The role of the National Foundation for Educational Research is to provide independent, evidence-based information to support policy-makers and practitioners.
The school term review set out to consider recent evidence, from the UK and abroad, relating to changes to the school calendar. It drew on research evidence and opinion-based material published in the five-year period from 1999-2003.
The review did not conclude that “changing to a similar arrangement in Britain would not have any impact on pupil achievement, attendance, motivation or exclusion”, as stated in the article.
It found that many of the issues surrounding calendar change had not been explicitly researched and that a large proportion of the available material was advocacy rather than research.
The review’s main finding was that there was simply not recent enough evidence of sufficient quality to answer the central questions concerning pupil achievement, motivation and attendance.
Caroline Sharp
Principal research officer
National Foundation for Educational Research
The Mere
Upton Park, Berkshire
