A Winning Start: A Teacher Choices Trial - School Information Sheet

Privacy notice

Please note that the previous trial activities were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the school closures in the academic year 2019-20 and 2020-21. Schools are being re-invited to take part in this trial.

What is the Teacher Choices project?

The Teacher Choices project is exploring the feasibility of running robust evaluations of teachers’ everyday choices in the classroom. In every lesson, teachers choose how to approach teaching and learning such as how to start a lesson, how to engage pupils or how to manage behaviour. The Teacher Choices project aims to find out how everyday choices are implemented and how they affect outcomes in the classroom, exploring if a randomised controlled trial (RCT) methodology and teacher tests can be used to do this.

Who is conducting the study?

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has commissioned and funded this study. The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) is conducting the evaluation.

What is ‘A Winning Start’?

‘A Winning Start’ is the first trial in the Teacher Choices project that was run in the last academic year. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the school closures, the trial was not completed fully. As a result, EEF and NFER have decided to rerun the trial this year. As originally planned, the trial will evaluate two different approaches to starting lessons to examine how teacher choices impact pupils’ learning in science via an RCT. The study will compare two popular forms of lesson starters: quizzes and discussions. Quiz starters build on evidence about the impact of retrieval practice and aim to help students remember key facts and ideas. Discussion starters are a popular way to begin lessons that aim to engage students in the topic they are studying.

Year 8 teachers in science departments in state-funded schools in England will take part. The trial will recruit from June to September 2021, and the choices will be implemented in school in the Autumn 2 and Spring 1 terms, i.e. from November 2021 to mid-February 2022. Year 8 teachers from the participating schools will be given a short teacher guide to enable them to implement both approaches. The teachers will experience both types of lesson starters - one in the second half of the autumn term and the other in the first half of the Spring term. The type of lesson starter for each topic will be randomly allocated to teachers by NFER.

The end of topic test scores from schools will be collected to assess whether quiz or discussion approaches are more effective. Researchers will also use another commercial science test to help assess the robustness of the analysis. At the end of the trial, schools will receive a payment of £150 per participating teacher as a ‘thank you’ for the time taken in being involved in the trial.

Which schools and science departments can take part?

‘A Winning Start’ is being run in science departments in state-funded secondary schools in England. To join the trial, the headteacher will sign up with the head of science being the main contact, and individual Year 8 science teachers will then take part.

Which teachers can take part?

The trial will involve Year 8 teachers in science departments in state-funded secondary schools. Schools are welcome to nominate as many Year 8 science teachers and classes as they wish to participate (a minimum of two per school are needed). See below the eligibility criteria to participate in this trial. This enables schools to have the flexibility to select topics and teachers to take part in the trial, as well as ensures that the participants and tests are selected and matched to the requirements of the trial.

• Participation will be limited to one class per teacher. This is to ensure that the participating teachers are responsible for providing us with data for just one class.
• Teachers will teach two chosen topics in their entirety to their associated class, over two half-terms (i.e. the chosen topic cannot be taught by more than one teacher per class).
• Schools will nominate two Year 8 science topics of suitable length, i.e. teachers are able to deliver the quiz or discussion lesson starters in at least 6 lessons for each topic.
• All participating classes should have the same topic test. These are end of topic tests normally used by the school and administered by the teachers at the end of the topic and lesson starter delivery - once after Autumn 2 and the other after Spring 1.
• Each topic test should have at least 8 questions. In cases where the topic is part of a larger test, it should have at least 8 questions for the given topic.

What will the evaluation involve for teachers and schools?

Joining the trial: Each school’s headteacher will sign the online Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and nominate their head of science department as the point of contact for the trial.

