The impact of Creative Partnerships on attainment and attendance in 2008-9 and 2009-10

Author: Louise Cooper, Tom Benton, Caroline Sharp

Institution: NFER (National Foundation for Educational Research)

Full reference: Cooper, L., Benton, T. and Sharp, C. (2011). The Impact of Creative Partnerships on Attainment and Attendance in 2008-9 and 2009-10. Slough: NFER.

Summary of key findings

This report was commissioned by Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE) which runs the Government’s creative learning programme Creative Partnerships.

Creative Partnerships was designed to develop the skills of young people across England, raising their aspirations and achievements, and opening up more opportunities for their futures. The report presents findings from the fourth follow-up study to explore the evidence that Creative Partnerships might be having an impact on young people’s attainment and attendance.

The study analyses data at both school and pupil levels and focuses on Pupils who sat national key stage exams or those who were assessed by teachers at the end of the 2008/09 and 2009/10.

The team looked at progress in attainment separately for key stage 1, 2, 3 and 4.

The researchers also considered the impact of Creative Partnerships on pupil attendance using the two measures of total absence and unauthorised absence.

Key findings: Attainment

The main statistically significant and consistent findings at pupil level when comparing pupils, who had taken part in Creative Partnerships with other similar pupils in the same school, were:

• At key stage 1, pupils involved in Creative Partnerships activities made significantly greater progress in speaking and listening in both 2009 and 2010.
• At key stage 3, the difference was statistically significant for pupils’ average points score, and English in 2009 and 2010.
• At key stage 4, the difference was statistically significant in 2010 in Pupils’ total and capped points score.

Key findings: Attendance

At both primary and secondary level there was evidence found of a slight relationship between involvement in Creative Partnerships activities and increased levels of pupil attendance, although there was no consistent pattern across both years.

The relationship could be seen at both pupil and school level:

• In 2009 there was some evidence to suggest reduced levels of total absence in secondary schools involved in Creative Partnerships.
• In 2010 there was some evidence to suggest reduced levels of unauthorised absence in primary schools involved in Creative Partnerships.

Conclusions

Creative Partnerships appears to be contributing to a degree of progress in attainment, especially for young people directly involved at key stages 3 and 4:

• Pupil level analysis in 2009 revealed an effect equivalent to 13% of the young people who attended Creative Partnerships activities achieving, on average, one level higher in their key stage 3 average points score than expected, given their background characteristics.
• At the school level, in comparison to other similar pupils not attending Creative Partnerships schools, the effect was equivalent to 9% of Creative Partnerships pupils achieving, on average, 1 level higher for their average key stage 3 points score than expected, given their background characteristics.

These positive attainment results are in line with the results from previous studies:

All three studies that examined results at pupil level show improved results for pupils’ average point score and English results at key stage 3, and improved results for the total GCSE point score at key stage 4 (with the exception of 2009).

The impact of Creative Partnerships on attendance is less clear, but there is evidence of some small, positive associations for young people, particularly for secondary pupils in 2009 and primary pupils in 2010.

The researchers therefore conclude that Creative Partnerships appears to be making a small but valuable contribution to improving attainment at key stages 1, 3 and 4.

Methodology

NFER contacted the programme coordinators at schools that had been or were currently involved in the Creative Partnerships programme to find out which pupils at the schools had been involved in Creative Partnership activities. These pupils formed the intervention sample.

Using data from the National Pupil Database, and by taking account of other characteristics such as ethnicity, school type, and deprivation measures, NFER were able to compare the intervention sample to other similar young people nationally.

Read the report.