School leaders are being warned to avoid “snake oil” products that claim to offer evidence-based approaches to teaching and learning.
Speaking at Tes’ first Education Insights Expert Panel, Professor Becky Francis, chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), said that while it is right that England looks internationally for innovation, she warned there was “good practice and bad practice”, and “snake oil” being sold in the market.
Professor Francis said there are “a lot of snake oil companies and products that claim to be evidence-based” and “teachers need to be allowed to analyse and interrogate evidence”.
The panel discussion also featured Cathie Paine, chief executive at REAch2 Academy Trust, Rebecca Boomer-Clark, chief executive of Academies Enterprise Trust and Caroline Wright, director general of the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA).
Ms Wright said that the past few years had seen ”a much larger focus from companies in the education space wanting to be able to prove the outcomes and evidence for their products and services”.
But she warned that some of the smaller companies, for example, start-ups or growing companies, were not always carrying out thorough “quality academic-level research and impact analysis on their products”.
Responding to Ms Wright’s observations, Professor Francis warned of an “increasing trend” of a claim to evidence “wherever we look”.
She said the claims of such evidence needed to be scrutinised and teachers needed to be given the tools to “ascertain between this very vibrant market”.
Professor Francis also stressed the importance of research literacy so teachers can assess whether a product is right for them.
During the Education Insights Expert Panel, Ms Boomer-Clark said her “natural instinct” in order to scrutinise a product is to pilot it and “to make the mistakes on a small scale first” before rolling it out completely.
Like Professor Francis, Ms Boomer-Clark warned that while the tool could feel like a market-leading product, it might not “be the right solution in a very different context or setting”.
And Ms Paine said that, ultimately, “headteachers are best placed to make the decisions about what their school community needs”.
Ms Paine warned it would be “completely wrong to say there is a one size fits all approach”.
She told the panel that a benefit of being in a strong academy trust was being able to use their financial resources “wisely”, “efficiently” and “effectively”.
Ms Wright highlighted how BESA had partnered with an organisation called Educate, which received some European Union development funding “to help education companies carry out proper evidence and impact analysis of their products and services”.
Since 2017, BESA, along with Educate, have taken 300 companies through the process of how to carry out “quality, academic-level research and impact analysis on their products”.
Ms Wright said that the suppliers should be working with schools to make sure they share data to offer insights beyond their own product development aims, and “I think the most effective suppliers do”.
But Professor Francis stressed that it was important for schools to “use their own data alongside national data”.
She said teachers need to be able to use their “professional lens, reflecting using their expertise about the local context and their pupils’ needs in order to reflect that evidence”.
Last month, the Department for Education published a series of digital standards so leaders would “know what the tech set-up should look like in their school”.
Tes Magazine Education Insights is a new offering from Tes Magazine that features a monthly in-depth report on the education sector alongside a webinar featuring leading figures from schools, education research and the commercial sector. You can download the first report and webinar for free here.
