Times Education illustrations.

In the past, teaching was a dark art. It was all intuition and experience. And for some, that was how they liked it – and that is still how it should be. But in the past five years, schools have become ever-more research-informed places. Teachers are increasingly seeking out academics, and academics are increasingly taking their research to the classroom. Meanwhile, the likes of the EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit are facilitating closer relationships between the two sides, and teacher-led grassroots movements are spreading the research word far and wide. But research is not always easy to find, consume and analyse, then apply and evaluate.