sample size of around 32,000 children.

Pupils appeared to be more likely to miss days at the start and end of the week. It also appeared that the first week of term was critical for getting pupils into school and settled into the school routine.

This analysis indicates that there are actions which, if taken ahead of the September term could make a difference, including:

• Preparing for a new term: The report recommends that schools should use the last few weeks of term to ensure that their pupils feel ready for the new school year and have plans in place to support children over the summer to engage or re-engage in education this autumn.

• Ready with a school place from 4th September: Local authorities should work with families, listening to concerns about the suitability of places and proactively identify suitable places, if only on an interim basis, to avoid children missing long periods of education.

• Making use of the data available: Schools need to be making full use of their data from the first day of term.

• Attendance codes: DfE is consulting on simplifying the attendance register. In addition to the simplification of codes, the report recommends clearer guidance is needed on the interpretation and implementation of the reasons for absence set out in legislation.

• Reducing absence on Fridays: Fridays were the most common day for school absence. The report recommends that schools must work with children and their families to highlight the importance of attending school every day and that whilst one day may not feel like much, it can make it harder to keep up in classes, as each lesson builds on the previous one.

EEF: a planning guide for 2022-23 (June 2022)

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has published Moving forwards, making a difference: A planning guide for schools 2022 – 23, to support schools and trusts in their planning efforts in the academic year ahead. It proposes a tiered model that focuses upon high-quality teaching, targeted academic support and wider strategies (such as improving attendance) to aid leaders’ existing planning efforts.

NFER: The impact of pay and financial incentives on teacher supply (June 2022)

The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) has published new research exploring the impact of pay and financial incentives on shortage subject teacher supply.

The research found several economic and financial factors that are associated with higher teacher recruitment, including higher teacher pay and bursaries and a weaker wider labour market, and suggests: the DfE proposals on teacher pay, combined with the other financial incentives such as the ‘levelling up premium’, are unlikely to result in an adequate supply of teachers in 2022-2025, particularly in (STEM) subjects; and additional incentives should be introduced, including increasing bursaries and applying the ‘levelling up premium’ payment to all teachers of shortage subjects.

Read the research in full on the NFER website here.

Children’s Commissioner report: Voices of England’s Missing Children (June 2022)

This new report explores the issue of children not attending school or being out of school altogether. This report presents the findings from the Children’s Commissioner’s Attendance Audit with 10 local authority areas and sets out six ambitions to ensure every child is accounted for and supported.

This report argues that all agencies responsible for safeguarding children, local authorities, police, health, and schools need to take action to improve school attendance, but that this work cannot be done in siloes; it needs collaborative, sustainable partnerships that recognise that attendance is everyone’s business.

NFER report on Racial Equality in the Teacher Workforce (May 2022)

NFER has published an important report on racial equality in the workforce. CST is pleased to have sat on the advisory board for this research.

Please find the summary report here, and the full report here.

Key findings include:

• The most significant ethnic disparities in progression occur during the early career stages, especially in ITT.
• People from Asian, black and other ethnic backgrounds are over-represented among applicants to postgraduate ITT, compared with the general population, which suggests that there is no shortage of interest in joining the profession among these groups.
• There are substantial disparities in the progression of teachers from ethnic minority groups throughout the teacher career pipeline, resulting in significant under-representation at senior leadership and headship levels.
• Ethnic disparities in teacher retention rates are smaller in schools with diverse leadership teams and larger in schools with all-white senior leadership teams.

Best evidence on impact of COVID-19 on pupil attainment – EEF evidence review (May 2022)

EEF has published an evidence review on the impact of Covid-19 on pupil learning.

Key findings:

• COVID-19-related disruption has negatively impacted the attainment of all pupils, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
• There is evidence that the attainment gap between disadvantaged students and their classmates has grown.
• There is some evidence that in primary schools, younger year groups (Key Stage 1 pupils) have been the most significantly affected, with lower attainment than previous cohorts across all subjects. Other recent research shows particularly negative impacts for pupils in KS3 (DfE, 2021, 2022).
• Most evidence shows that despite some recovery by summer 2021, on average pupils were not performing as well in both maths and reading as pre-pandemic cohorts.
• Aside from the impact on attainment, which this report focuses on, teachers have frequently reported concerns around the effect on pupil wellbeing. There is also emerging evidence that suggests the pandemic has negatively impacted children’s mental health.

