Primary education

Teacher with two primary school children

Our aim is to improve primary education outcomes for children. We fund research and interventions that help to understand the factors affecting educational opportunity and identify how educational disadvantage can be addressed.

Our work in primary education research (ages 4-11) explores the acquisition of skills and capabilities, such as oral language and communication, literacy and numeracy skills, digital and transferable skills and social and emotional development.

We also fund research designed to improve the quality of teaching and learning. This includes exploration of different pedological approaches, the shape and role of assessment and the nature of school effectiveness and improvement. We want to help address the shortage of teachers through funding research that examines the factors affecting recruitment, retention and professional development.

Educational disadvantage is a theme across all our work. We want to understand the prevalence of different forms of disadvantage faced by children at risk of falling behind in their learning or being locked into trajectories of low achievement.

Our team


  • Eleanor Ireland headshot

Our impact in primary education


  • Our report by Ed Baines showed that school breaktimes are as much as an hour shorter than two decades ago, meaning that children are missing out on valuable opportunities to make friends, develop social skills and exercise. These findings have inspired campaigns for minimum breaktimes in schools, and greater focus from the Education Endowment Foundation on the links between breaktimes and learning.

  • The UK government expanded free school meal provision into the school holidays during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parliamentary debates at that time drew on Birgitta Rabe’s evaluation of Universal Infant Free School Meals, which demonstrated the positive effect of the policy on child obesity.

  • The Nuffield Early Language Intervention has been offered to state-funded English schools with Reception classes at no cost by the Department for Education, in response to disruption to schooling caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This well-evidenced programme continues to play a key role in supporting children’s oral language skills and narrowing attainment gaps.

Primary education projects

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We aim to improve people’s lives by funding research that informs social policy, primarily in Education, Welfare and Justice. We also fund student programmes that give young people skills and confidence in science and research.

We are an open, collaborative and engaged funder that offers more than money. Through connecting the individual projects we fund, we strengthen their collective impact and give voice to an overarching narrative.

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