Best Practice

Five lessons from Washington for closing the achievement gap

A visit to Washington DC to discover how schools there are closing the achievement gap yielded fascinating results for 12 UK middle leaders. James Watson discusses the five significant lessons he has learnt.

Last month, 12 middle leaders on the Teaching Leaders Fellows programme, all working in schools in challenging contexts, visited Washington DC. The visit was funded by the Department for Education (DfE) and led by the British Council. 

Its purpose was to give middle leaders the opportunity to examine the principles behind the strategies used in DC schools, which are currently helping to close the achievement gap, and identify whether these principles could be translated into the UK context. This was all with a mind to running action research back in the UK based upon the findings from DC. 

Five significant areas were highlighted as the most influential. These were: 

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