About us
"We believe that evidence is an essential ingredient of the knowledge base of teaching. Knowing what worked, for whom, in other schools and for other teachers can inform our decisions about how to improve teaching and learning in our own context". Prof Steve Higgins
Our team
Meet our team
Wayne Harrison
CEO / Cofounder
Wayne taught as a science teacher before completing an MA and PhD at Durham University. He has previously developed two Ed-tech platforms focused on online peer tutoring for disadvantaged learners.
Emma Dobson
Research Team
Emma has expertise in evidence synthesis, including systematic reviews and meta-analysis, and translating these outputs to more accessible formats via presentations, guidance reports, gap maps and infographics. She is passionate about making research more accessible and actionable and to this end has delivered focus groups, workshops and seminars to international organisations, think tanks, government departments, LEAs, schools and youth workers.
John Brown
Director / Senior Statistician
John is a statistician specialising in education. He has worked for the Department of Education, the Institute of Education, in schools for the largest Academy Trusts in London as well as the Education Endowment Foundation at Durham University.
Prof Steve Higgins
Cofounder
Steve is the lead author of the EEF Teaching and Learning toolkit, Professor of Education and author of numerous educational books, chapters and research articles. Steve previously taught in primary schools in the North East of England.
Angela Harrison
WhatWorked Teachers Team
Angela is a trained primary teacher and works part time as a teacher in a North East Secondary school. Angela has over 20 years classroom experience across both primary and secondary education. She is leading on the teacher and school communities at Work Worked.
Kees Mastenbroek
Director
Co-founder of Topicus Education, the leading provider of student information systems in the Netherlands. 20 years of experience in EdTech with several ventures.
Evidence Base
Evidence Base
Evidence Base
Evidence Base
Evidence Base
Evidence Base
Evidence Base
By offering rapid, cost-effective research methodologies and fostering collaboration between stakeholders, WhatWorked helps to:
• Improve the quality of education by ensuring that teachers, school leaders, and EdTech developers have access to the best available evidence
• Promote data-driven decision-making within the education sector
• Encourage the development of more effective educational interventions and tools
• Enhance educational outcomes for students through the implementation of evidence-based practices
We are launching our cumulative evidence website for schools in the July 2023 to support teachers and EdTech companies to become evidence producers rather than evidence consumers.
We are launching our cumulative evidence website for schools in the July 2023 to support teachers and EdTech companies to become evidence producers rather than evidence consumers.
Bridging the gap between research, teachers and EdTech.
We are supporting teachers to look at the evidence for the impact of new EdTech products before using them in their classroom because not all technology is effective in improving student learning. Using technology that has not been shown to be effective can be a waste of time and resources, and can also potentially harm student learning. By looking at the evidence, teachers can determine if a product has been shown to be effective in similar educational contexts, and can make an informed decision about whether or not to use the product in their own classroom.
Another important aspect of evaluating evidence is that technology and teaching methodologies are constantly changing and evolving, and what worked last year may not work this year. Therefore, we are supporting teachers to develop practitioner inquiry based projects to evaluate the impact of strategies and interventions, before sharing these with fellow teachers on the WhatWorked website to build an evidence base for what is and is not working in schools.
We support a range of organisations
Who are we working with?
We provide bespoke support to organisations to develop frameworks, research studies and academic working papers.
We are an evidence partner for EdTech Impact and work with organisations to support programmes globally.
We are developing a cumulative evidence base for Eedi using small scale mini-RCTs.
Company Number 12789441
Copyright © 2024
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