Ms Jill McCanney:

The Deputy asked about how we determine what is best practice and how we have evolved and developed our model. One of the really unique aspects of the Middletown centre and one that attracted me to it, professionally and personally, when I started working there some years ago, is the co-ordinated work that goes on between the research department and the learning support and assessment service. As Dr. McCaffrey mentioned, we have an action research model, which means that for every child, young person or whole school we work with, we collect outcomes. Those outcome data go to the research department, which is then able to feed back into the learning support and assessment service and say what is working and which practices schools say they found effective.