Evaluating the Foundation Phase: Update and Technical Report 2012/13

In this report we outline the progress of the evaluation during the past year (August 2012 to July 2013). We also provide details about Stage II of the evaluation design, which has largely involved the collection of detailed information about the implementation of the Foundation Phase in forty-one schools and ten funded non-maintained settings from across Wales.

The three year evaluation (2011-2014) has four main aims, as outlined by the Welsh Government in its original research tender specification:

• to evaluate how well the Foundation Phase is being implemented and highlight ways in which improvement can be made (the process evaluation)
• to evaluate what impact the Foundation Phase has had to date (the outcome evaluation)
• to assess the value for money of the Foundation Phase (the economic evaluation)
• to put in place an evaluation framework for the future tracking of outputs and outcomes of the Foundation Phase (the evaluation framework)