There is a small community of people with both experience of our schools and the skills to analyse large scale datasets. We would love to make this community bigger.

This summer (starting 3rd August) we are hosting paid[1] interns who have experience of teaching or working with schools to learn how to use the large-scale administrative data that Government holds on schools.

You will spend the first week learning what information is held on pupils, how to manipulate the data for research purposes, how to visualise data findings and how to formulate a research question that can be answered using the data.

In your second (and ideally third) weeks you will work on a small research project in our London offices (near Victoria) alongside one of our team members. We already have an idea of the projects we’d like you to work on, but are happy to hear about your particular interests.

What skills, experience and academic criteria are needed for this role?

You need to have experience of handling quantitative data and some knowledge of statistics. Whilst not wanting to be too prescriptive, you will most likely have a degree in a science subject, maths, or a social science where you completed a quantitative analysis course. You must know how to use Excel and we would prefer applicants to have some experience of a statistical software such as SPSS, Stata, SAS, etc…

The National Pupil Database is too large to analyse simply by opening up the data and having a look around, as you might in Excel. This means that researchers write code to create analysis rather than interact with the data directly. If you have experience of learning some code in any language then this is a great preparation for using large datasets.

How to apply?

Interested? Then send a CV by email to educationdatalab@fft.org.uk using the subject header “Summer Internship”. If you have any questions then email rebecca.allen@fft.org.uk.



[1] London Living Wage, which is currently £9.15 per hour