Insights into UK Teachers’ Wellbeing and Workload during the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown: Testimonies from the Silent Voices and Lessons Learnt

This paper presents the findings of a national survey of over 3400 teachers across all phases of education in England, 10 weeks into school closure. In this paper we report on the teachers’ experiences and their testimonies of the effects of the lockdown on their wellbeing as they navigate the situation, trying to cope with teaching and adjusting to the use of new technology to deliver lessons in the confines of their home. We present their voices as they related their experiences and emotions in real time as the event unfolded. Teachers reported an increased workload with a proportionately large amount of time spent on administrative duties and planning, but less on actual teaching. On average, these teachers spent 15 h a week marking during the lockdown. Under half of the respondents said they felt happy and cheerful often, while only 17% said they did not feel this way often. Almost all teachers said they felt that what they were doing was important and worthwhile. The most common emotions expressed by teachers were fear, isolation, neglect, anxiety, and confusion. The inconsistency and lack of clarity of government guidelines added to teachers’ anxiety. The negative media portrayal of teachers did not help. The majority of teachers reported little previous experience in online teaching and only a quarter were confident in using edtech to deliver remote teaching. Only a third of teachers said they were adequately supported for online teaching. This has implications for future teacher development and initial teacher training. However, there were equally numerous positive experiences reported by teachers. Active support from parents and consistent school-home communication were seen as important in ensuring students’ continued engagement with learning. These lessons are beneficial in supporting the long-term sick and school refusers post-lockdown

What is the evidence on the best way to get evidence into use in education?

For decades there have been calls by concerned stakeholders to improve the quality of education research, and some progress has been made towards creating a more secure evidence base in some areas. More programmes and approaches that have a reasonable evidence base are now also being used in schools (but not in policy, and not necessarily because they have a reasonable evidence base). However, there has been no equivalent improvement in secure knowledge about how best to get that evidence into use, or even what difference it makes when such evidence is used. This paper looks at what little is already known about the different ways to get research evidence into use in education by summarising the results of a large‐scale review of the literature. A total of 323 of the most relevant studies were looked at across all areas of public policy, and judged for quality and contribution. Very few (33) were of the appropriate design and quality needed to make robust causal claims about evidence‐into‐use, and even fewer of these concerned education. This means that despite over 20 years of modest improvement in research on what works in education policy and practice, the evidence on how best to deploy these findings is still very weak. We consider studies in terms of several issues, including whether they look at changes in user knowledge and behaviour, or student outcomes, and how evidence is best modified before use. Providing access to raw research evidence or even slightly simplified evidence is not generally an effective way of getting it used, even if that evidence is presented to users by knowledge‐brokers, in short courses or similar. What is more likely to work for both policy and practice is the engineering of high quality evidence into a more usable format and presenting it actively or iteratively via a respected and trusted conduit, or through population measures such as legislation. Having the users actually do the research is another promising approach. Expecting each individual study they fund to have an impact is not the way forward, as this may encourage widespread use of ineffective or even harmful interventions. Publicly‐funded users, including policy‐makers, should be required to use evidence‐led programmes from those libraries providing them and which are appropriate and relevant to their aims. Research funders should support these approaches, and help to build up libraries of successfully tested programmes. Researchers need to be scrupulous, looking at their new evidence in the context of what is already known and not looking to obtain ‘impact’ from single studies. More and better research is needed on the best routes for evidence‐into‐use. However, the improvements required of all parties are as much ethical in nature as they are technical or scientific

Evaluation of the impact of Maths Counts delivered by teaching assistants on primary school pupils' attainment in maths

This paper presents the findings of a 1-year efficacy trial of Maths Counts (MC), an intensive, individualised programme delivered by trained teaching assistants. The programme was delivered 3 times a week over 10 weeks. The sample included 291 Year 3 to Year 6 pupils (age 7 to 11) from 35 primary schools in England. Pupils were individually randomised within school to receive MC or business as usual. The results suggest that MC is effective for children struggling with basic maths skills (ES = +0.12 for general maths skills and +0.18 for maths attitude), but there is no evidence that it is particularly effective for children eligible for free school meals. Staff and pupil absences, and other social-emotional and behavioural difficulties may have prevented some pupils from getting the most from the programme. In general, the trial shows that trained teaching assistants can be effectively deployed to support children’s maths learning

How to get more people into teaching? Comparing undergraduates’ and teacher trainees’ motivation and perceptions of a teaching career

