Thousands of schools in England have cited our research as the reason why they are spending their Pupil Premium and DfE catchup funding on specific interventions to reduce the poverty gap. Six school interventions we evaluated were deemed high security and had positive impacts. These are listed as “promising projects” for schools on the Education Endowment Foundation website, and by the DfE.

A natural experiment comparing the learning levels of children who attended early years of formal education with those who have had no chance of attending formal education. All children showed progress in learning despite they attended school or not. School matters for learning literacy and numeracy skills but showed more impact on children's social emotional wellbeing.

The aim of the project is to improve the education of children starting school across the world. (www.ipips.org) Policy level reports have been published for England, Scotland and South Africa with another expected shortly for Brazil, whilst in Russia, South Africa and Lesotho we are assessing children at the start of school and one year later showing what they know and can do, and their progress made in the first year of school.

Our highly-rated School of Education has developed a pioneering toolkit to ensure funding for pupils, and especially disadvantaged children, is spent effectively.