Science curricula and teaching methods vary greatly, depending in part on which facets of science are emphasized, e.g., core disciplinary ideas or science practices and process skills, and perspectives differ considerably on desirable pedagogies. Given the multi-faceted nature of science and the variety of teaching methods found in practice, it is…

There are concerns that too many young people, from disadvantaged backgrounds, are moving into secondary education in the UK, and elsewhere, without the necessary literacy skills to make progress with the wider secondary school curriculum. A large number of interventions have been proposed to reduce this poverty gradient. This paper summarises the…

ThinkForward is a coaching programme, developed by Impetus Private Equity Foundation, which is designed to support secondary school pupils. ThinkForward is targeted at pupils who have been identified as being at high risk of not being in education, employment or training (NEET) following the completion of compulsory education. Coaches are assigned…

In this study, we intend to determine if reading tests aloud provides a differential boost to youth with elevated symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) relative to same-aged peers. Participants were 36 youth, 44% with or at risk for ADHD, who participated in a week long summer camp. Over the course of the week, youth attended…

Rapid Phonics is a synthetic phonics intervention intended to improve decoding skills and reading fluency. It teaches the relationship of word sounds to their corresponding letter groups in a structured way. In this evaluation, the intervention was delivered across the transition between primary and secondary school to Year 6/7 pupils who had not…

Although results showing coaching effectiveness are accumulating, coaching is often included with other forms of Professional Development (PD) support including teacher in-service (Powell, Diamond, Burchinal, & Koehler, 2010; Kretlow et al., 2011), access to an annotated video library (Allen et al., 2011), and access to ongoing learning…

Prior research suggests that summer learning loss among low-income children contributes to income-based gaps in achievement and educational attainment. We present results from a randomized experiment of a summer mathematics program conducted in a large, high-poverty urban public school district. Children in the third to ninth grade (N = 263) were…

The Discover Summer School was a four-week programme which aimed to improve the reading and writing skills of children during the summer between Year 6 and Year 7. The programme was targeted at pupils who had been predicted to achieve below Level 4b in English by the end of Key Stage 2. Pupils meeting the eligibility criteria for the study, and…

The consequences of failing core academic courses during the first year of high school are dire. More students fail courses in ninth grade than in any other grade, and a disproportionate number of these students subsequently drop out (Herlihy, 2007). As shown in Chicago and elsewhere, academic performance in core courses during the first year of…

The "TextNow" Transition Programme, developed by national charity Unitas, is a reading for pleasure literacy programme with one to one sessions with a volunteer coach occurring 20 minutes a day each weekday. This occurs at two time points: in Year Six, the final year of primary school for five weeks in the second half of the summer term;…

Algebra is considered a key gatekeeper for higher-level mathematics course-taking in high school and for college enrollment (Adelman, 2006; Gamoran & Hannigan, 2000). Yet, algebra pass rates are consistently low in many places (Higgins, 2008; Ham & Walker, 1999; Helfand, 2006), including Chicago Public Schools (CPS). This is of particular…