ReflectED: Evaluation Report and Executive Summary
Author: Motteram, Gary
Date: 2016-11-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Elementary School Students,Metacognition,Thinking Skills,Skill Development,Goal Orientation,Progress Monitoring,Student Characteristics,Self Management,Student Responsibility,Reflection,Documentation,Elementary School Teachers,Program Evaluation,Program Effectiveness,Randomized Controlled Trials,Mathematics Achievement,Reading Achievement,Observation,Interviews,Statistical Analysis,Intervention,Surveys

The ReflectED programme was developed by Rosendale Primary School to improve pupils' metacognition--their ability to think about and manage their own learning. This includes the skills of setting and monitoring goals, assessing progress, and identifying personal strengths and challenges. ReflectED consists of 28, weekly, half-hour lessons, which teach pupils strategies they can use to monitor and manage their own learning. Pupils are supported to apply and practise these strategies throughout the rest of the curriculum; reflect on their learning; and record audio, photographed and written notes of their reflections on Evernote, a note-taking app. Pupils are then encouraged to review and reflect on these records over time, so that they can observe their progress and consider which strategies seemed to work well. Teachers can also look across these records to get an overview of the areas that pupils are enjoying or struggling with, and identify specific pupil needs. For example, a teacher could explore the notes that a pupil has tagged as &quot;maths&quot; and &quot;difficult&quot; to see which ones they struggled with, and examine which strategies seemed to help them with this. In this project, Rosendale Primary School trained teachers from 30 schools in five areas throughout England to deliver ReflectED over the academic year 2014/15. At the beginning of the year, participating teachers received a pack of lesson plans and supporting resources, and an initial daylong training session. This was followed by three additional half-day training sessions throughout the year. A website, digital resources, and weekly reminders and tips were provided by the London Connected Learning Centre. The National Education Trust supported school recruitment and test administration. The programme was co-funded by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), KPMG Foundation and Nominet Trust, and was part of a funding round focused on digital technology. The impact of the programme on the attainment of pupils in Year 5 was evaluated using a randomised control trial involving 1858 pupils. Year 5 teachers within each of the 30 schools were randomly allocated to either participate in the programme or to a control group which continued with their usual teaching. The primary outcome measure was pupils' maths attainment. The evaluation also examined the impact on pupil's reading attainment and attitudes towards reading and maths, and the impact on the maths attainment of pupils eligible for free school meals. Class observations, interviews and focus groups were conducted to examine how the programme was implemented and adapted by teachers, explore activity in the control group, and identify factors that might affect the impact of the programme. The close involvement of the original developer in the delivery of the programme means that this was an efficacy trial. Efficacy trials aim to test whether the intervention can succeed under ideal conditions. Key findings include: (1) Pupils who participated in ReflectED made an average of four months' additional progress in maths compared to pupils who did not; (2) Pupils who participated in ReflectED made an average of two months' less progress in reading compared to pupils who did not; (3) The findings for the schools in this trial have moderate to high security. However, the analysis conducted suggests that we cannot conclude from this trial alone that the intervention would have a similar impact in other schools; (4) Most schools were already teaching metacognitive and reflective skills similar to those encouraged by ReflectED. This might have limited the additional impact that ReflectED had on teachers' practice and pupils' outcomes; and (5) Teachers suggested that ReflectED would work best as a whole-school programme, and that they could deliver the programme more effectively after the first year of delivery. Future research could examine the impact of implementing ReflectED across all year groups in the school and allowing more time for the programme to become embedded.