ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how the overall design of the Closing the Gap: Test and Learn project relates to the concept of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT). It provides the notions of RCTs as proposed by Goldacre and as commissioned and implemented by the Education Endowment Foundation. The chapter considers the extent to which test and learn project has been a major innovation in schoolled research development, as has been claimed by its designers. It examines the design issues and discusses of some of the implications for large-scale but dispersed educational research initiatives. The big issue underlying the whole test and learn project was the idea of a large-scale, school-based but coordinated scheme of this sort being carried out within a 'school-led system'. The project as a whole was very significant in its ambition and in the influence it had on many teachers and schools across England.
