Two GCSE English and maths resit programmes will receive nearly £1.3 million to improve teacher training and trial the effectiveness of small group tutoring in colleges.
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has announced two new post-16 pilots focused on GCSE resits in over 50 colleges in England to help form “a clearer picture of what interventions work.”
The total cash boost represents the largest injection into post-16 education research so far by the body.
Charity Get Further has received the EEF’s biggest ever post-16 grant of over £1 million to expand its GCSE resit tuition programme, which installs trained tutors in general FE colleges to deliver weekly tutoring sessions in small groups to students needing help with GCSE English and maths resits.
Over the last five years, the existing programme has taught around 5,000 students at nearly 50 colleges. Between 2021 and 2023, 41 per cent of students who attended at least 12 Get Further sessions passed GCSE English, higher than the 23 percent national average, according to the charity.
In GCSE maths, 27 per cent of participating students passed compared to 13 per cent national average, the charity said in its latest impact report.
The total £1,097,071 will fund a randomised controlled trial to recruit 40 colleges and over 8,000 students in the 2025/26 academic year. The trial will split students in half in each participating college, with one half receiving the tuition programme and the remaining continuing with their usual classroom learning.
The charity said the programme is mostly funded by the EEF injection. Colleges will have to pay 16 per cent of the costs to participate in the trial.
“We hope to be able to use the evidence from this trial to make a compelling case to government on the potential of young people in further education and the need to address chronic underfunding in the sector,” said Sarah Waite, chief executive at Get Further.
The EEF has also committed £198,934 to the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) for its Can-Do Maths CPD programme, which supports educators and aims to improve engagement and mathematical resilience amongst learners resitting their maths GCSE.
The six-week programme was first developed by maths resit teachers in FE who participated in the Centres for Excellence in Maths programme in 2020.
A 2023 scaling-up study in Centres for Excellence in Maths found “at least some impact” of the intervention in increasing students’ maths confidence and capability. But drop-out rates were high.
It provides FE teachers with one-on-one guidance from maths practitioners, lesson resources and group planning sessions over the next year. Colleges also receive £2,057 per participating teacher for releasing staff to take part.
The EEF is aiming for a minimum of 16 colleges across England to take part.
Last October, the prime minister handed £40 million to the EEF to “support evidence-informed practice in the post-16 space.”
Since then, the foundation has committed over £600,000 to a large-scale effectiveness trial for GCSE maths resit teaching methods, the second largest grant to post-16 research.
Results out in August revealed 17.4 per cent of the 185,727 post-16 learners taking GCSE maths in 2024 achieved a grade 4 or above – a 1 percentage point rise on last year but almost 4 percentage points lower than the pre-pandemic level of 21.2 per cent.
In English, 148,569 students re-sat the GCSE in post-16 education this year, with 20.9 per cent gaining at least a grade 4 pass. This was five percentage points lower than in 2023 and almost ten percentage points down from 2019.
The declining rates have caught the attention of ministers in the Department for Education. Last month, officials posted an engagement notice to gather market interest and capacity to deliver fresh CPD (continuing professional development) to the resit workforce.
Emily Yeomans, co-chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, said: “We know that post-16 education is our ‘last chance’ to minimise socio-economic attainment gaps before most young people leave the education system. We also know how important it is for future life chances to achieve a good level of maths and English.
“We encourage any interested colleges to register their interest in either of these programmes and be a part of helping to build this knowledge.”
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