: Blog three | The different types of EEF projects We explore the different types of projects that the EEF fund.

This year, the EEF has been able to expand the number of projects available to schools and settings through the Accelerator Fund. The Accelerator Fund is part of the government’s investment in education recovery and is focused on literacy and numeracy programmes.

Schools and settings in England can take part in EEF projects — funded through the Accelerator Fund — at all stages of their development.

These include:

•Trials of innovative approaches that show promise in raising pupil attainment (efficacy and effectiveness trials).
•The scale-up of programmes that have been proven in an EEF trial to raise pupil attainment, with the EEF offering these to schools at a subsidised rate.’¹

There is a pipeline² of development for EEF funded projects as shown below:

Let’s look at each stage in a little more detail.

Innovation

•What’s the purpose?

◦Design and develop programmes that fill a gap in the evidence base.

•How many settings are involved?

◦5 – 6 settings

•What’s expected of my setting?

◦Settings are typically asked to provide feedback on how feasible and acceptable they find the programme, which could include surveys and interviews of practitioners, SLT, and parents.

•How much does it cost?

◦The EEF fund all the delivery costs, and you’ll receive payment for taking part.

Development

•What’s the purpose?

◦Develop and adapt programmes so they’re ready to be tested in more settings.

•How many settings are involved?

◦8 – 12 settings

What’s expected of my setting?

◦Settings are typically asked to provide feedback on how feasible and acceptable they find the programme, which could include surveys and interviews of practitioners, SLT, and parents.

How much does it cost?

◦The EEF fund all the delivery costs, and you’ll receive payment for taking part.

Pilot

•What’s the purpose?

◦Test how feasible an approach is.

•How many settings are involved?

◦c. 20 settings receiving the programme.

•What’s expected of my setting?

◦Settings are typically expected to run the programme and take part in the evaluation requirements, which could include teacher surveys, interviews and in some cases pupil data collection.

•How much does it cost?

◦The EEF typically fund all the delivery costs.

Efficacy Trial

•What’s the purpose?

◦Find out if an approach has an impact on learning and development in ideal circumstances.

•How many settings are involved?

◦c. 100 settings (with half receiving the programme).

•What’s expected of my setting?

◦Settings are usually randomised to the delivery group or control group. Settings in the intervention group are expected to run the programme and take part in the evaluation requirements, which could include teacher surveys, interviews, and pupil testing. Control settings are just asked to take part in the evaluation requirements and are offered a thank you payment for this.

•How much does it cost?

◦The EEF fund most of the programme costs for delivery settings but you may have to contribute a small amount for some projects. Control schools usually receive a thank-you payment for taking part in the evaluation.

Effectiveness Trial

•What’s the purpose?

◦Find out if an approach has an impact on learning and development in everyday circumstances. The aim is to test a scalable model of an intervention under everyday conditions (where the developer cannot be closely involved in delivery because of the scale) in a large number of schools, or early years / post-16 settings, usually 100+ across at least three different geographical regions. A quantitative impact evaluation is used to assess the impact of the intervention on student outcomes, including attainment. An implementation and process evaluation is used to identify the challenges for delivery at this scale. The cost of the intervention at this scale is also calculated.

•How many settings are involved?

◦c. 100 settings (with half receiving the programme).

•What’s expected of my setting?

◦Settings are usually randomised to the delivery group or control group. Settings in the intervention group are expected to run the programme and take part in the evaluation requirements, which could include teacher surveys, interviews, and pupil testing. Control settings are just asked to take part in the evaluation requirements and are offered a thank you payment for this.

•How much does it cost?

◦The EEF fund most of the programme costs for delivery settings but you may have to contribute a small amount for some projects. Control schools usually receive a thank-you payment for taking part in the evaluation.

Scale-Up

•What’s the purpose?

◦Widen access to programmes that have shown a positive impact across many settings. This stage is reached when a programme which has been shown to work when rigorously trialled, and has the capacity to deliver at scale, is expanded to work across a bigger area delivering to many schools, or early years / post-16 settings. Though the EEF will continue to evaluate its impact, this is now a lighter touch process.

•How many settings are involved?

◦100+ settings receiving the programme.

•What’s expected of my setting?

◦All settings will receive the programme, and there are typically minimal evaluation requirements as the focus is on expanding access to well-evidenced programmes, rather than running new evaluation activity.

•How much does it cost?

◦We subsidise most of the delivery, so you can access promising programmes at a highly subsidised rate.

There is a final type of project called Teacher Choices.³ Teacher Choices trials will explore some of the most common questions teachers ask about their practice, testing the everyday choices teachers make when planning their lessons and supporting their students.

Each trial will test a different choice that classroom teachers can make.

Examples of the type of questions that our Teacher Choices trials might seek to answer are:
•Does phoning home improve student behaviour? 
•Does marking books lead to more learning than whole-class feedback? 
•What are the most effective ways to read with a class?

To find out more about the projects that the EEF are currently funding visit the EEF website here Projects | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)

To explore projects that are currentlyrecruiting in your area, visit Take part in an EEF project | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)

Blog 4: The benefits of participation in an EEF project

Blog 5: What can you expect when participating in an EEF project?

Blog 6: Voices of participants in EEF projects

^References

¹EEF-EY-Project-Brochure‑2.0.pdf (d2tic4wvo1iusb.cloudfront.net)

²Pipeline of EEF trials | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)