The Double Club Evaluation:Research Report

Double Club (DC) is an in-school extension of the Playing for Success (PfS) programme, working with underachieving pupils in Key Stage 3 to improve attainment, particularly in literacy and numeracy. It provides an innovative ‘double experience’ that combines classroom education with coaching in football or another sport. Young people attend at least twice a week in groups of approximately 15. The main aims of this evaluation were to assess the effectiveness of the Double Club programme, to identify good practice and to provide evidence on how best to operationalise DCs in a wider roll out. The first strand of the evaluation presented findings from case-study visits to five DCs. Four of these DCs were selected as examples of ‘good practice’ (all of which were football-related) and the fifth was selected as an example of a DC which based its activities on a sport other then football. The second strand of the evaluation provided an analysis of the impact of DC on pupil attainment, comparing the KS3 attainment of young people who had attended DC with the KS3 attainment of similar young people who had not attended, using a form of statistical analysis called multi-level modelling.