Major project to investigate teacher effectiveness defends itself against possible concerns, including financial support from high-profile trading firm

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.