: Blog six | Voices of participants in EEF projects What can you expect when participating in an EEF project?

“I was fortunate enough to be part of the EEF SEN TRIAL which was extremely beneficial to my role (as SENCO). I was able to learn about new strategies and procedures to help busy SENCOs. It also enabled me to pair up with a partner school and review their practice. I would thoroughly recommend this project. I found it really beneficial and thoroughly enjoyable.”

“I signed up for it mostly just for the fun just to see, just to do something different, just to try something different. And we do get the programme for free at the end, so if it's successful then we can continue to use it.“

“Yeah, I think we'd probably go for something if it is fitting a need in terms of what we deemed of our students, in terms of what we're looking at there and does it fit into the overall thing there with what we're looking at in the school in terms of particular groups or anything like that and your particular needs.”

“I think there'll be a bit of kudos from doing it because you know, evidence based is sort of trendy and you know. And I think that the school would get a bit of kudos in the MAT and in the local area and whoever was involved with it, which you know, I have a bit of a higher profile from that point of view.”

“We've been involved in a few over the over the years. It's something that potentially could help us meet some of our priorities. We wouldn't just do anything. We would only do something if we think it's the right thing to do.”

“Our decision to participate was largely led by the hope that we would be selected as an Intervention school and would be able to trial the resources and see the impact upon our students. We were not selected as an intervention school but as a control school. I know that due to staffing issues, not all communication went out to parents at the correct times and therefore, the impact and reliability as a control group could be called in to question. I do believe that if we did not have such staffing issues we would have been better placed to participate and feedback.”

“I am currently taking part in a Teacher Choices trial on using generative AI to support lesson planning. This trial is looking at KS3 science lessons, I am a science teacher at a large secondary school. I was hoping that we would be in the intervention group so I could learn some useful tips on using Gen AI to help with my lesson planning and resource creation, but unfortunately, we were placed into the control group. I am ok with that though, because I know it’s important to have a control group to compare with the intervention group. Also, I am hoping we get some of the tips at the end of the trial. All that is involved is filling in a simple ‘diary’ each week detailing my lesson planning time, it’s very quick and easy. The school are also getting some money for each of us that is participating, so that’s good too.”