: Making and Acting on Evidence-Informed Decisions Schools aiming to make evidence-informed decisions should first consider how evidence guides decision-making.

When schools consider how to make and act on evidence-informed decisions it may be useful to first think about how evidence can be used to make decisions, then how evidence can be used to act on those decisions.

Using evidence to make decisions

Evidence-informed practice is found at the intersection of the best available research evidence, teacher experience, expertise and professional judgement, and the context of the system, setting, group and individual. An overwhelming majority of school leaders report having at least sometimes consulted research evidence before making changes to practice, suggesting that such behaviour now constitutes a pro-social norm in the English education system.

To use evidence to make decisions, schools should recognise that there are 2 pertinent sources of evidence: school / setting evidence, and external evidence.

Schools and settings are now data rich systems. Internal school / setting evidence should be gathered, analysed and triangulated to accurately diagnose the needs of pupils. School leaders should understand the needs of pupils, how disadvantage has impacted the learning of their pupils, what the priorities might be, how past interventions and approaches have impacted pupils.

Then schools and settings should consider what external evidence sources might have to say about addressing the needs they have identified. Leaders must access and read external evidence, assess its quality and relevance to their setting, and begin the difficult task of translating the evidence for their context.

The infographic above, from the EEF Guidance Report, ​“A School’s Guide to Implementation”, shows this ​‘split-screen’ process in action. Using evidence to make a decision is asking ​“is it right for our setting?” It is using evidence to inform schools about their needs (assess needs) and how interventions and approaches might help them (assess approach).

Once a decision has been made schools should then consider how evidence can be used to help them act on it. The first consideration should be the lower portions of the infographic. The big question is ​“How feasible to implement in our setting is this approach? What are the barriers and enablers to implementing an approach in our setting (assess setting)? And how challenging will this approach be to implement (assess approach)?

The evidence strongly suggests that when implementing an approach schools should enact the cross-cutting behaviours that drive effective implementation whilst attending to the contextual factors that influence effective implementation.

Further Reading:

https://d2tic4wvo1iusb.cloudfront.net/production/eef-guidance-reports/implementation/a_schools_guide_to_implementation.pdf?v=1736939867

https://d2tic4wvo1iusb.cloudfront.net/production/eef-guidance-reports/implementation/explore_framework.pdf?v=1736939871

https://d2tic4wvo1iusb.cloudfront.net/production/eef-guidance-reports/implementation/implementation_in_schools_framework.pdf?v=1736939871