Evidence Based Education

The Professional Learning Revolution A profession built around learning should be much more serious about the learning of its own professionals. The Professional Learning Revolution A profession built around learning should be much more serious about the learning of its own professionals.

Ofsted’s sharpened focus on professional learning and expertise in its Schools Inspection Toolkit is a welcome and significant shift. It validates what the best available evidence has long shown: teacher expertise is the single biggest driver of student learning we can influence.

“Almost 9 out of 10 teachers say they need more help to support their SEND learners.” (Teacher Tapp, June 2025) In the years following the pandemic, UK schools find themselves supporting students with a more diverse range of needs than ever before. This is reflected in the sharp increase in demand for Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND) support. At the same time, education policy is shifting.

SUNDERLAND, UK – July 22, 2025 – Jack Deverson MBE, CEO of Sunderland-based Evidence Based Education (EBE), has today welcomed the appointment of his colleague, Professor Rob Coe, to the Expert Panel of the new Independent Inquiry into White Working-Class Educational Outcomes. Coverage in Tes and Schools Week. The high-profile inquiry, commissioned by Star Academies, will conduct a comprehensive investigation into what is and isn’t working for white working-class pupils, and why.

Kayleigh Norman is the Senior School Head of English and whole school CPD coordinator at Wellington College International Tianjin. Eighteen months into their Great Teaching Toolkit journey, the school have built a strong culture of professional growth based around The Model for Great Teaching, and developed an empowering approach to peer coaching that works for their teachers.

In this final episode of the Elements of Great Teaching podcast series,  Adam and I look into Dimension 4: Activating hard thinking focusing on Element 5: Embedding from the Model for Great Teaching. This episode is all about helping learning stick.

EBE is looking for a Research Statistician and Data Analyst to join our Research, Development and Education Team, and to develop and work on the data generated by our Great Teaching Toolkit and other projects. The Great Teaching Toolkit (GTT) is used by more than 25,000 teachers in the UK and around the world. We’re looking to continue to develop and improve what it offers, ultimately to reach even more schools and colleges, teachers and students.

Victoria Foster is the Director of Teacher Training and Professional Development at Charterhouse Lagos. As a new school, the team have developed their teaching principles around the Model for Great Teaching. A few months ago, we spoke to Victoria about the school’s first steps in establishing an effective culture of professional development using the Great Teaching Toolkit. We caught up with Victoria to find out more about how things are going.

Do you think that more teaching experience means better teaching quality? By reviewing the literature and the available evidence, the answer is not straightforward. Some studies show that this mostly applies only for the first years of teaching. This means that the best teachers are not always the most experienced teachers. How is this possible? Maybe it is not just about accumulating practice, but ‘deliberate practice’ towards specific improvements and goals that matter (Ericsson et al., 1993).

The Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review published in 2020 by Professor Rob Coe et al, focused on answering a key question: What are the best bets for teachers to invest time and effort in if they want their students to learn more? The authors reviewed existing research studies and frameworks that are relevant to the components and routes to improvement of teacher effectiveness. Their aim was to help teachers make better decisions about what they can best do to improve their effectiveness.