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As part of its , Ofsted will look at whether a school’s approach to teaching is based on an evidence-informed understanding of how pupils learn.

Schools have long been working on becoming more evidence-informed, but keeping up with the latest research can be difficult alongside the demands of teaching and leading.

So, in case you missed them, here are five studies published over the past academic year that are worth a look.

1. Setting does not significantly harm low attainers

One of the most talked-about studies of the year, conducted by UCL Institute of Education and published by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), looked at .

Looking at around 15,000 students across 97 schools, the research found that Year 7 and 8 students with lower prior attainment in maths made similar progress regardless of grouping.

However, mixed-attainment groups were found to have small negative impacts on progress for high prior attainers, and moderate negative effects for low prior attainers’ self-confidence in maths, compared with setting.

As a result, the EEF recommends that schools choosing to use mixed-ability groups should make sure they are stretching high attainers, and that those setting students should make sure specialist maths teachers are not concentrated in the top sets.

Schools should not change things overnight, though, warned Jeremy Hodgen, professor of mathematics education at UCL. Either mixed-ability grouping or setting by ability can be done well or badly, he told 91����, and the key thing is that teachers and schools think carefully about making sure whatever they’re doing is supporting all students.

2. Locking phones away doesn’t necessarily improve attainment or attention

This spring, amid debate about banning phones in schools, researchers in the US conducted one of the first in schools.

Researchers matched data for almost 5,000 schools that had adopted phone pouches since 2014, and mapped this to phone GPS data, a teacher survey, test scores, attendance figures, behaviour outcomes at the school level and student survey data.

They found that locking phones away did have a substantial impact in terms of reducing phone use, based on both GPS data and reports by teachers. More behaviour incidents were found at the school level in the first year after pouches were adopted, and a dip in student wellbeing was identified, but these situations improved in the longer term.

However, the impact on academic achievement was “close to zero”, and little evidence was found of any impact on attendance, attention in class (self-reported) or online bullying.

Writing for 91���� in reaction to the research, deputy head Luke Ramsden argued that while this evidence does not suggest a phone ban is “pointless”, it does show it “should not be oversold” as the catch-all solution to improve learning and behaviour.

3. Texting parents with the number of days their child has missed can slightly improve attendance

In the past year, attendance has remained a huge challenge for schools. According to the Department for Education’s latest annual national statistics, the proportion of students missing at least half of their time in school reached a record high in 2024-25.

Looking for a possible solution, the�� tested whether personalised text messages sent to parents of children with attendance below 95 per cent would have any impact. More than 100 secondary schools across England were involved in the study, covering around 87,000 parents of 100,000 students.

Parents reported that they found text messages that highlighted the number of days their child had missed clearer than being told their child’s percentage attendance.

A small positive effect was found for the attendance of students whose parents received texts about the days missed, equivalent to around 15 extra days of attendance per 100 students over the five half-terms the trial ran for.

The programme is low-cost (just over £1 per pupil each year), the EEF highlighted when publishing the research, making it a potentially useful approach for schools to try.

4. Strong peer relationships help attendance for disadvantaged pupils and pupils with SEND

Further insight into tackling attendance came from ImpactEd Group. As part of its large-scale work on attendance, the group looked at attendance data and survey responses for more than , across 62 secondary schools.

Both students eligible for pupil premium and those with special educational needs and disabilities had lower attendance than their peers, and researchers also found a noticeable drop-off in attendance between Years 7 and 8.

The strongest survey predictor of higher attendance was a higher score for family and home environment. The study also found a positive correlation between stronger peer relationships and attendance for students eligible for pupil premium and with SEND.

For those eligible for pupil premium, a one-point increase in peer relationships led to a 1.4-point increase in attendance. For students with SEND, it led to a 1.5-point increase.

Writing for 91����, Dr Lauren Bellaera, director of research and insights at ImpactEd Group, said the findings showed the impact of friendships, and the importance of cultivating a sense of belonging for schools working to improve their attendance.

5. No evidence that subtitles improve children’s reading

In response to a campaign launched in 2021 that claimed turning on same-language subtitles while children watched TV would help to improve their reading, researchers at Rastle Lab sought to test the validity of this over a

Firstly, using eye-tracking, the researchers found that Year 1 children barely looked at subtitles.

Engagement with subtitles increased through Years 2 and 3, before levelling off in the later years of primary school. The authors said this suggested children needed to have a certain level of fluency in their reading to even be able to engage with subtitles.

They then tested giving children in Years 2 and 3 six weeks of exposure to subtitles, and found no evidence that it increased reading fluency for those children compared with a group that watched without subtitles.

Researchers Professor Kathleen Rastle and Dr Anastasiya Lopukhina, both of Royal Holloway, University of London, said subtitles may be helpful for children who are already fluent readers to learn new words, but should not be thought of as a way to improve literacy, and the language used in children’s books will usually be more sophisticated.

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