Case study insights

The early years sector has faced multiple challenges in recent months, with disruption from the pandemic converging with staff shortages, increased safeguarding concerns, higher numbers of children identified with additional needs, and a new statutory framework to implement, as well as pressure to ensure businesses remained financially viable. Despite this – or perhaps as a result – there was demand from the sector for high quality professional development to give practitioners the tools to support children effectively. The ‘Building on Success’ programme has emerged as an effective response to this – well-designed and responsive to the needs of early years professionals.

Gender gaps in education widen significantly at the time of adolescence due to the compounding disadvantage faced by girls, including negative gender norms, and health and safety risks. Our Girls’ Education Challenge project in Kenya works to support girls in a tailored way as they transition to secondary or vocational education and training pathways. In this case study, we illustrate the power of our guiding principle for adolescent girls’ education: as girls grow, we need to grow with them.

One of the newest additions to Education Development Trust’s UK portfolio, the School-Led Tutoring Programme has trained, assessed and endorsed thousands of School-Led Tutors across the nation since its launch in November 2021. This work aligns directly with Education Development Trust’s overarching vision to transform lives by improving education and our decades’ long legacy of supporting pupils by providing them with enhanced opportunities to learn and thrive. We have been delighted to see the incredible progress made in the initial few months of the programme and we are heartened to know the important difference our work is making to pupils and educators who are working hard to overcome the significant challenges brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The need to improve the quality of learning outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged students, is the greatest challenge facing education policymakers around the world – and improved teaching quality is perhaps the biggest driver for improving learning outcomes. In this report, we reflect on the practical steps that have been taken in England to improve teacher professionalism, but we believe that the insights this example provides will have a resonance and relevance for policymakers and education leaders in many other countries across the world.

The Connected Learning Centre (CLC), part of Education Development Trust, supports schools and other settings in using digital technologies creatively and critically. Importantly, it makes technology accessible to girls through the use of gender-responsive pedagogy– and engages teachers, leaders, parents and communities to do the same.

Our Building Learning Foundations (BLF) programme is taking a system-wide approach to improving girls’ and boys’ learning in Rwanda, tackling inequality through teacher development, school leadership, system strengthening, inclusive education and safeguarding. This also involves addressing gendered inequalities within the education system. In this case study, we focus on the elements of the BLF programme that specifically aim to improve gender equity in learning and enhance female leadership for learning.

TechPathways London was a two-year project, ending in 2021, designed to bridge the gap between the digital skills acquired in education and those required by London’s digital and creative industries. It offered a programme of free training for educators working with young people aged 11-24. Funded as part of the Mayor of London's Digital Talent programme, the project was a collaboration between the Connected Learning Centre, part of Education Development Trust, and Queen Mary University of London.

The Early Years Professional Development Programme (EYPDP) provides high quality, evidence-informed continuous professional development for practitioners working with children between the ages of two and four in some of the most disadvantaged areas in the country. Over the course of the programme, around 3,000 practitioners will gain Level 3 and Level 4 qualifications in Language and Literacy, as proof of the difference they are making to increase children’s communication skills and improve outcomes in language, literacy and mathematics.

In Kenya, our Girls’ Education Challenge project is helping girls into vocational training to help them set up their own businesses. Among the more than 3,700 girls who have benefitted from bursaries for secondary schooling or vocational training, several are now employed to make protective face masks to combat the spread of Covid-19.

Governments rely on our expertise to deliver far-reaching English language teaching programmes. We recruit, develop and support qualified English-speaking teachers to transform the life chances of future generations – in particular in Brunei, the Middle East and India.

Education Development Trust’s careers team supports local authorities, schools and colleges across the country to track the destinations of their young people. Thanks to our excellence in data management, our careers team has contributed to the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham being ranked number one in the latest Department for Education league tables.

For more than 20 years, we have worked alongside ministries, donors and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to design sustainable solutions for education systems around the world. Our Development Consultancy team deploys its specialist experience in education reform in low- and middle-income countries providing rapid-response technical assistance.