This report by Pearson presents how educators and students feel about the key challenges and opportunities in education today - such as student engagement, attendance and school budgets. The report includes findings from a comprehensive range of learners and teachers – at primary and secondary levels, from the least to the most deprived schools, as well as both state-funded and independent settings.
At both primary and secondary level, SEND is high up on the list of expected barriers to pupil learning this year, with three-quarters of all teachers reporting this as a concern – a rise of 18 percentage points on the same period in 2022-2023. At the same time, many shared their schools’ positive strategies for SEND support, with one in two schools now offering training for SEND, and 61 per cent of educators predicting technology will improve SEND accessibility by 2027.
With almost six in 10 teachers revealing that pupil disengagement in learning has been an increasing concern for them in the last 12 months, the majority say changes to the national curriculum could make a positive difference. Three-quarters of all teachers would put core life skills, e.g. financial management, into the curriculum, while as many as 70 per cent would add mental health/wellbeing.
Primary and secondary students’ top choice on what could best impact education proved to be digital flexibility for their assessments, while educators cited mental health and wellbeing initiatives, digital learning resources, and more diverse resources and texts, as the top three things that have positively impacted schools in the past two years.
57 per cent of educators today say teacher recruitment and retention will be one of the biggest challenges their school faces this year, putting this just two percentage points behind the top reported challenge: budget pressures. Teacher recruitment and retention are expected to be an increasing concern among secondary teachers especially (84 per cent) compared to primary teachers (55 per cent), with 45 per cent of educators highlighting that a national workforce plan to recruit and retain teachers would be one of the changes that could most impact education in future.