Ofsted research review on computing (May 2022)

The latest of Ofsted’s subject research reviews focuses on computing. The report includes the following points:

• The national curriculum establishes the requirement for all pupils to study computing to the end of key stage 4. As far as academies are concerned, Ofsted says "Our handbook states that ‘academies are expected to offer all pupils a broad curriculum that should be similar in breadth and ambition’.”
• Research suggests not all pupils in KS3 and KS4 are receiving sufficient curriculum time to learn the computing subject content set out in the national curriculum.
• Access to computing at GCSE is improving but there are still gaps in provision, with state schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils less likely to offer GCSE in computer science.

• There are disproportionately few girls in computer science: they make up only 21% of entries at GCSE and only 15% of entries at A level.
• Research consistently identifies that there is a lack of suitably qualified computing teachers to teach the subject.
• There are long standing issues in recruiting sufficient computing teachers into ITT.
• High-quality computing education may have the following features

• The planned curriculum includes a breadth of knowledge relating to computer science, information technology and digital literacy.
• Declarative knowledge (‘knowing that’) and procedural knowledge (‘knowing how’) are identified, sequenced and connected in the curriculum.
• Skilful use of technology is underpinned by procedural and declarative knowledge.

Research focus: EEF’s rapid evidence assessment of attendance interventions (May 2022)

This rapid evidence assessment examines the existing research on interventions that aim to improve pupils’ school attendance and the characteristics of these interventions, based on a systematic search of existing literature. EEF has searched for impact evaluations published since 2000 that evaluated an intervention with a primary goal of increasing school attendance and that reported on a measure of pupil attendance or absenteeism.

Key findings:

• There is large variation in the strategies that have been researched with the aim of improving pupil attendance. The review identified 8 different categories of intervention and several additional strategies that were not included.

• The overall quality of evidence is weak, reporting low impacts and more research is required. The overall methodological quality of many of the studies was low. Few studies were rated as low risk of bias. Risk of bias aside, there are concerns about the transferability and relevance of much of the academic research for schools in England. Almost all of the studies took place in the USA, and there is little research on commonly used attendance strategies (e.g., the use of attendance officers in English schools).

• The is some evidence of promise for several strategies including parental engagement approaches and responsive interventions that target the individual causes of low attendance. Positive impacts were found for both parental communication approaches and targeted parental engagement interventions. The impact was larger for targeted approaches. Responsive intervention in which a member of staff or team use multiple interventions and target approaches specifically to the needs of individual pupils was also found to be effective. There may be crossover with these approaches and the approaches used in English schools by attendance officers. While these results are promising, the study quality means that they should be treated with caution.

• Many of the interventions that were not targeted either had not enough evidence to reach a conclusion or seemed to have no impact. There was not enough evidence to reach a conclusion for the efficacy of mentoring or behaviour approaches. Whole class teaching of social and emotional skills did not have a positive impact overall. While the study quality and number mean that caution should be applied while interpreting these results, it is clear that not all whole class approaches are likely to have positive impact on attendance outcomes.

New NFER Research: ‘Teacher Labour Market in England' (March 2022)

NFER has published a new research report, ‘Teacher Labour Market in England – Annual Report 2022’. NFER’s annual series of Teacher Labour Market reports, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, monitors the progress the school system in England is making towards meeting the teacher supply challenge by measuring the key indicators and trends of teacher supply and working conditions. This latest report assesses the state of teacher supply as the pandemic’s immediate impacts recede, as well as outlining the impacts of the pandemic on teachers’ working lives.

Key findings:

• There is a substantial risk that a large range of secondary subjects will not meet recruitment targets in 2022. These include shortage subjects such as physics, maths, chemistry, computing, design and technology and modern foreign languages, as well as other subjects that typically recruit well, including geography, biology and English, art and religious education.
• Teachers’ median real-terms pay is around 7 to 9% lower in 2020/21 than in 2010/11 and has lost competitiveness relative to the wider economy over the last decade.
• Teachers continue to work longer hours than similar individuals in other professions during term time, and are more likely to want to work fewer hours.
• Schools’ capacity to mentor trainees and new teachers is likely to remain under strain in 2022 due to a range of pressures.

