The idea that everything that happens in schools should be evidence based has exploded in the past decade. While education research was once largely confined to academia, now every teacher is expected to be “research informed”.

Take, for instance, the introduction of the new Early Career Framework in England. This means that, from September, every new teacher who enters the profession will undertake induction training that is explicitly “linked to the best available research evidence”.

But what does it really mean for a school to be research informed? And what are the implications for the school leaders who have to run those schools?

These are questions we set out to answer in our new report, The Open Door: How to be a Research-Sensitive School.

We started by interviewing 30 teachers and senior leaders working in what we called “research-sensitive” schools. These were from two groups: those who were working in designated research schools (that are part of the Research Schools Network) and those who had run small-scale evaluation projects in their schools. From these interviews, we learned how both groups were trying to put education research into practice.

Education research: Focusing on evidence-based practice in schools

The results provided us with valuable insights about how leaders can make their schools more responsive to the latest evidence. So, what are the lessons around becoming a research-sensitive school?

1. Prioritise teaching and learning

We found that, across the board, the quality of teaching and learning is set as the most important school priority in these schools. They have sorted out the basics, such as data and behaviour, to enable staff to prioritise pedagogy. And that priority finds its way into all aspects of the daily life of the school.

This is often seen in moral terms: the improvement of methods of teaching and learning is about delivering the best possible education for students by incorporating the best evidence on what works.

In these schools, research evidence is seen as the firm foundation upon which practice is built rather than the whims of leaders who may have heard about something interesting or seen it incorporated elsewhere.

One interviewee told us that they have confidence in what they are told to do rather than having a sense that leaders are saying: “We’ve ticked the metacognition box, everybody off you go.”

2. Encourage self-reflection

Leaders of research-sensitive schools promote self-reflection at a whole-school level and for individual teachers (and students, for that matter). Teachers are encouraged to be self-reflective practitioners, able and willing to review their own methods of teaching and act to change them as necessary.

The idea of the self-reflective practitioner will be familiar to most schools but we found that, to be truly effective, it requires a measure of teacher autonomy that can be in tension with the need to follow the school’s objectives.

The school leaders we spoke to managed that tension by giving relevant evidence for decisions and encouraging discussion, both formally in meetings and, crucially, informally in casual conversations between teachers.

3. Allocate space for research

The schools that we studied, particularly the larger secondary schools, delegate frequently to the senior management team, members of which take on specific responsibilities, such as organising continuing professional development (CPD) or investigating potential innovations. They create structures that direct as much time as possible towards enabling teachers to reflect on their teaching practice.

Such structures include CPD, which may have a whole-school focus but will certainly not be a one-off session, and will often involve teachers running their own inquiry projects.

Appraisal is used developmentally, allowing teachers to reflect on their practice rather than simply being a box-ticking exercise. Meetings and communication are aimed at encouraging conversation around teaching and learning, for example, by providing research findings on topics of interest.

And these schools work creatively to make time available for such activities to happen. We know that teachers generally do not have the time to read and appraise research papers. Instead, the research is distilled for them, whether by a senior leader or by a teacher who has time assigned for this purpose. A certain scale is needed to make this happen, making this more difficult for single primary schools, for example.

4. Have an open culture

Perhaps more fundamentally, research-sensitive schools develop a distinctive culture. Our report is titled The Open Door because teachers in such schools feel able simply to drop into each other’s classrooms to observe and then follow up that observation with corridor chats or emails.

But research-sensitive schools do not uncritically adopt interventions that appear to be supported by evidence. They almost invariably “digest” them, adapting them to the specific circumstances of the school, understanding them and then trialling them in their own practice.

Following these key principles should help leaders to take their schools forwards to become more research sensitive. However, there are also challenges to be aware of.

For instance, there are challenges around whether a specific innovation is being “correctly” implemented and whether or not it is effective in improving particular outcomes. Many schools had a fairly informal, and by no means robust, approach to evaluating whether new practices “worked” or provided impact.

It also became clear that research-sensitive schools have not been well supported by the current system. These schools have needed a particular bravery to go, if not against the prevailing trend, at least with their own unique approach.

Finally, as with so much in education, we cannot say for sure that a research-sensitive approach is definitely more effective. There is a moral and ethical argument for it and teachers in the schools were convinced by it, but there has not yet been an objective study to show improved outcomes for children.

Ultimately, becoming a research-sensitive school is not a simple, overnight change. It requires a particular kind of moral leadership, the aim of which is to support a culture that encourages the whole school to find the answers.

It is a school-wide focus that is expressed within individual classrooms. The schools that we have interviewed have shown that it is possible but challenging, and requires time, nerve and an all-embracing approach.

Jonathan Haslam was director of the Institute for Effective Education from 2018 to 2020. Nick Abercrombie is emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Lancaster. The Open Door: How to be a Research-Sensitive School can be found at bit.ly/OpenDoorResearch

This article originally appeared in the 25 June 2021 issue under the headline “School of hard evidence”