Sam Sims
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drsamsims.bsky.social
Sam Sims
@drsamsims.bsky.social
Associate Prof of Education, UCL
Research Lead, Ambition Institute
Site: https://samsims.education/
Are you a post-doc social scientist with strong quantitative skills?

Would you like to come and work with myself and @clairetyler.bsky.social alongside all the brilliant people at @cepeo-ucl.bsky.social?

If so, please apply for this job!

Please repost!

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQK316/p...
Post-Doctoral Research Assistant at UCL
An academic position as a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant is being advertised on jobs.ac.uk. Click now to find more details and explore additional academic job opportunities.
www.jobs.ac.uk
February 5, 2026 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Sam Sims
Some perspective: The S&P opened down -1.3% on Trump's Greenland saber-rattling. That's $750 billion of wealth destroyed -- roughly equal to estimates of the value of Greenland.

And so ~in dollar terms~ his shenanigans have already cost the US one Greenland, and we've got nothing to show for it.
January 20, 2026 at 2:48 PM
Reposted by Sam Sims
In our latest CEPEO Working Paper, @drsamsims.bsky.social studies the effects of an intervention to improve A level physics uptake among female students by countering gender stereotypes. Read the results here:
econpapers.repec.org/paper/uclcep...
January 6, 2026 at 9:14 AM
Reposted by Sam Sims
THREAD: I'll fact-check all the viral misinformation about the US military operation in Venezuela in this thread

This image, purporting to show the US military arresting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, is AI-generated.

According to Google's SynthID detector, it was created using Google AI.
January 3, 2026 at 5:55 PM
Many students - and indeed adults - underrate themselves when it comes to maths. So what do we know about teaching for confidence in mathematics?

www.ambition.org.uk/blog/five-in...
Five insights on teaching for confidence in mathematics
What can teachers of maths do to help more pupils feel confident? Research lead Dr Sam Sims and maths expert Emma Lark share five useful things the research says about confidence in mathematics, and s...
www.ambition.org.uk
December 17, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Sam Sims
CEPEO colleague @drsamsims.bsky.social has co-authored a new book chapter on effective teacher training.

Access it for free here: livehandbook.org/k-12-educati...
Teacher Professional Development: Costs, Benefits and Policy
Explore teacher evaluation methods, incentives, and their impact on student outcomes. Learn how performance measures drive teacher behavior and skills.
livehandbook.org
December 3, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Reposted by Sam Sims
New research with @clareroutledge.bsky.social

Funded by the Gatsby Foundation

We asked 2000 UK/US undergrads to choose between pairs of hypothetical jobs to understand how more of them could be tempted into teaching
November 28, 2025 at 12:05 PM
New research with @clareroutledge.bsky.social

Funded by the Gatsby Foundation

We asked 2000 UK/US undergrads to choose between pairs of hypothetical jobs to understand how more of them could be tempted into teaching
November 28, 2025 at 12:05 PM
November 25, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Do you like the kind of research that we do at @cepeo-ucl.bsky.social? 📈

Do you want to learn more about education policy and analysis? 🏫

Then why not come and do our new MSc this September? 🧑‍🎓

Be warned - the module on teachers and teaching will be taught by me!

www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-...
Social Policy (Quantitative Education Analysis) MSc
The Social Policy (Quantitative Education Analysis) MSc is designed to help students understand and conduct rigorous research addressing challenges relating to education policy and educational inequalities in a wide variety of professional contexts. The relationship between robust research and evidence-based policy is a key course theme.
www.ucl.ac.uk
November 20, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Sam Sims
We broadly welcome the recommendations of the Curriculum and Assessment Review, in particular citing CEPEO’s briefing note on the value of GCSEs (econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucl:ce...) and...
EconPapers: Should we abolish GCSEs?
By Gill Wyness; Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic and resulting disruption to schooling led to the Government cancelling GCSE and A level exams in
econpapers.repec.org
November 6, 2025 at 2:49 PM
More large-scale survey evidence that many students are becoming disengaged from education when they enter secondary school. This time from collaborators of mine at @liftschools.org

www.liftschools.org/ks3-engagement
KS3 Engagement Report - Lift Schools
Our survey of 21,000 pupils found a stark drop in belonging from Year 6 to Year 9. We explore why student engagement dips in Key Stage 3. Read our full report.
www.liftschools.org
November 4, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Reposted by Sam Sims
Elon Musk's involvement in politics really hurt Tesla sales.

