But let’s look at those issues which you are reacting to and which are taking up all of your time.  Raising standards, improving teaching and learning, performance management, resource allocation, curriculum, assessment, challenging underperformance, CPD, SEF writing, getting ready for or responding to inspection, turnover of staff, challenging poor behaviour, home school relationships and community cohesion….take your pick – the list is seemingly endless.

Now let’s look at the cost of being reactive to just one of these. Beyond the physical ‘cost’ of resources that you physically pay for, there is the time taken to implement and assess the effectiveness of your recent reactionary decisions. There are the constant questions of ‘will this address the needs of the school?’ ‘What will be the impact of staff energy levels in delivering this reaction?’, ‘how much time will I have to spend supporting and justifying these steps?’

You can do some pretty simple maths to start calculating the time as £ per hour and multiply it by the number of hours you have just racked up across your team. You will start to get some pretty big numbers, pretty quickly! Then consider that you have just addressed one issue from the long list…and start adding up all over again.

Ok, slow down, wipe the cold sweat from your brow and think about all the fires that you have to put out and consider this.  If you could have intervened before the fire started how much more favourable would your position be now? Not only would you have more time to be the inspirational leader you aspire to be (if only you had the time), but you also have the resources available to you because of the money you had saved in the process.

A cost-effectiveness study of several educational interventions released by the Dartington Social Research Unit (www.dartington.org.uk/investinginchildren) found a benefit-cost ratio of 14.8 to 1 for implementing Success for All. 

In other words, the outcomes of the Success for All whole-school improvement approach, as determined from large, rigorous evaluations, result in a savings of £14.80 for every £1.00 invested.

Where do these savings come from?

• Reduced SEN placements and retentions in the school system.

• Reduced costs of delinquency, unemployment, and social services for the public.


• Increased expected impacts on earnings for the children.

• Increased expected taxes paid for society.

The cost-effectiveness study was carried out by a major research institute in the U.K., the Dartington Social Research Unit, using U.S. research findings and methods pioneered by Steven Aos of the Washington State Institute of Public Policy.

Intervening early, some would say is a leap of faith and a speculative financial decision at best (these are the same people who have a home, car, travel, health insurance themselves, by the way).

If you can make a prediction based on data available on the likelihood of an event then it is not a speculative choice.

For example: If your entry profile data shows that children are underperforming on entering the school, that literacy levels in the school are low, that there is not a significant number of teachers teaching at ‘outstanding’, you can predict with a high degree of certainty that unless something changes, those children in EYFS and KS1 are going to need significant support as they move through the school. 

So what to do…

Sometimes we are so busy doing things the way we have always done them, that we don’t have time to think of how to better achieve our goals.

The decision to intervene comes from your base of evidence, so it would make sense to choose a solution that is research proven.

Finding a solution that is ‘proven to work’ could be a problem because there are all sorts of people that will tell you what they are doing is ‘proven’, because it worked for them, that doesn’t mean it will work for you….

A Randomised Control Test (RCT) is the ‘gold standard’ for research in education. Most organisations have not invested in this level of analysis, some are just starting their journey in this process. Success for All has been going through RCT since it was founded and has beenproven to work. SFA has participated in 30 RCTs and worked with over half a million children in a range of socioeconomic and cultural contexts. The largest of these studies in the UK was funded through the EEF and works with partners at the Institute for Effective Education and Queens University., Belfast.

In summary... All of those things: Raising standards, improving teaching and learning, performance management, resource allocation, curriculum, assessment, challenging underperformance, CPD, SEF writing, getting ready or responding to inspection, turnover of staff, challenging poor behaviour, home school relationships and community cohesion. SFA is proven to address these issues.

So what does it cost to intervene with SFA, in your school? From less than 5p per pupil per day… (based on a two form entry school using all components over 4 years).

Last year across our network of over 100 schools, children averaged over 1.5 years progress in a year.

If you would like more information on how SFA could support your school to achieve its potential and join the 50,000 children we support in the UK, please contact us and we would be happy to arrange for you to visit one of our partner schools and talk to one of our team of experts.