In 2007 the DCSF provided funding to establish additional support for primary schools that had been below the 65% floor target for four years or more. It was anticipated that the schools selected would be able to achieve this target in 2008. The additional funding was to be used to develop bespoke interventions concentrating on those priorities for improvement most likely to improve rates of progress and raise standards. The interventions designed all made use of the tools and processes of the Improving Schools Programme (ISP), a supported whole-school, school improvement programme.

By July 2007 a number of the schools had shown significant improvement. This report identifies what made the difference in 20 schools and captures their success. The majority of the schools were involved in the ISP and all the schools worked in partnership with their local authorities (LAs) to bring about improvement making use of the tools and processes of ISP. The 20 schools are spread across 16 LAs.

The report is available at http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/primary/publications/isp/moving_targets