We are committed to ensuring that educational programmes and interventions are as effective as possible in helping to improve the lives of children and young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. This commitment to promoting effective education is reflected in our emphasis on being: children's rights-based; outcomes-focused and evidence-informed.

Children’s rights-based

Being children’s rights-based means finding ways of encouraging the active participation of children and young people in all aspects of the design, delivery and evaluation of educational programmes and interventions as well as striving to ensure that all programs are fully compliant with recognised children’s rights standards. It is based on a recognition that these are not just fundamental rights for children and young people, as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but that realising children and young people’s rights in this way will lead to the development of more relevant, appropriate and ultimately effective educational programmes and interventions. This is recognised by the UK Government in its attempts to map its five Every Child Matters outcomes onto the UN Convention.

Outcomes-focused

Being outcomes-focused means being concerned ultimately with developing educational programmes and interventions that can lead to real and demonstrable improvements in the lives of learners. As a Centre, we are committed to creating a sea-change in education where programmes and interventions are designed on the basis of clearly defined outcomes as well as clear and evidence-informed logic for how the programme or intervention intends to achieve those outcomes.

Evidence-informed

Being evidence-informed means being committed to developing and evaluating new educational programmes and interventions based upon the best available evidence. This requires identifying the intended outcomes for a new programme or intervention on the basis of clear evidence of need. It also means designing the programme or intervention on the basis of sound evidence of what has been found to work elsewhere in improving the particular outcomes identified. Ultimately, being evidence-informed also requires a clear commitment to evaluations of the type that can actually tell us whether a programme or intervention has actually been effective in leading to real and demonstrable improvements in the outcomes specified for the particular target group of learners.