Keeping the same teacher for more than one year may have very little effect on pupils, despite previous studies reporting promising results.
Back in 2022, I wrote a piece for Tes sharing some intriguing and hopeful-sounding research studies.
Academics in several US states and Chile had uncovered evidence that allocating teachers to the same pupils repeatedly - a strategy known as “looping” - might improve classroom relationships, boost achievement and increase pupils’ sense of belonging.
The findings made intuitive sense. Stability should provide more opportunities to strengthen relationships as well as to establish classroom culture and routines. It also gives teachers more of a chance to properly understand pupils’ needs.
Looping’s potential benefits also tallied with studies in public health suggesting that “continuity of care” can improve outcomes because information is less likely to be lost and trust is enhanced.
Last summer I therefore published an academic paper bringing together some of the evidence and explaining the potential benefits.
It’s the job of any good researcher to stay sceptical and keep checking, though. That’s why Professor John Jerrim from UCL Institute of Education and I decided to delve further by analysing some underused international data.
Our findings were published in the Oxford Review of Education earlier this month.
Teacher ‘looping’: does it work?
We used data from the Teaching and Learning International Survey video study, an impressive international survey from eight different educational jurisdictions around the world, including England. We looked at data based on over 500 videoed lessons about quadratic equations, involving over 15,000 pupils.
It’s always a shame when your hopes are dashed. It’s even worse when you have a hand in dashing your own hopes. However, that’s exactly what ended up happening.
We began by identifying classes that had been “looped” and our first big finding was that looping is relatively rare in England compared with other countries.
We treated a class as “looped” if at least three-quarters of the pupils in the class had been taught by the same maths teacher two years in a row.
The data wasn’t based on a representative sample so the exact proportions should be taken with a pinch of salt, but we found that in Shanghai, four times as many classes were “looped” compared with in England.
Next, we compared the looped and unlooped classes in terms of pupil attainment in maths, absence rates, student self-efficacy, the classroom environment (including behaviour, classroom management and pupil-teacher relationships) and teachers’ enjoyment.
We were bitterly disappointed. It turned out the differences between the looped and non-looped groups were very small, or even non-existent. Attendance might have been marginally better in looped classes, whereas pupils’ self-confidence may have been a tiny bit lower. To all intents and purposes, though, there was no difference.
So what does it mean? Firstly it’s important to remember that the absence of an effect is not evidence of a negative effect. In other words, our analysis doesn’t mean looping is harmful. Schools and teachers therefore needn’t avoid looping if they think their pupils are likely to benefit.
It’s also important to note that the study focused on secondary school maths lessons and there were various limitations to the sample, given that it wasn’t random.
However, looking back at previous studies, we noted that although they found positive impact, the effects they reported were actually very small. There’s therefore no evidence at the moment to support prescribing the strategy on a more widespread basis.
Looping may have seemed like a cheap and intuitively appealing way of improving teachers’ and pupils’ lives while boosting attainment. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely to be the elusive silver bullet we all dream of.
Loic Menzies is a visiting fellow at Sheffield Institute of Education and senior research associate at Jesus College Intellectual Forum
For the latest research, pedagogy and practical classroom advice delivered directly to your inbox every week, sign up to our Teaching Essentials newsletter
