The development of coding skills is considered important for a digital age, linked to broader learning and non-cognitive abilities. Schools in England integrate coding into the curriculum, perhaps supplemented by after school activities. "Code Club" is a structured learning programme offered as an after-school activity for pupils aged 9 to 13. This study evaluates Code Club using a quasi-experimental design assessing the impact on student attitudes to learning and coding skills. Pupils attending the 22-week programme were compared to non-participants in the same schools. Initially, 412 pupils (Years 4-9) participated, but only 239 from 13 schools remained for full analysis. The findings suggest positive effects for resilience (+0.22), confidence (+0.47), sense of belonging (+0.09), and coding skills (+0.24). 40% dropout rate limits the generality of the conclusions. Code Club, run voluntarily in schools, was well-received, with participants enjoying coding and digital projects. The paper discusses the findings and implications.

Abstract This paper presents a structured review of a computerised reading programme called Accelerated Reader (AR), which is used worldwide. AR aims to stimulate reading enjoyment and independent reading habits among primary and secondary school pupils. This review synthesises the results of international evidence on the effectiveness of AR on pupils' reading achievement, attitudes and behaviours. A search of 15 social science databases found 57 studies with 76 outcomes that met pre‐specified inclusion criteria. Each study was assessed in terms of quality. The most robust evidence suggests that AR has a positive effect on secondary school pupils' reading performance, but the results for primary school pupils are mixed. The impact of AR on pupils' reading habits and attitudes is inconclusive. Further research is needed to confirm its effects. Context and implications Rationale for this study: While Accelerated Reader (AR) has been widely evaluated, the findings are inconclusive. This paper synthesises international evidence, focusing on the robust studies to draw stronger conclusions. Why the new findings matter: Effective use of AR requires consistent implementation and prolonged exposure. However, currently no robust evidence shows it improves intrinsic motivation or long‐term reading engagement. Implications for research: More large‐scale randomised studies with independent outcome measures are needed. AR's effectiveness should be explored in low‐ and middle‐income countries, where AR is widely used without proper assessment. The mechanisms of change, including implementation fidelity, should be examined. The long‐term impact of AR on reading behaviours should be investigated. Implications for policy and practice: AR benefits secondary school children, but its impact on primary school children is mixed. AR is most effective with consistent, high fidelity and prolonged exposure. AR requires a paid subscription and a well‐stocked library. Schools and governments should consider these factors before widespread adoption.

Young people's educational and occupational outcomes are stratified according to their socio-economic origins. Such background factors are difficult to change, they are presumably not the only determinants of stratified outcomes, and anyway they could be mediated by institutional contexts, particularly who goes to school with whom. This study explores the association between school segregation and post-16 outcomes, using national evidence from England. We analysed linked data from Next Steps survey and the National Pupil Database (NPD) for 5,192 young people who attended state schools in England. Hierarchical binary logistic regression models assess the predictive contribution of school segregation after controlling for birth characteristics, family background, and prior attainment. Disadvantaged pupils are significantly more likely to attend schools with higher concentrations of disadvantage, and pupils attending schools with higher concentrations of disadvantaged peers have lower chances of Higher Education (HE) participation and employment at age 25. After controlling for individual-level prior factors, school segregation explains a small but statistically detectable proportion of remaining variation in HE participation and employment. No meaningful association is found with professional occupation status. While background characteristics are the dominant predictors of post-16 outcomes, school-level segregation has a small independent association with HE participation and employment. The results suggest that there is no evidence that segregation is beneficial. Reducing segregation alone is unlikely to generate large improvements in educational equity. Policy efforts to improve equity are likely to be more effective if they focus primarily on underlying socio-economic inequalities, while considering school segregation as a potential contextual factor.

Teacher retention has been a persistent challenge globally. School leadership plays a central role in retaining teachers. Drawing on a major review of 355 research outputs, this article develops and discusses an international empirical evidence base specifically on the potential effects and leadership practices of promoting teacher professional autonomy, development, and voice in relation to teacher retention. The evidence suggests that promotion of teacher autonomy, development and voice is likely to interactively enhance teacher well-being, commitment, and retention. It categorically highlights five domains of salient leadership practices to promote these teacher outcomes. The article discusses some gaps in the evidence base and proposes directions for future research to inform policy and practice on leadership for teacher retention.

This paper reports on the findings of a natural experiment based on a sample of 1123 children aged 4–8 from the provinces of Punjab in Pakistan, and Gujarat in India. It looks at the impact of attendance (or not) in early schooling on the cognitive and social–emotional development of young children. The role of school attendance was assessed over 1 year. Children and their families were assessed twice, in or near their village homes. The study confirmed that all children progressed in learning regardless of school attendance. The overall impact of schooling is clear but relatively small. Children who attended school over the year showed greater gains in numeracy and especially in social and emotional learning, which appear to be harder than literacy to pick up outside school. Parents and children offered a range of reasons for non‐attendance, including safety at home for girls, household poverty and a perception that school will not matter for their child's envisaged future. The study therefore raises a variety of issues for central and local governments to address if they want to create a school system suitable for all citizens.