Understanding people’s perceptions of teaching as an occupation, and their motivation or otherwise to teach, can help identify which initiatives/policies are most promising in improving teacher recruitment. Previous studies have often sought only the views of teachers/teacher trainees to understand why people choose teaching as a career. Recruitment strategies based on evidence from such research are therefore only appealing to those who are already interested in teaching. It is the views of those who might otherwise have gone into teaching that can provide better clues to what we can do to get more people into teaching. This paper compares the views of 4469 undergraduate students and 788 trainee teachers in England. Our analysis goes beyond the usual approach by comparing young people completely uninterested in teaching, those who considered teaching but rejected it, those intending to be teachers, and those already in training. Our study found little or no difference between prospective teachers and others in terms of generic career drivers and the attraction of financial incentives, although prospective teachers tended to have lower levels of qualifications and to come from less prestigious occupational backgrounds. However, those not planning to be teachers are much less concerned about teachers’ workload, suggesting that this is probably not a great deterrent for those considering teaching. Compared to those who intend to be teachers, those who have considered but rejected teaching are less likely to view teaching as intellectually stimulating. They are least likely to see teaching as a high-status profession, offering good promotion prospects and job security. Policies to improve recruitment need to make teaching more attractive to the second group by addressing these issues. Additionally, these policies should be distinct from policies to retain existing teachers

Is technology always helpful?: A critical review of the impact on learning outcomes of education technology in supporting formative assessment in schools

While education technology has been widely used in classrooms, and considerable investments have been made to support its use in the UK, the evidence base for many such rapidly changing technologies is weak, and their efficacy is unclear. The aim of this paper is to systematically review and synthesise empirical research on the use of technology in formative assessment, to identify approaches that are effective in improving pupils’ learning outcomes. The review involved a search of 11 major databases, and included 55 eligible studies. The results suggest promising evidence that digitally delivered formative assessment could facilitate the learning of maths and reading for young children, but there is no good evidence that it is effective for other subjects, or for older children, or that it is any more effective than formative assessment without technology. The review found no good evidence that learner response systems work in enhancing children’s academic attainment, and there is no evidence supporting the effectiveness of such technologies that embed gaming features. Much research in this area is of poor quality. More rigorous studies using causal designs are thus urgently needed. Meantime, there should be no rush to use technology on the basis of improving attainment

Do academically selective school systems strengthen the link between students’ family backgrounds and the likelihood of higher education participation?

Proponents of academic selection argue that academic selection helps children from disadvantaged backgrounds have better lifelong outcomes. However, the evidence needs to be clarified since selections by performance could be a proxy for selection by socioeconomic class. Based on the unique situation in England, where both selective and non-selective systems coexist, we evaluate whether students from selective schools are more likely to continue higher education than those in non-selective schools and whether the link between students’ family backgrounds and their likelihood of higher education participation is stronger under a selective system. The results show that attending selective schools is associated with some post-18 advantages for pupils who stayed until the end of Key Stage 5, but brings disadvantages for those who left at earlier stages, even if we look at the upper bound of the selective school effect. Meanwhile, the link between students’ family backgrounds and future opportunities is consistently stronger under the selective system

An evaluation of Code Club

Code Club is a volunteer-led initiative run by the Raspberry Pi Foundation (RPF). The club activities are usually after-school programmes which offer opportunities for young people aged 9 to 13 to learn and develop skills for coding. The Raspberry Pi Foundation can provide Code Clubs with free resources, projects, and tutorials to help volunteers and learners get started with coding and computing. The Foundation creates and disseminates educational materials, including a structured curriculum for clubs. These materials are designed to make learning to code fun and accessible. Young people create their own digital artefacts using skills and resources available in Code Club sessions. Code Clubs aim to provide a fun, informal, and collaborative environment where pupils and teenagers can learn to code and develop digital skills. The programme also aims to improve pupils’ non-cognitive skills by creating opportunities for practicing coding, knowledge about digital literacy and engagement with a wider community of young people who are interested in coding and programming skills. Club leaders/volunteers come from a wide range of backgrounds. Many are teachers who run Code Clubs as after schools or lunchtime clubs, but others are parents or people from the community, some of whom have a technical background. Some may volunteer to become Code Club leaders and advance their skills while teaching and mentoring young people. This new project evaluates the impact of Code Club on young people’s attitudes to general learning, to learning about coding, and performance in coding skills. It is run by the Durham University Evidence Centre for Education (DECE) - Durham University Evidence Centre for Education - Durham University/. The independent evaluation is a quasi-experiment in which 15 schools and one community library participated. Young people as Code Club members were compared with their peers who did not participate in the Code Club after-school activities. This included 412 pupils who were in Years 4 to 9 initially. The evaluation assessed impact outcomes using pre and post intervention surveys of non-cognitive learning attitudes and performance in a quiz on coding skills. The headline results are based on the gain scores of pupils’ attitudes to learning and quiz. In addition, a light-touch process evaluation was conducted to observe and report on other aspects such as reasons for and level of pupils’ participation in Code Club activities, Code Club leaders’ reasons for and experiences of volunteering for the Code Club, and challenges and barriers of running a club in schools and other sites such community libraries