Ofsted’s Research Review Series: PE (March 2022)

Ofsted has published a review of research into factors that influence the quality of physical education (PE) in schools in England. The review finds that a strong PE curriculum should clearly state what it means to get better at PE. Pupils should learn increasingly intelligent movement and important knowledge that can reduce barriers to participation and inform their own healthy, active lifestyle choices. While Ofsted recognises that there is no single way of achieving high-quality PE, their review finds that high-quality provision may have the following features:

• Teachers know that PE includes clearly defined knowledge that can usefully be categorised as either declarative or procedural.
• Leaders and teachers have thought carefully about what it is to know more and do more in PE. This understanding is informed by the national curriculum’s aims, and component knowledge has been identified to develop pupils’ competence.
• A strong foundation is built on fundamental movement skills (FMS), starting in the early years and developed through transitional activities into more specialised sport and physical activity.
• Teachers make sure that pupils’ movement is not only efficient and effective but intelligent and context-related. They ensure pupils have knowledge of rules, strategies and tactics in order to guide successful movement
• Leaders and teachers select physical activities and sports based on their capacity to develop pupils’ competence in PE. They identify key concepts to teach and build pupils’ understanding incrementally.
• The PE curriculum meets the needs of all pupils, including those with special education needs and/or disabilities (SEND). All pupils feel included and able to succeed within the subject.
• Pupils are supported to know more and do more.
• All pupils benefit from high-quality instruction, practise and feedback.
• Assessment approaches should identify the knowledge pupils have and have not acquired.
• Teachers of PE have high levels of subject and pedagogical knowledge.

EEF: Attendance intervention rapid evidence assessment (March 2022)

The Education Endowment Foundation has published a new review of 72 studies looking at ways to improve attendance. The review found sending personalised letters or text messages to parents can help to improve attendance, but several different approaches lack enough evidence to draw conclusions.

To read more about the review follow this link.

NFER research: The impact of Covid-19 on pupil attainment (March 2022)

A new research report by NFER seeks to explore evidence and insights about the scale of the Covid gap and whether specific groups of pupils and parts of the curriculum, have been impacted to a different extent by the pandemic. The main focus is on the impact in primary schools, as most of the evidence is drawn from this age group’s attainment.

Key findings:

• The progress of the youngest children has been particularly affected, especially in relation to their reading development.
• By the summer of 2021, it was clear that for slightly older pupils, in Key Stage 2, mathematics progress continued to be affected.
• There are clear indications of recovery across both key stages and subjects but the extent varies.
• The disadvantage gap, which had stopped narrowing before Covid-19, has widened during the pandemic.

Exploring digital maturity in schools (March 2022)

This new report for the DfE looks at ‘digital maturity’, using data from the EdTech Survey 2020-21. Digital maturity is held to encompass three key ‘pillars’: Technology, Capability and Strategy. The analysis found that schools had made more progress towards digital maturity in technology and capability than strategy. "Further analysis found that low digitally mature schools were more likely to be in rural areas, primary phase, local authority-maintained schools or with a ‘good’ Ofsted rating. By contrast, high digitally mature schools were more likely be in urban areas, or secondary academies.” Although the report investigated potential inks between academic performance and digital maturity there don’t seem to be any firm conclusions, particularly at KS4. Just 9% of schools were classified as being digitally mature according to the metric used in the analysis.

Education, children’s social care and offending (March 2022)

The Department for Education and Ministry of Justice have published a joint study looking into the education background of children cautioned or sentenced for an offence. The findings are shocking and show how important the work of our sector is in improving life chances.

Particularly worrying findings include prolific offenders being five times more likely to have been suspended, having lower attainment at Key Stage 4 compared to those with fewer offences, being more likely to be known to children’s services, and 81% being eligible for free school meals. The report can be read in full online.

Policy Brief - Lessons learnt from how Trusts responded to the Pandemic (January 2022)

Nottingham University has published a handy update (February 2022) summarising the research carried out by Professor Chris Day, working with CST.

