News Finding: Comparator schools had a slightly lower figure of students doing well at mathematics at first, but results soon caught up with those at schools who were taking part in intervention activities.
Paper Finding: If anything, the comparator group appears to be catching up with the intervention group, for maths outcomes at the school level.
News Context: By looking at five years of data she found that among the 300 schools who participated there was no impact on maths GCSE results. Comparator schools had a slightly lower figure of students doing well at mathematics at first, but results soon caught up with those at schools who were taking part in intervention activities. The comparator group had a slightly higher proportion of pupils with free school meals, and the study did not find evidence that STEM interventions improved outcomes for less advantaged students.
Paper Context: All of these ways of presenting the findings show that the intervention group of schools did not make more progress than the comparator group. If anything, the comparator group appears to be catching up with the intervention group, for maths outcomes at the school level. Again, the intervention group started with fewer FSM pupils (Table 12) .