Peter Tymms and colleagues at Durham University’s Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring conducted a study of 40,000 children in England to examine what impact effective teaching in the first year of school has on achievement at the end of compulsory teaching at age 16.

Children’s early reading and maths development were measured at the start of school, at age four, using the Performance Indicators in Primary Schools (PIPS) assessments. They were assessed again at the end of their first school year and at ages 7, 11 and 16. By assessing children at the beginning and end of their first year, the researchers were able to identify effective classes – defined defined as a class where children made much larger than average gains from ages 4 to 5, controlling for pretests and deprivation.

The study, published in School Effectiveness and School Improvement, found that:

• Children who were taught well in their first year of school went on to achieve better GCSE results in English and maths at age 16 (effect size = +0.2).
• Long-term benefits in achievement were also reported for those children who were in effective classes in Key Stages 1 and 2, however, these were not as large as those seen in the first year of school.

The study concludes that the first year of school presents an important opportunity to have a positive impact on children’s long-term academic outcomes.

Source: Tymms, P., Merrell, C., & Bailey, K. (2017). The long-term impact of effective teaching. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 1–20.