The key lessons for policy makers from this research are:

• The pandemic has shown how strong and sustainable trusts are a resilient and protective structure for pupils and schools.
• Training for Trust CEOs and leaders needs to build the ability to lead complex, value-led systems.
• These strong and sustainable Trusts are particularly important for disadvantaged communities and levelling up educational attainment.
• More evidence is needed of the relative effects on pupil attainment between Trust schools and others.

Research focus: The educational outcomes of refugee and asylum-seeking children (December 2021)

The Education Policy Institute has published a new report on The educational outcomes of refugee and asylum-seeking children in England.

Headline findings:

• Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) in England in 2016/17 were on average 37.4 months behind non-migrant children across all GCSE subjects. This attainment gap is similar in size to the gap experienced by children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) with the most severe needs (those in receipt of an Education, Health and Care Plan).
• Children who fall into the group of resettled refugee or asylum-seeker in receipt of support were estimated to be 17.3 months behind non-migrant children across all GCSE subjects. Refugee and asylum-support children are estimated to be similarly educationally vulnerable to children in the care system with Child Protection Plans, or those who were persistently disadvantaged over the course of their school life.

Research focus: Innovation in the Time of Covid: what worked in our schools and where next? (December 2021)

Challenge Partners has published a report offering a thematic analysis of over 200 reports compiled by Challenge Partners’ reviewers conducted between mid-January and mid-July in 2021. It is an attempt to distil some themes that emerge from local approaches to the immediate and more intractable challenges that schools have faced in this period.

Research focus: experiences of relationships and sex education and sexual risk-taking (November 2021)

The DfE has published a new research report (November 2021) analysing evidence from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England 2 on young people’s views on RSE, and patterns of sexual risk-taking. Note that the data in this report relate to the period before new guidance was introduced in 2020.

High level findings:

• Young people who did not receive any RSE in schools were more likely to go on take more sexual risks, including intercourse before the legal age of consent, unprotected sex and contraction of a sexually transmitted infection (STI).
• Just under half of young people described the RSE they received at school as either ‘fairly useful’ or ‘very useful’. However, nearly 1 in 5 young people described the RSE received in school as 'not at all useful'.
• Young people of minority sexual orientations (i.e. gay, lesbian, bisexual or other), those with disabilities, and those who participated in other risky behaviours were significantly more likely to say that their school RSE was 'not at all useful'.
• Those who said that they were taught about consent, LGBT relationships, and relationships in general, were more likely to describe the RSE they received as useful than those who were not taught about these topics.
• 1 in 10 FSM-eligible young people did not learn about STIs, consent, LGBT relationships or relationships in general in their school RSE. This is higher compared to young people who were not FSM-eligible (nearly 1 in 20).
  

Experiences of Relationships and Sex Education, and sexual risk taking – research report (November 2021)

A DfE report based on research carried out in 2018 seeks to give insight into the experiences young people have in relation to relationships and sex education. It is worth noting the research was carried out before the new RSE expectations became compulsory, so it does not seek to explore the impact of that work. Main findings include:

• Young people who did not receive any RSE in schools were more likely to go on take more sexual risks, including intercourse before the legal age of consent, unprotected sex and contraction of a sexually transmitted infection.

• Young people of minority sexual orientations (i.e. gay, lesbian, bisexual or other), those with disabilities, and those who participated in other risky behaviours were significantly more likely to say that their school RSE was 'not at all useful'.

• Those who said that they were taught about consent, LGBT relationships, and relationships in general, were more likely to describe the RSE they received as useful than those who were not taught about these topics.
• Findings suggest that in 2018 fewer young people had sex before they turned 16. However, the proportion of young people who said they always had unprotected sex increased. Fewer young people favoured condoms as their most regularly used contraceptive.
• Young people who experienced higher psychological distress at ages 14/15 were 12 percentage points more likely than those who were not distressed to have sex before the legal age of consent.

New report on pupil wellbeing from Edurio and Professor Daniel Muijs (November 2021)

Edurio, CST’s platinum partner has published important findings from their review of pupil learning experience and wellbeing in schools and trusts with 45,000 pupils taking part. The report, co-written with Professor Daniel Muijs, focuses on wellbeing, with detail on stress, overworking, quality of sleep, loneliness and safeguarding. The report can help you build better informed pupil wellbeing strategies.

The Pupil Learning Experience and Wellbeing Review is an ongoing activity and allows trusts to benchmark their performance against the national average so if you'd like to participate in the review, you can learn more here.

