Subject Excellence Clusters: Evaluation

This document describes an evaluation of a policy designed to improve school performance by enhancing teachers' abilities to interpret performance data and encouraging knowledge sharing between schools. The policy aimed to boost pupil performance at GCSE by providing performance data and promoting discussions within and between school departments. The evaluation employed surveys, data analysis, and a study with departmental leaders, revealing that department heads often overestimated their department's performance and faced challenges in data interpretation. Despite recognizing the benefits, collaboration between schools was limited due to time and workload pressures. The 'data + conversation' approach did not significantly impact GCSE results, indicating that while data provision was useful, its practical application was difficult. The study underscored the role of senior leadership in facilitating inter-school collaboration and suggested that such collaboration could enhance teacher engagement and skills. However, the document acknowledges the difficulties schools encounter in these efforts. **This summary was written by an AI model and therefore should not be considered a definitive summary of the report. If you are aware of inaccuracies, please email evaluation.registry@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.**

Description

• Lead department: Department for Education (DfE)
• Evaluation stage: A complete evaluation report
• Other departments: No other departments listed
• Evaluation types: Impact evaluation
• Impact methods: Randomised control trial (RCT)
• RCT methods: No RCT methods listed
• Grant information: This intervention is not distributing funding via a grant
• Government Major Project information: This intervention is not a major project
• Policies: No policies provided

Event Dates

• Event Name: Publication of final results
• Event date: February 2017

Evaluation Costs

• Cost: Not provided

Evaluation sharing

• Link(s) to published report(s): Yes
• Links to evaluation plans: No link provided
• Findings: Not provided
• Permission to share confirmed: Yes