Helena Takala

Helena is a Senior Researcher in the Centre for Children and Families. She is an educational researcher interested in schools and early years policy in England as well as evaluation methodologies. She has over five years’ experience in delivering mixed-method research and evaluation for clients such as the Department for Education (DfE) and the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF).

Helena has extensive experience managing data collection with teachers, early years practitioners, parents, children and young people. An experienced project manager, she currently manages SEED (DfE), a cohort study of nearly 6,000 families that looks at the impact of childcare quality on outcomes. Helena also manages the large-scale evaluation of Stop and Think (EEF), a science and maths intervention that includes a randomised control trial of over 180 primary schools in England.