Teacher and pupil data: Once the MoU is signed, the head of science will provide personal data for nominated teachers and pupils. This will be collected via a template provided by NFER on the secure school portal. This will include names and contact details of nominated Year 8 science teachers, their science class and topic names, the topic length in number of lessons and information about the topic tests. Pupil data will include names, dates of birth and free school meal (FSM) eligibility for each pupil in the selected classes. NFER will provide schools with a letter for parents to inform them about the trial and their child’s participation. Schools should share the letter with parents/carers of the pupils in the participating classes before sharing their data with NFER. Schools should not provide NFER with any data for pupils where their parents have requested that the pupil’s data is not shared and have submitted a withdrawal form to the school.

Random allocation: Teachers will be randomly allocated by NFER to the quiz or discussion approach to be used in teaching and learning with their classes during Autumn 2. Each teacher will then switch to the other approach in the other topic in Spring 1. It is very important that teachers do not switch approaches with another teacher in their school. This is to ensure that we can properly understand the impact of each lesson starter.

Follow-up data: Teachers will be asked to use their usual end of topic tests with their classes. They will need to provide individual pupil’s overall topic score to NFER. NFER will provide MS Excel template for this data. It is important to have assessment data for every participating pupil in the trial. We will also ask schools to administer GL Assessment’s Progress Test in Science 13 (PTS 13) with participating pupils.

Evaluation materials: All teachers will be asked to complete a short survey to provide information on how the approach went in each half-term. Some teachers and heads of science departments will also be invited to take part in short telephone interviews to give further views on the approaches being piloted and their experience of being part of the trial.

When will my school need to get involved?

How will my school and teachers benefit from taking part?

The trial aims to provide evidence that will be useful for teachers, departments and schools when making decisions about teacher choices in their classrooms. Your school’s participation will help to strengthen the evidence on the impact teacher choices can have on pupils’ attainment and how to robustly evaluate teacher choices.

By participating in the trial, we hope teachers will learn practical information that improves their teaching, benefit from the experiences and results of the trial and help generate new knowledge that can benefit all teachers’ everyday classroom decisions.

Schools that complete all the trial requirements will receive a payment of £150 per participating teacher.

How will the findings be used?

All teachers involved will receive a summary of the trial findings and this will also be freely available on the NFER and the EEF websites. The findings will also be used to provide a report to the EEF on the feasibility of running Teacher Choices trials in future.

Who needs to give agreement for participation in the trial?

Schools will join the trial once their headteacher has signed the MOU. We will provide you with an information sheet for your Year 8 science teachers.

We will provide schools with a letter for parents to inform them about the study and their child’s participation. Schools should share the letter with parents/carers of the pupils in the participating Year 8 classes.

Note that in an RCT all data is important. It would be helpful if we could collect data about all relevant pupils taught by the teacher involved. The trial team really appreciate schools’ and participants’ support for the data collection.

What happens if a school, teacher or pupil wants to withdraw from the trial?

A school, teacher or pupil can withdraw from the trial and/or from their data being used in the trial at any time. Schools must notify NFER of any pupils or teachers who withdraw from the study by contacting the NFER’s Teacher Choices Team on 01753 637429.

Parents can choose to withdraw their child from the data collection of the trial at any time. They can do this by returning the form on the bottom of the parent letter to their school. Schools must not provide data about children whose parents withdraw them from the data collection. If the withdrawal takes place after the study commences, schools must notify NFER of such pupils to be removed from datasets and subsequent analysis immediately by contacting the Teacher Choices Team on 01753 637429.

How will NFER use and protect the data collected?

All data gathered during the trial will be held in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018, and GDPR and will be treated in the strictest confidence by NFER.

Your school’s key contact details and teacher contact details for the study will be shared securely between NFER and EEF – so that EEF can get in touch with schools and teachers to provide guidance and support. No pupil-level data will be shared with EEF.

All teacher and pupil-level data shared by schools with NFER will be done so via a secure school portal. For the purposes of the trial, all pupils will have an ID number.

No school, teacher or pupil will be named in any report arising from this work.

A Privacy Notice for the study is available here.

Who can I contact for more information?

If you want any further information, please e-mail [email protected].