School-to-School International

School-to-School International (STS) is an international development organization dedicated to improving the lives of girls, boys, and their communities worldwide through access to quality education. We focus on creating conditions of success for children around the world. Last year, we partnered with individuals, government ministries, nongovernmental organizations, private foundations, and research institutions in 21 countries to assist with research, evaluation, curriculum, training, and strategic planning.

STS's flagship program is called the Whole Child Model, where we support education, health, and engagement in primary schools in Tanzania so that all children can thrive in school. The Whole Child Model is the program for which we are requesting support from LEAP.

Co-founder and President, Dr. Lynd provides technical support and leads research design for ongoing project work across STS. Dr. Lynd also mentors and trains STS technical and program staff and advises on the strategic direction of the organization, key hires, and major policy changes. Dr. Lynd participates in industry groups such as mEdAlliance and Math Power and is a member of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES). 

Dr. Lynd initiated work on the Whole Child Model in Guinea in 2002, where his team experimented with it in 40 schools for 16 years. Now working in primary schools in the Arusha District of Tanzania, Dr. Lynd serves as the Technical Lead for WCM activities. Responsibilities are as follows:

• Design of WCM activities in Tanzania
• Providing technical leadership and training for consultants and partner organizations in Tanzania implementing the WCM program
• Development and implementation of marketing and fundraising strategy for the WCM program, including leading technical design of WCM-focused proposals
• Design of research on the WCM and integrated models, including production of academic articles, presentations, materials about STS, and informal communications materials

Helping teachers in rural primary schools in Tanzania use ability grouping to improve learning, assess performance, and support struggling learners

Effective assessment plays a pivotal role in fostering student success by enabling educators to identify learning gaps and customize instruction to meet individual needs. Research underscores the critical importance of ongoing, or formative, assessment in driving student achievement (Black & William, 1998). By providing educators with valuable insights into student progress and understanding, assessment serves as a cornerstone for informed instructional decision-making (Popham, 2008). 

In Tanzania, however, two factors limit the use of formative assessment. The first is class size - a formidable barrier to this essential practice. Particularly in rural primary school classrooms, large class sizes - sometimes 150 students or more - severely compromise meaningful assessments (Mushi & Mpango, 2020). As a result, teachers often resort to informal data or limited assessments, which fail to capture the nuanced learning needs of individual students (Sawe & Mushi, 2021). This situation perpetuates a cycle of educational disadvantage, with struggling students slipping through the cracks unnoticed (Mtebe & Raisamo, 2020).

The second factor limiting the use of formative assessment is teachers' attitudes: as in many parts of the world, teachers in Tanzania often believe their role is to dispense knowledge rather than to help students learn. Thus, when these teachers deliver a lesson to 100+ students, they can feel they have "done their duty" without assessing if every child has learned. In short, they don't believe they need to assess every child. It is simply not their role. 

Yet when teachers fail to continuously assess their learners, gaps in knowledge among students widen. Without timely intervention, students who fall behind remain undetected until summative assessments - e.g., end-of-year exams - reveal the extent of their academic struggles, often at a point where remediation efforts are too late or less effective (Makori et al., 2021). This pattern is reflected in national exam results, where a significant proportion of students fail to meet proficiency standards (Ministry of Education, 2021).

STS's work in Tanzanian schools has shown that flexible ability grouping can be a promising alternative. This approach allows teachers conduct regular formative assessments of their students' individual needs, then create temporary groups where those needs can be addressed. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each student through formative assessment, educators can deliver targeted instruction and support tailored to the diverse needs of their students (Kikafunda & Ssewamala, 2019). This approach has the potential to enhance learning outcomes for all students, particularly those who are struggling academically.