This paper examines teacher supply in China as part of a broader international study on teacher supply and retention. The key challenge in managing teacher supply in China is not a national “shortage” of teachers, but disparities in teacher distribution and quality. Rural areas struggle to attract and retain qualified teachers. This paper examines geographical disparities in teacher supply and the role of politics, culture and funding structures. Political and demographic factors, including universal education reforms and the one-child policy have influenced pupil and teacher numbers. As long as schools are able to meet the mandated class size requirements, large class sizes are not regarded as a shortage. How schools are funded can contribute to regional and provincial disparities in class sizes. At the primary and middle school, class sizes do not differ very much between rural and urban areas as schools are funded by local and central governments. Secondary schools in less developed provinces, on the other hand, experience larger class sizes, as they rely solely on local government funding. Despite some dissatisfaction with teachers’ pay, teaching remains a sought-after profession. This can be attributed to the influence of Confucian values which emphasise respect for teachers and the importance of knowledge. The culture of respect for teachers and emphasis on discipline may also explain why large classes are tolerated. This case study highlights the importance of prestige and status of teaching in addressing teacher shortages. It also reminds us that the concept of “teacher shortages” is open to interpretation.

Large-scale administrative datasets show disproportionate figures for attainment outcomes and school exclusions for pupils in some ethnic groups in England. This surface gap in attainment and school exclusion is concerning, and we consider whether ethnicity is really the driver here. In this paper, we present the findings on KS2 and KS4 attainment and exclusion outcomes for the cohorts in 2019, which are available from the National Pupil Database in England (with around 600,000 pupils per cohort). We present the outcomes and other characteristics for each ethnic category available. The analyses then modelled the attainment and exclusion outcomes via multivariate regression, in terms of individual pupil characteristics and school-level figures including school segregation by pupil ethnicity and disability. The predictors were entered in batches from pupil background, through prior attainment, and school-level measures, to individual ethnicity. The findings show that prior attainment and special needs/disability status are the main drivers of attainment at both KS2 and KS4. Individual pupil ethnicity did not help to explain either attainment or exclusions, over and above these other factors, and this finding largely corroborates the descriptive results. However, the factors related to school-level segregation by ethnicity, free school meal eligibility (FSM), and having English as an additional language (EAL) are somewhat relevant in predicting pupils’ permanent school exclusion at KS4. These findings have implications for admission policies that can reduce school segregation and interventions that can support disadvantaged pupils’ wider learning experiences.

Teacher shortages are a serious challenge in many countries, made worse by declining enrolments in initial teacher education (ITE) programs and growing competition for talented young people making career decisions. To address this challenge, we developed and tested two digital interventions—a persuasive game (TeachQuest) and a realistic job preview (RJP)—designed to enhance undergraduate students’ teaching interest, teaching self-efficacy, and perceptions of fit with the profession. In a two-phase experimental study (N = 957), undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to TeachQuest, the RJP, or a control condition. Results from Phase 1 showed that both interventions increased participants’ interest and perceived fit with teaching, with the RJP also improving teaching self-efficacy. In Phase 2, results from a delayed post-test (six weeks later; N = 572) indicated that while motivation-related outcomes remained higher than pre-test levels, changes were non-linear, with TeachQuest sustaining interest through participants’ immersion experiences and the RJP maintaining self-efficacy through mastery experiences. Our findings suggest that immersive game-based recruitment interventions may be particularly effective in informing and engaging potential applicants, whereas RJPs may be useful in reinforcing confidence in teaching. The study provides new insights informing the design of scalable, evidence-based teacher recruitment tools that align with the interests and digital-focused lives of prospective applicants for ITE programs.

This paper describes a use-of-evidence intervention implemented by eight primary schools in and around Durham County, in the North East of England. The researchers provided schools with a menu of evidence-based approaches to improve attainment, especially for disadvantaged pupils. Collectively, the schools chose Learning by Questions (LbQ) software to improve maths for Year 4, and Student Tutoring to improve English in Year 5. Half of the schools were randomised to each approach for each year group. Data collection, especially of the prior attainment scores, was affected by Covid lockdown. LbQ was the most feasible approach, with schools given help by the developers, and appreciated by teachers and pupils. But the approach showed little or no impact on test scores in the short term. The Tutoring intervention was more complex with local university students having to travel to schools in remote areas, fit in with timetables, and develop activities according to school priorities. The students also had other commitments. Nevertheless, there is evidence that the treatment group improved more than the control. Overall, the use-of-evidence intervention is promising based on this first pilot trial. The next step is to scale it up with a more varied set of options, a larger scale, and over a longer time period.