"Without the Musk partisan effect, Tesla sales between October 2022 and April 2025 would have been 67-83% higher, equivalent to 1-1.26 million more vehicles."
October 27, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Reposted by Sam Sims
Finally read the paper and it's worth the buzz.
mRNA vaccines saved 20 million lives in a global pandemic and the technology is opening up new avenues for the treatment of deadly cancers. This is really one of the most impactful scientific developments of our time.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint blockade - Nature
mRNA vaccines targeting SARS-CoV-2 also sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint inhibitors.
www.nature.com
October 25, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by Sam Sims
To be clear: deportations to increase cultural homogeneity is the text book definition of ethnic cleansing. Demands that come even close to this are so far outside any democratic norm and the rule of law. What has happened to a country when this is not condemned in the strongest possible terms?
October 21, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Very sensible. Indeed it would be mad if the government didn’t do it the way Daisy proposes.
October 14, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Joel Mokyr won the Nobel prize today

Here is what I think he can teach us about improving schools:

samsims.education/2022/06/08/e...
Evidence, expertise, and the self-improving school system
(9 minute read) Rob Coe used his 2013 inaugural lecture at Durham to survey the evidence on long-run change in the performance of the English school system. He concluded that standards had not impr…
samsims.education
October 13, 2025 at 11:34 AM
All teacher training ultimately aims to support transfer of learning to new and varied classroom situations.

In this (recently published) paper we provide some of the first experimental evidence on how teacher educators can help achieve this goal:

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Decomposition and recomposition: effects on early-career teachers’ enactment and adaptive transfer of behaviour management practices
Breaking down sequences of teaching into constituent practices is thought to make learning to teach more manageable. However, it also divorces teaching practices from context, which risks leaving t...
www.tandfonline.com
September 24, 2025 at 8:44 AM
Reposted by Sam Sims
Works in Progress is now available as a print magazine. I think it's the most beautiful and readable magazine I've ever seen.

Subscribe today for $100/£75 to receive six beautiful, 120-page issues a year.

worksinprogress.co/print
Print - Works in Progress Magazine
worksinprogress.co
September 17, 2025 at 5:12 PM
How can democrats justify continuing to fund an authoritarian takeover of the federal government?

open.spotify.com/episode/5kpn...
If Democrats Have a Better Plan, I’d Like to Hear It
open.spotify.com
September 10, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Reposted by Sam Sims
September 5, 2025 at 6:50 AM
Reposted by Sam Sims
A huge moment -- Melvyn Bragg steps down from In Our Time after over a quarter of a century. What a programme and what a legacy! Just a model for how to make great, clever, engaging radio, and a twenty-seven-year experiment that proves there's a huge global audience for smart, scholarly programming.
Melvyn Bragg decides to step down from presenting In Our Time
After 26 years on the programme, the legendary presenter bids farewell to the series
www.bbc.co.uk
September 3, 2025 at 10:48 AM
Are you interested in teacher coaching, simulation, transfer of training?

Join us at 11am (online) for this talk on Thursday. Sign up using the link below:

ucl.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
September 1, 2025 at 10:06 AM
Reposted by Sam Sims
Across subjects and grades (6th-college) prequestions improve learning--new evidence from real classrooms (open) psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
August 29, 2025 at 3:28 PM
The @theeef.bsky.social recommends schools use teaching assistants (TAs) to deliver evidence-based interventions

This research, led by my colleague Briony Banks, sets out the options and provides advice for school leaders on how to choose between them

www.ambition.org.uk/teaching-ass...
A review of evidence-based teaching-assistant-led interventions
Our latest research helps you to improve the impact that teaching assistants have on pupils’ academic outcomes. Download to discover the most effective teaching-assistant-led interventions.
www.ambition.org.uk
August 29, 2025 at 5:18 PM