Flexible ability grouping is a strategy that makes it possible for teachers, to collect real-time performance information. The flexible ability grouping procedure pioneered by STS in Tanzania consists of three basic steps:

• Group instruction. The teacher presents a lesson starting with whole class instruction, then organizing students into groups to continue learning from one another, then having the students complete an assessment in their groups which they score, then pass to a a group leader to tally, and finally, the group leader submits the results to the teacher.
• Analysis. Following the lesson, the teacher calculates the percentage of students meeting a minimum threshold (e.g., 3 out of 4 responses correct). If 70% or more of the students meet the threshold, the teacher plans the next lesson as she normally would. If less than 70% of students meet the threshold, the teacher plans to split the students into two groups: remedial and enrichment. If less than 30% meet the threshold, the teacher plans a remedial lesson for the whole class.
• Subsequent grouping decisions. In subsequent lessons, the teacher organizes students into the appropriate groups based on their assessment scores. 

To date, STS has conducted two waves of research on teachers’ use of flexible ability grouping. In the first wave (see link), STS trained 18 teachers from 6 primary schools in the use of this strategy, then conducted research on fidelity of implementation and participants’ perspectives to measure uptake and responses. In this wave, STS found that 94% of teachers had adopted ability grouping. One-third of these teachers followed the procedure as intended; however, the remaining teachers were still struggling with calculating assessment results and making appropriate regrouping decisions. In the second wave, STS introduced ability grouping to teachers in 2 new schools, where it reinforced its training design concerning the calculation of results and provided tools to help teachers track individual students' results. Of 6 teachers tracked in the second wave, fidelity was 100%: all had adopted the use of ability grouping. Most reported using it several times each week, and checks of the tools revealed that most were tracking student-level results and making correct follow-up grouping decisions.

In both waves of research, teachers reported high levels of appreciation for the strategy, noting that it made teaching and formative assessment more manageable, and for their students, it made learning more meaningful, and in some cases, even fun. The greatest difficulties were reported in the lower grades, especially among students with more limited reading ability. Teachers also reported that they needed additional support with group learning and assessment activities and strategies for understanding the needs of struggling students and ways to address their needs.

Following our first wave of research, we concluded that flexible ability grouping represented a viable strategy for teachers of large classes to differentiate instruction and conduct formative assessments. Following our second wave of research, we found that the ability grouping tracking tool not only helped teachers systematically track student-level results and grouping decisions, but it also helped STS monitor teacher uptake across cases. The second wave of research also reinforced the need for additional support to teachers in group learning and assessment activities and, most importantly for this proposal, a closer look at how teachers could productively respond to the needs of struggling students. These two aspects - curriculum support for learning and assessment activities and strategies for helping struggling students - are the focus of our ability grouping work moving forward.

Based on the successes described in previous sections of this proposal, the Arusha District Education Office has indicated its desire to scale the ability grouping approach to all the schools in the district.  For this reason, we believe that now is the right time to engage in the LEAP project: before scaling to Arusha’s 114 primary schools, the ability grouping process would be optimized if (1) the training and tools provided to date are reinforced with additional teaching and assessment aids, including support for remedial instruction, and (2) empirical evidence of the effectiveness of this model, including the additional aids and tools, could be generated to guide the scaling of the model to Arusha’s schools. Hopefully, this empirical evidence base will also interest the government and funders in expanding the model to other districts in Tanzania.

• Does ability grouping help teachers understand the needs of struggling learners?
• When using ability grouping, do teachers adjust instruction to address the needs of struggling learners? If so, what kinds of support do they provide?
• What kinds of needs do teachers identify when using ability grouping?

Recommendations on how to strengthen the intervention design: training, tools, group learning and assessment aid development, strategies to for remedial instruction

Recommendations for working with district officers in the design of implementation, scaling, and research

Recommendations on the optimal research design – experimental or quasi-experimental – given the purpose of preparing for scaling and attracting additional support

STS is currently raising funds to implement WCM activities during the 2025 school year in Tanzania (Jan-Dec). STS will use the results of this LEAP collaboration to seek additional funding for the proposed study and to advocate for scaling approaches at the district level based on findings from this research. 

Long-term outcomes include: (1) improved package for sharing the flexible ability grouping approach, by strengthening training and support for teachers, the inclusion of additional grouping & assessment aids and remedial strategies for teachers to use, (2) a stronger research base from which to advocate for specific strategies focusing on helping struggling learners, and (3) improved opportunities for scaling and expanded funding.