Evaluating the impact of Every Child Counts

A major evaluation of Every Child Counts (ECC), a numeracy programme introduced into English primary schools in 2008, has shown a positive short term effect on children's numeracy skills. The evaluation, conducted by researchers from the Universities of Birmingham, Durham and York for the Department of Education, equated the improvement to seven additional weeks' progress in numeracy skills for each child. The independent evaluation was not able to derive strong conclusions about the medium-term impact of Every Child Counts on children and schools. Although the programme was considered to be well designed and received strong support from the participating schools it was also relatively expensive to deliver. Every Child Counts (through the Numbers Count intervention) provides intensive support to the lowest-achieving Year 2 children. Children are taught on a one-to-one basis by a specialist teacher for half an hour a day over the course of a term. The programme is currently being provided to over 20,000 children in about 1700 schools.