November 2019

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve published the first wellbeing research report as part of our Nuffield Foundation project The longer-term impact of COVID-19 on pupil attainment and wellbeing.

Having seen the implementation of KOs in my own school across subjects such as science, history and geography, as computing lead my thoughts turned to whether the use of KOs could also be beneficial in my subject.  As a school which uses Rising Stars Switched on Computing I am confident in the breadth, depth and progression which the scheme provides in line with the requirements of the National Curriculum (DfE, 2013).

In 2021, Hachette UK and the National Literacy Trust partnered to create the Changing the Story reading programme. This exciting new initiative supports disadvantaged children in 25 primary schools with reading. 22,000 Reading Planet and Hachette Children's Group books were donated to the schools. We can now reveal the findings. 

We asked Bali Rai, author of the Green Patrol series from Reading Planet Astro, about his thoughts on diversity in children's reading books, and why children need more than token characters when learning to read.

Starting a new phonics programme is a big and sometimes daunting decision. But phonics trainer and expert Grace Kleanthous explains why moving to Rocket Phonics will be a straightforward s-w-i-tch. 

The third and final research report in our series providing the latest updates in pupil attainment from the summer term 2022.

Read the analysis on children’s attainment in maths, conducted by Dr Kristina Milanovic and Katie Blainey on data from over 120,000 pupils sitting standardised termly maths tests between May and August 2022.

The Catch Up Numeracy intervention was developed in 2007 and 2008 and, during this research, Basic Number Screening Test (BNST) was the standardised test of choice in assessing and evaluating the learning impact of Catch Up Numeracy. Since then, Catch Up has continued to use BNST in its own research projects.

For over 20 years Catch Up has been recommending that schools use SSRCT.  Over that time 'the Salford Test' has been updated several times so that it takes account of curriculum, teaching and learning changes but the various versions of the test have continued to be easy to administer with the pupil data being reliable, valid and easy to access. 

Femi’s Story, by Adam and Charlotte Guillain, shows a young boy whose mum has MS facing some of his challenges. The MS Society asked them how they went about writing it. Article featured in MS Matters Summer 2022 - Issue 141.

The second in our series providing the latest updates in pupil attainment from the summer term 2022.

Read the analysis on children’s attainment in reading, conducted by Dr Kristina Milanovic and Katie Blainey on data from over 130,000 pupils sitting standardised termly reading tests between May and August 2022.