The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has recently published an evaluation reports on four projects they funded aimed at improving literacy among struggling pupils during the transition from primary to secondary school. One of them – a writing project which gave pupils a memorable experience such as visits to local landmarks and then offered a structured approach to writing about it – found it delivered nine months additional progress, on average, for those who participated.
These memorable visits to the zoo, local caves and castles helped pupils struggling with writing to dramatically improve their written work, the EEF report suggests. Each experience was followed by structured writing lessons where pupils were encouraged to plan, evaluate and monitor their own work with a teacher. The pupils involved made nine months more progress than would be expected over a year. The project, called Improving Writing Quality, seemed to have an even larger effect for pupils eligible for free school meals.