There are many different types of summer school for children and young people. The most common educational summer schools in England are 'transition' summer schools for pupils about to start secondary school and 'access' summer schools to encourage older secondary pupils to apply for university. The purpose of this piece is to review the recent…

This report presents five case studies of long-term partnerships (over three years) between arts organisations and schools. The Start programme enables arts venues and schools to work together to offer disadvantaged young people opportunities to engage in creative activities that inspire them and enhance their experience of the arts. It is…

Arts Council England (ACE) commissioned NFER to undertake the national evaluation of the In Harmony social and music education programme 2012-2015. In Harmony is funded by the Department for Education (DfE) and ACE, and is currently being piloted in six areas. The evaluation is investigating the range and extent of impacts on children, families,…

The "Playing for Success" (PfS) initiative is targeted on underachieving young people. It aims to contribute to raising educational standards, especially in numeracy and literacy, bringing the attainment levels of lower achieving pupils closer to the average expected for their age. This study set out to consider whether there was any evidence of…

The aim of the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) evaluation was to examine the effectiveness and impact of the work of the National Remodelling Team (NRT) in completing the third phase of the remodeling program and its effectiveness in applying its model, tools and techniques to the extended schools program. This evaluation has…

A program providing study support to underachieving youth using British football as a motivator was evaluated by comparing 1,247 participants and 244 controls. The program helped raise achievement and seemed equally effective for males and females. There was no evidence that the sports emphasis marginalized girls or ethnic minorities. (Contains 25…

This report details the findings of two surveys designed to investigate the deployment and impact of support staff who have achieved higher level teaching assistant (HLTA) status in England and to assess the impact or effect they are having in schools, along with interview data collected from nine case-study schools. The study sought to: (1)…

This study set out to provide an evidence base concerning the effectiveness of the transition from the Foundation Stage (which applies to children aged three to five years) and Year 1 (for children aged five to six). The study had two main aims: (1) to provide a solid evidence base about the effectiveness of the transition from the Foundation…

This report sets out to provide the National Remodelling Team (NRT) with comprehensive details on stakeholders' views about the second year of the remodelling programme. This report is divided into nine chapters: (1) Introduction; (2) outlines the aims of the evaluation and the methodology used; (3) describes the findings from the survey of local…

The National Remodelling Team (NRT) was established in April 2003 by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and hosted within the National College for School Leadership (NCSL). The role of the NRT was to work with local education authorities (LEAs) to support schools in the implementation of the changes to teachers' contracts introduced by…