Major project to investigate teacher effectiveness defends itself against possible concerns, including financial support from high-profile trading firm
Data is being analysed in multiple ways as part of this project. Image: iStock/Getty Images
Teacher Education Dataset project, using pupils' assessment results from multi-academy trusts involved in the National Institute of Teaching, has had to guarantee that the data will be anonymised so that it cannot be used for teacher accountability.
The organisers of a large-scale effort to measure teacher effectiveness via pupils’ in-school assessments have defended it against two types of possible criticism.
The National Institute of Teaching (NIoT), a body set up under the Conservative government to act as England’s “flagship teacher training and development provider” is overseeing the project using data from schools within the multi-academy trust sector.
More specifically, the pupils and teachers whose results have been used so far are from the four large academy chains which established NIoT.
But the organisers have had to reassure teachers that all data involved is completely anonymised and not being used to hold them to account. And the funding of one aspect of the project, via philanthropy from the financial trading firm XTX Markets, has also come under scrutiny – though the latter has stressed that it has no operational involvement in the initiative, and no access to the data.
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By Warwick Mansell for EDUCATION UNCOVERED
Published: 2 July 2025
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XTS Markets are doing excellent things in maths education, and we are very lucky to have them. My concerns about this line of work are as follows: If you work in a school facing many challenges, you are teaching your children who are predicted to get top grades in top sets with children who will struggle to get a grade 4. You therefore cannot achieve what you could if all the students in a class like this were being taught in classes where all the other students are at their level of attainment, as happens in most state schools. If you work in a school facing many challenges, the children didn't do any work during lockdown, they've been failing for years, their parents don't give a stuff and will often ensure their children don't attend detention. You have many large classes of children like these. In most schools, these children are in small bottom sets where they get very careful attention. Hopefully, from this description, you can understand that teacher who work in schools which face the most challenges will always be negatively rated by systems such as the one proposed here (just as the schools get inevitably negatively rated by the progress 8 measure). What's the point in negatively rating those of us who work in these circumstances?