Effective school leaders could make the biggest impact by having their best staff teaching the youngest children, according to the results of a new study.
While a widespread practice among school leaders is to allocate the most effective teachers to classes of older students - particularly those in exam years - the study suggests this is misguided.
Instead, the influence of a highly-effective teacher at ages four and five is still visible more than a decade later.
In one of the largest studies of its kind, academics tracked the progress of more than 40,000 children in England from when they started school aged four through to taking their first external examinations, at 16.
And they concluded that having an effective teacher at age four or five was ‘significantly related’ to attainment at age 16.
‘This finding leads us to suggest that good-quality educational provision in this phase of a child’s school career has lasting benefits,’ according to Peter Tymms, professor of education at Durham University and lead author of the report, published in the journal School Effectiveness and School Improvement.
The study found that being in an effective class between the ages of five and 11 was also linked with attainment at 16, although the effect was not as pronounced as that at age four, the age at which children usually start formal education in England.
The findings provide a strong argument for concentrating resources - including the teachers seen as the most effective - on the youngest children in a school.
‘There should be a focus on the placement of high-quality teachers to ensure that all children experience an effective first year of school,’ Professor Tymms added.
Many schools, however, seek to have their best teachers in front of classes of older children.
To some extent this is understandable. Primary schools in England, which usually have children from the ages of four to 11, are largely judged on the basis of tests taken at 11.
The results of these tests form the basis of judgements passed by schools inspectors, and can make or break not just a school leader’s reputation but also their career.
Just last week, newspapers in England carried school league tables, ranking primary schools on their performance in these tests. A strong showing can also boost a school’s popularity, attracting other students and cementing its financial position.
Hardly surprising, then, that school leaders are cajoled into seeing the final year of primary education - when children are 10 and 11 - as the most important, and consequently requiring the best teachers.
Classes of older children may also be seen as the most prestigious within a school, as those that enhance a teacher’s reputation.
It takes a bold school leader to put their most effective teachers at the other end of the school, in the hope that this will pay off seven years down the line, or even 11 years when the children have moved onto a different school.
But while the study found that being in an effective class at four and five was related to attainment at 16, there was no significant evidence that it helped close the gap between children from affluent and less advantaged backgrounds.
