Evidence can help us to decide where to focus our effort. The EEF’s Toolkit has hugely influenced these decisions, and the phrase ‘best bets’ is now widely used when discussing evidence.
The main currency in school is the time of teachers and pupils. Therefore, it is crucial to recognise that evidence can also identify some activities that, on average, had a relatively low impact in the past.
Although this is where people often start with evidence, I think that this is one of the most challenging ways to add value with evidence. The EEF’s implementation process, particularly the explore stage, is very helpful here, but I think the expertise to use it well is spread thinly.