This month sees the launch of an exciting new venture for us – the Learning Plus UK Foundation!

The Foundation will offer grants of between £250 and £2,000 to education professionals to undertake research projects, which must involve the use of performance data, in their schools and colleges.

It is part of our ongoing work to support teachers and headteachers in the post-16 sector find new and innovative ways to drive up standards. We hope this will encourage them to look at the role data analysis can play in their schools and colleges.

The Foundation’s committee will consider applications from anyone working in the education sector and teaching up to 19-year olds. They will also accept applications from anyone teaching up to 25-year old students who have special educational needs or disabilities.

All grant winners will also receive the added the bonus of research mentor support from a member of our team.

The research will then be published on the Learning Plus UK website and grant winners will have the opportunity of presenting their findings at one of our regular events.

Please note the research must last no more than 18 months.

If you want to find out more about the Foundation, email us at foundation@learningplusuk.org

In other news, our Director of Data and Research Partnerships, Sean Hayes, was at British Educational Research Association’s (BERA) annual conference in Manchester to present a paper on how University Technical Colleges (UTCs) can bridge the divide between vocational and academic subjects.

The paper looked specifically at the relationship between vocational programmes and the achievement of GCSEs in English and Mathematics.

Although there are still relatively few UTCs up and running, our research found that their programmes are both vocationally and academically robust – and that the strong emphasis on vocational studies will not undermine results in academic subjects.

The majority of students with some BTECs in their Key Stage 4 are achieving in line with expectations in English and Mathematics. However, our research also found that there will be some students who will not benefit from a mixed vocational and academic curriculum.

The research also suggests that students with low prior attainment are, on average, more likely to have greater success if they have some BTEC or vocational element in their Key Stage 4 offer.

Sean is also speaking at an Inside Government conference on 26^th September in London on the subject of data for school evaluation. For more information about the conference, visit the website (http://www.insidegovernment.co.uk/children/data-school-improvement/ )

And finally, our autumn Datadashboards are now being sent out. If you have not received yours yet, please contact us via datadashboards@learningplusuk.org to find out what you need to submit in order to get the report. They are despatched within 10 working days of you submitting the correct data to us - so don’t delay!