New Research: review of time in school and 16 to 19 settings (November 2021)
DfE

The DfE has published a short review looking at the time spent in school and 16 to 19 settings in England and the impact this could have on helping children and young people to catch up.

High level themes:

• A number of studies have indicated a positive relationship between the quantity of instructional time and outcomes across educational phases, and across a range of education systems, although the evidence varies in scale, quality and applicability.
• However, studies also show that the quantity of time is only one relevant factor (alongside for example teacher quality). Whether additional time in learning has a positive impact on attainment, and the extent of this impact, depends on the additional time being used well.
• Furthermore, evidence on the role of instruction time in reducing the attainment gap is mixed. There are some studies indicating that high performers are the ones who benefit the most from extended hours while other studies suggest that extending school time can be an effective way to support student learning, particularly for students most at risk of school failure.
• A number of studies, in the context of out-of-school programmes targeting vulnerable students implemented in the USA, illustrate that extra time does not always achieve a positive impact.
• Any universal change to the length of the school day would involve significant delivery considerations, particularly how to realise the additional teaching capacity required in order to facilitate delivery within existing legislative, contractual and workforce supply constraints. The challenge of ensuring that any additional time is not only delivered, but also used well, would require legislation and accountability measures sufficient to ensure quality.
• As teaching hours currently delivered in 16 to 19 are lower than pre-16, delivering an increase in hours is much more feasible, particularly as the legislative and accountability frameworks to do so are already in place. Generally too, the structure of teaching and learning time in 16 to 19 education (for example, free periods) provides opportunities to more fully utilise a ‘standard’ day or week. Given international practice and engagement with the sector we have a high degree of confidence that there is capacity to deliver quality additional time in 16 to 19 education.

Policymaking in disruptive times: the development and impact of School Trust-designed policies on teacher and student outcomes
University of Nottingham School of Education in Partnership with the Confederation of School Trusts (November 2021)

This research is funded by the ESRC IAA2 and was conducted by the University of Nottingham in collaboration with the Confederation of School Trusts. It builds on a foundational ‘pathfinder’ project, involving 15 Multi-academy Trusts in the Midlands during the lockdown period (January – March 2021), which explored the role of Trusts and their senior leaders in policymaking and implementation in disruptive times (cf. Day et al., 2021). The research reported here and refferd to as the ‘flagship project’ was conducted between April and September 2021 (i.e. at the beginning of the ‘recovery’ phase), when schools were open to all students.

Teacher recruitment and career intentions during the pandemic (October 2021)
Teacher Tapp and SchoolDash

A new report on school recruiting during the pandemic. The report was written for The Gatsby Foundation by Becky Allen of Teacher Tapp and Timo Hanna of SchoolDash. The main findings are:

• The teacher recruitment market continues to be disrupted despite school re-openings. Activity at secondary schools in England was even lower in 2020-2021 than in 2019-2020, and this trend has so far continued into the new school year.
• In contrast, headteacher turnover has not declined. In fact, among secondary schools it has risen slightly. It has also become less seasonal, with more heads leaving in the middle of the school year.
• School technician recruitment is buoyant, reaching levels well above those previously seen even before the pandemic. This seems to be more in line with other sectors of the economy, which are mostly showing high turnover and a tight labour market.

You may also want to view blog posts on this report from SchoolDash, Teacher Tapp and Gatsby.

The summary provides an overview of different aspects of cognitive science and how they might be applied in the classroom:

• Spaced learning
• Interleaving
• Retrieval practice
• Managing cognitive load
• Working with schemas
• Multimedia learning (including dual coding)
• Embodied learning

Curriculum decolonisation as a disciplinary process (June 2021)
Steve Rollett, Deputy CEO, CST

Discussions about decolonising the curriculum illustrate a key challenge facing teachers and policy makers: how to make decisions about curriculum content in a system where knowledge seems, paradoxically, everything and nothing. That is to say that knowledge building is increasingly positioned as a primary objective for schooling and yet it can remain under-theorised in and of itself as an object of study. In this paper, Steve explores how decolonisation of the curriculum might be enacted through approaches that work alongside and through disciplinary processes and perspectives, so that knowledge and knowers are brought into view in our consideration of the curriculum.