This paper explores the challenges and opportunities surrounding the recruitment and retention of minority ethnic teachers in England. Drawing on interview data from 33 teachers and school leaders of diverse ethnic backgrounds, it investigates whether racialised barriers identified in earlier research have shifted in the current context of teacher shortages and workforce diversification efforts. The findings suggest that participants generally did not face obstacles in securing classroom teaching roles, attributing this to staff shortages and, in some cases, schools' diversity goals. However, systemic barriers to career progression persist, with experienced teachers-particularly Black teachers-reporting racism and discrimination more frequently than their other ethnicity colleagues. Opportunities for improvement were identified by the presence of school diversity, especially in leadership, which was a promising factor in supporting the retention of minority ethnic teachers. The paper argues for structural change to ensure that recruitment efforts are matched by meaningful pathways to progression.

The worldwide problem of teacher recruitment and retention is particularly pronounced in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects, due in part to a lack of trainee teachers and to high rates of attrition. The teacher shortage has resulted in non-specialist teachers teaching STEM subjects and is likely to have a negative effect on the next generation of STEM students and STEM teachers. Numerous studies have outlined, and in some cases evaluated, recruitment and retention interventions, but to our knowledge a comprehensive review of interventions specifically aimed at recruiting STEM teachers has not yet been done. We reviewed 25 studies (9 recruitment, 11 retention, 5 both). Most interventions were financial (13/25), others included teacher education and alternative pathways. We evaluated study quality and the method each study used to assess intervention effectiveness. Financial incentives do not appear effective for recruitment despite being the most common incentive. Financial incentives seem to be more effective for retention; 3/9 higher quality studies found positive results. Findings for the other types of intervention were mixed and due to low design quality, not compelling. Our findings suggest that financial incentives might be effective for retention. Further research is needed to determine what interventions work for recruitment as the most common, financial incentives, do not appear effective. Studies investigating the efficacy of interventions need to be more rigorous with large sample sizes, comparison groups, and ideally randomised-control trials. There is also room for innovation as we did not find much evidence of novel intervention types.

Teacher workload is an important policy concern in many education systems around the world, often considered a contributory factor in teacher attrition. One aspect of workload that could be addressed is reducing the amount of written marking and feedback that teachers do. This article reports on the results of an evaluation of FLASH Marking, an intervention aimed at reducing teachers’ marking workload. FLASH Marking is a code-based feedback approach involving peer- and self-assessment, reducing the need to use alphanumeric grading while promoting the use of students’ metacognitive skills. The study involved a single cohort of 18,500 Key Stage 4 pupils (aged 14/15 at the start of the trial) and their English teachers (n = 990) in 103 secondary schools in England. The impact of the intervention was estimated as the difference in before and after measures of teacher workload, comparing teachers in 52 intervention schools and those in 51 control schools. The results suggest that the intervention had the effect of lessening teachers’ workload by reducing their working hours (effect size 0.16), including hours spent on marking and feedback (0.17). The intervention was largely implemented as designed and teachers were generally positive about the potential impact of FLASH on pupils’ learning outcomes.

This paper uses data from the School Workforce Census in England, 2015-2022, to examine differential pay rates for teachers of different ethnic groups. Part of the reason for this is to help understand why ethnic minority teachers are under-represented in the teacher workforce. There are surface differences between the pay of different groups. Black African and Black Caribbean teachers tend to be paid more than average, and Pakistani teachers tend to be paid less. But there are also differences in age, qualifications, region, and phase of education. Taking all of the background and context variables into account, there is no evidence that ethnicity is a clear factor in determining pay. Of course, the reasons why teachers of different ethnicity teach in particular phases and regions may be part of that explanation. However, we will have to look elsewhere to explain the disproportion between ethnic minority teachers and pupils in England, and for the most effective policy levers to increase the supply and retention of minority ethnic teachers. Policymakers and schools could still consider salary incentives to try and attract more minority ethnic undergraduate students to a teaching career, where recruitment and retention of minority ethnic teachers is a challenge.

AbstractThis paper reports on the findings of a comprehensive structured review of the factors that can help explain and perhaps improve the recruitment and retention of ethnic minority teachers in schools. This issue has been a policy concern in several countries. The review followed a conventional protocol, beginning with a search of key educational, psychological and sociological databases, followed by intensive screening and weighting the strength of evidence of each included report. Fifty‐one studies relevant to the research question were finally included in the review. There is strong evidence that the ethnic match between school leaders and teachers is strongly linked to the hiring and retention of minority ethnic teachers. Although there is some evidence that the student ethnicity of the school may be an important factor in the retention of ethnic minority teachers, this chiefly applies to Black teachers in the studies found from the USA. The entry qualifications and assessment criteria for certification to teach were deemed potential barriers to ethnic minority prospective teachers entering teaching. There is no good evidence that alternative certification of teachers increased the probability of ethnic minority teachers being hired or retained, but there are certain supportive features of alternative pathways that could improve their chances.

The UK population in the last decade has become increasingly diverse ethnically. Our analysis of data from the School Workforce Census, UCAS, and the Initial Teacher Training Performance Profiles highlights a growing disproportionality in the ethnic minority teacher vs student population. The results also suggest concerning trends along the teacher pipeline with ethnic minority groups being less likely to be accepted into initial teacher training compared to White British applicants, less likely to gain qualified teacher status, and less likely to gain teaching posts in school. This is a cause for concern for policymakers and school leaders.