10 – 12 November 2026
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Dubai World Trade Centre Sheikh Saeed Halls 1, 2 & 3
Dr Richard Churches
Director of Research - Education Development Trust
Richard's remit includes the company’s public benefit research programme (www.edt.org/research-and-insights), which addresses the needs of policymakers and funders, as well as oversight of the Alexandria Schools Trust (established in 1902) an investment fund within the charity now used for work with refugees and within North Africa and the Middle East. He has been a teacher, school leader, consultant, and government adviser for over 30 years, reporting to the Permanent Secretary in Brunei and setting up the instructional coaching programme that helped improve the country’s PISA results when most other post-COVID results were in decline.
Richard is the author of the books Learning and the Brain, Neuroscience for Teachers, and Teacher-Led Research. He is on the Education Endowment Foundation peer review panel for quantitative research, including the design and implementation of randomized controlled trials. In 2022, the journal Educational Research and Evaluation praised his work on meta-analysis in education, naming it the "Churches Method," and he was honoured by the Department for Education in England for his services to education. For six years, he has been the onstage presenter for the GESS Awards.
Speaker Sessions
GESS Talks Live
1628
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School improvement and effectiveness – the global evidence and what we need to do next
Session Summary:
In this talk we will review the current global evidence on school improvement and effectiveness. The discussion focuses on the critical relationships between learning, teaching, leadership and government policy. It will signpost participants to a wide range of reading materials that they may wish to access. We will also explore what the latest evidence from the science of learning is pointing us to, and the central importance of considering cognitive architecture at school and policy levels.
