Professor Becky Francis CBE shares an overview of a busy week as CEO of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), an independent charity working to break the link between family income and education achievement.
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Monday

Sitting at my desk at home, I open my laptop and scan my diary for the week ahead. It’s a particularly exciting time at the EEF – the next five days will see a number of different projects across the organisation come to fruition.

The main item on my personal agenda today is to chair our monthly whole team meeting.
At the EEF, we have one central mission – to break the link between education outcomes and socio-economic background – but work to achieve this in numerous ways.

Each team at the EEF leads on a specific remit, but cross-team collaboration is constant. During these monthly meetings we come together to discuss current projects, drawing together expertise from across the organisation so that we can capitalise on opportunities and troubleshoot challenges as a collective.

This month, on top of updates from each department, our programmes team shares the list of initiatives we will be funding randomised control trials for, in partnership with the Youth Endowment Fund. Each of these approaches aims to tackle absenteeism and increase attendance in schools. School attendance is critical both to a child’s safety and achievement, so it’s hugely important that we build the evidence base around what works in this area.

In the afternoon, I virtually meet with new colleagues joining our team as research managers. I always have an individual introductory meeting with new joiners. Our organisation is growing all the time so that we can set up and shore up workstreams that will help us combat education inequality, and it’s a pleasure to welcome new colleagues to the team.

Tuesday

My day begins with a morning commute to Millbank tower, which overlooks the south bank of the Thames. When I arrive, the office is already full of familiar faces, a mix of London-based colleagues and those from further afield who champion our regional work.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, hybrid working brought great flexibility to our lives, which the EEF relish. But I also think we all really appreciate having the space to come together in-person and foster meaningful connections.

This is something of a theme today, as we welcome our international partners from Cameroon, Effective Basic Services Africa (eBASE), for a visit. Over the years, we’ve worked to form six international partnerships with organisations that are keen to further integrate evidence into their education systems.

Our meeting is an opportunity for us to discuss approaches to embedding evidence in educators’ daily practice, and the release of eBASE’s Teaching and Learning Toolkit. We talk about the key similarities and differences in our two contexts, and the specific levers in our respective school systems that can support behaviour change.

Later in the day, I meet with the chief executive of a likeminded charity working to improve young people’s opportunities and broaden aspirations, and join an internal meeting to discuss the progress of an upcoming evidence review – so I’ve lots to think about on my journey home!

Wednesday

Scrolling my phone and checking my emails on the train into London, it’s brilliant to see the positive reaction to today’s release of our updated Early Years Toolkit (a summary of the best available evidence on key areas for learning and development), and the Early Years evidence store (designed to support with putting evidence-informed approaches into practice).

We know that the first few years of a child’s life are hugely important to their future, so it’s really exciting that we’re able to focus more of our efforts on this area.

On my arrival, I head over to Horseferry Road to catch up with an executive headteacher of a South London school about our longstanding mutual research interests, as well as opportunities and challenges currently facing the sector, and the EEF’s engagement with them.

Then, it’s over to the Department for Education for a meeting about the EEF’s work in post-16 education. Similar to the early years sector, this is an area we are keen to expand our work in – it’s a critical time for young people who might need support in getting their learning back on track.

My final stop is my former workplace, University College London – where I’m contributing to the ‘ASPIRE S’ project focused on widening access to STEM education and careers for 10–23-year-olds. This ongoing longitudinal project has been great for keeping connections with old colleagues strong.

Thursday

After two days in the city, I’m happy to settle into a day working from home. EEF processes and external relationships are multi-faceted and complex, and often need some steering – or things requiring harder decisions bubble up to my in-tray.

As well as catching up on correspondence, I spend some of my morning preparing my forthcoming keynote speech at the Association of Colleges’ English and Maths conference, focusing on evidencing effective practice in post-16 education.

There’s also prep work to be done ahead of meeting with the Royal Society Committee, which focuses on education policy, research and practice for 3–19-year-olds.

The focal point of my afternoon is an internal strategy and operations meeting, during which our executive team discusses the functioning of the EEF. In this session, we look at how we could fine-tune our strategic key performance indicators and our approach to recruiting and retaining our specialist staff – a crucial priority for any organisation!

Friday

I start the day responding to emails that have built up in my inbox over the course of the week. Many of these are about an upcoming study trip to Washington DC to meet with representatives from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

The IES has very similar aims to the EEF – working to support the education sector through independent, reliable research. Plans for the visit are shaping up nicely: we’ll have plenty of opportunities for peer learning around supporting evidence generation, and to spread the word about our work with international stakeholders.

Once caught up, I turn my attention to the agendas for our 2023 All Staff Away Days, in which all staff come together to discuss areas for development across our organisation. It’s crucial that we maximise the usefulness of these sessions by structuring them around the most pressing and pertinent issues.

After lunch, it’s time for an EEF Managers’ Meeting where all heads of department come together to discuss team priorities. During this session, we talk about ways to refine our approach to colleagues’ personal development and equality, diversity and inclusion. As an organisation, we’re committed to keeping our provision around both of these areas under continual review, to make sure we are doing the best we can for the employees in our care.

As this busy week draws to a close, I reflect on the various milestones we’ve achieved this week. I feel immensely proud to work with such a hardworking, pro-active team, towards such an important mission. Come Monday, it will be time to look ahead to what’s next – but first, the weekend.

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