Research School Network: Harnessing the power of evidence from the classroom Harnessing the power of evidence from the classroom

Lauren Meadows is the Curriculum Director at Unity School Partnership and CUSP. In her role as an Evidence Lead in Education with Unity Research School she regularly works with schools and colleagues exploring how to distil and utilise evidence into classroom practice.

The Why:

We should not assume that everything that we implement will work as it is intended to. We need to be curious and ask the questions ​‘What works?’ and ​‘In what conditions?’ to help us codify strong practice.

The EEF guidance for implementation (2024) gives us a clear provocation to reflect on the impact of changes to our practice. But how do we do that in a way that is meaningful and generates important learning in a way that others across the sector can make use of?[Adopting behaviours that support effective implementation such as engaging in focussed professional learning, uniting around a well understood process and reflecting on impact is a ​‘best bet’ in securing the greatest chance of successful implementation.

The How:

Disciplined inquiry is a framework for small-scale self-directed studies that is designed to help teachers understand the impact of changes that they are making to their practice. By capturing these experiences, we can build a collective wealth of understanding of how key instructional routines work in different contexts and what conditions are needed for them to thrive. Curating this as a live evidence base will help other teachers from across the trust to learn from the experiences of teachers working in other schools and also create a legacy of generative knowledge for the next generation of teachers.

The What:

In 2024 – 25, we asked all teachers in our 25 primary schools to identify an area of their practice to undertake a Disciplined Inquiry in. While we offered some suggestions about key areas of focus – for example, reading fluency or attendance – teachers selected the aspect of practice that they most wanted to explore.

Some teachers completed these individually; others worked in groups. In all, we had 244 different studies undertaken across a wide range of areas of practice. Some schools chose to explore the same theme or area across the whole staff group; others covered a wide range of themes or areas. Each inquiry folloed a clearly se out proces and was supported by a brief project planner, which captured the intended change to practice and helped to frame the inquiry question as follows:

What impact does [what practice?] delivered [over how long?] have on [what outcome?] for [whom?]?

These inquiry questions framed and focussed attention at a classroom scale, on groups of pupils over timescales ranging between half a term to two terms.

Once each inquiry had been completed, teachers narrated the inquiry and their findings in a short vignette. These vignettes allowed us to capture the actions taken, challenges, successes and key findings for each inquiry in a broadly consistent format. The vignettes for each area of exploration have subsequently been curated and analysed so that we can draw out key themes that help synthesise some of the ​‘best bets’ for codifying excellence in each area.

So what?

Our Disciplined Inquiry booklet contains a one-page overview of each area of exploration and has been published as a hard copy to all of our 40 schools. The supporting vignettes are available as an e‑book for teachers and leaders to refer to when they are thinking about tackling a persistent problem in their settings.

By harnessing the power of evidence from the classroom in this way, not only are we learning how to translate evidence into different contexts, but we are also uniting around a simple, yet high potential practice and building something together as a team. This, in turn, supports the development of collective teacher efficacy (Bandura, 1993; Hattie, 2015) – the sense that together, our work can significantly influence children’s life outcomes.