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The Early Career Framework: Origins, outcomes and opportunities

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Teacher quality is widely reputed to be the key determinant of educational success for students. Teachers at the beginning of their career need support and guidance in providing a sustained, high quality experience for their learners. The role of continuing professional development (CPD) is crucial in honing and refini

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CCT article on teacher status internationally

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CCT article on teacher status internationally

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Tanya Ovenden-Hope, Institute of Education, Plymouth Marjon University, UK

There is a discord internationally between the 'agencies' that control the supply and quality (teacher status) of the school 'workforce', such as the on behalf of the government in England and the government and Swedish Association for Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) in Sweden, and experts experienced in providing teacher training and professional development, such as university teacher education departments in Canada and Israel (Ovenden-Hope and Passy, 2020). The disagreement is bound to perceptions of teacher as predominantly either commodity or professional.

It could be argued that the agencies that control school teacher supply in many countries have caused the precarious position of too few teachers entering the profession (low recruitment), alongside not enough teachers staying in teaching beyond three years (high attrition/low retention). Howson (2020) has noted that agencies in England have 'not coped well with external circumstances that have affected teacher supply' (p. 19) since 1970, resulting in policies and practices that have not made teaching a 'career of choice' (p. 20) for graduates. Responses to challenges in recruiting and retaining enough teachers in other countries appear similarly ineffective in the long term (Huat See et al., 2020). In Jamaica, for example, the reaction of teachers to the 'poor working conditions, feelings of disempowerment, low professional autonomy, lack of meaningful professional preparation' (Gentles, 2020, p. 197) resulting from education policy and practice is to migrate and teach in other countries, directly affecting teacher supply.

The way in which many agencies have approached teaching appears to have positioned teachers as a 'commodity', rather than as professionals. This market-driven approach is working against any global ambitions that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education (UN, 2015) may have for the provision of quality teachers to educate the increasing world population. A commodity is a product or service. A teacher could be argued to be both of these things: a product of (), which prepares them to provide a service (teaching) in schools. However, the cultural meaning of commodity is much more than this, suggesting that it is a commercial entity, which the Cambridge Dictionary (2020) definition demonstrates:

'Commodity (noun): a substance or product that can be traded, bought or sold' (para. 2).

In many countries, the way in which agencies engage with the recruitment and retention of teachers is more similar to the commercial production and maintenance of a product than it is to the training and development of a professional. A professional role is:

'respected because it involves a high level of education and training' (Cambridge Dictionary, 2020, para. 4).

Teacher education providers across the globe are doing their best to embed 'the professional' within ITT programmes and continuing professional development and learning (CPDL) programmes (see examples in Ovenden-Hope and Passy, 2020). However, agencies' focus is to provide enough teachers to meet demand, to secure the product (teacher) and to provide the service (teaching), and if this means unqualified teachers lacking in a high level of education and training entering the classroom, so be it (Ovenden-Hope and Passy, 2020). It is in these decisions made by agencies that perceptions of teacher as professional end and teacher as commodity begin.

Agencies responsible for education are predominantly bound to the political system of the country, whether at government, state, federation, territory or municipal level. The political control of, or association with, teacher supply creates the functional position for agencies to ensure that enough teachers are in schools to teach all the students. This commoditisation of teaching to meet required 'teacher' numbers in the classroom appears to have led to a 'status-based crisis for teacher supply'. In other words, the crisis of teacher supply in western societies - not having enough teachers to meet classroom needs - is embedded in the status that teaching is given in that society. When teaching is not perceived or treated as a profession it becomes less attractive as a career and results in:

low initial teacher trainee numbers that do not meet targets (in normal economic times)

increasing difficulty in recruiting teachers (in normal economic times)

poor teacher retention (teacher attrition is high).

The status-based crisis is perpetuated by recruiting unqualified/unlicensed teachers. Allowing teaching to become a 'job' (service) that can be done by any seemingly competent adult (commodity) without a teaching qualification and, in some cases, a degree, undermines the status and value of teaching as a highly skilled profession. As teaching status declines, so does that attractiveness of teaching as career to both new starters and those experienced in the role. In Figure 1 I have attempted to represent the status-based crisis in teacher supply in a simple diagram.
Figure 1: Cyclical crisis of teacher supply
The agencies controlling teacher supply are expected to ensure the quality of teachers through training and qualifying status/licensing/certification to teach. However, as teacher recruitment and retention have become increasingly challenging in most Western countries (Ovenden-Hope and Passy, 2020), the agencies' function to supply teachers has superseded notions of quality and profession. This is demonstrated by the increasing numbers of unqualified/unlicensed teachers in classrooms internationally. In Sweden in 2018, one-third of teachers were uncertified, with numbers expected to reach 80,000 in 2031 (Niklasson, 2020). In England in 2019, there were 25,078 unqualified teachers in state-funded schools (, 2020). In the United States, 8.8 per cent of teachers were not fully certified in 2016 (Garcia and Weiss, 2019), and this is expected to have increased as the teacher shortage has increased.

The crisis cannot be solved by financial incentives to encourage individuals to train to teach, or stay in teaching short term, which is a typical response by agencies to challenges in teacher recruitment, and have not worked to support long-term retention (Huat See et al., 2020). This response has not worked as it fails to acknowledge the fundamental precept identified by experts for a sustainable qualified teacher supply: teacher as professional - valued, trusted, educated (at least graduate level), continually developing skills and practice and with high status (Cordingley and Crisp, 2020).

There is hope. Improving teacher recruitment and retention globally, escaping the status-based crisis in teacher supply (and not just through recession making public sector employment more appealing) is possible. Agencies and governments will need to rethink their approaches to meeting demand for teachers. It will require long-term, structured investment (beyond any political party term) and strategic planning, with agencies positioning teacher as professional, and not commodity. Those that control supply will need to understand the importance of status in a profession and the impact this has on teacher training, recruitment and retention.

Some countries have started on this journey of professional engagement with teaching. In China, teachers who follow a government training programme are given support and development that raises their status; this includes 'access to furthering their education in their first five working years... necessary working and living conditions' (Liu and Li, 2020, p. 179), which is a start. As is the Recruitment and Retention Strategy (DfE, 2019) in England, which aims to 'support a career offer that remains attractive to teachers as their careers and lives develop' (DfE, 2019, p. 24). But more is needed. The Recruitment and Retention Strategy (DfE, 2019) sits alongside education policy that deregulated teaching in 2012 to allow the recruitment of unqualified teachers (supporting the status-based crisis in teacher supply). The announcement by the Department for Education on 2 January 2021 of a market review of Initial Teacher Training (DfE, 2021) demonstrates there is still some distance to be travelled by the UK government in their thinking about teaching as a profession.

Agencies need to realise that approaching teacher supply as an exercise in meeting demand is doomed to fail. Teachers are not commodities. Teachers are professionals, and recognising them as such should act as the basis for all policies and practices. Highly skilled, trusted, autonomous teachers are 'a fundamental building block to national success' (Cordingley and Crisp, 2020, p. 146). In order for teaching to be a 'career' of choice, it needs to be seen by all as a profession in every sense of the definition provided earlier. As Howson (2020) astutely comments, it is in the interests of governments to get teacher education right:

'A modern economy needs an educated workforce. It should not be beyond the powers of politicians to ensure such a workforce is available to teach every child that the state is responsible for educating by designing a system that provides sufficient well-trained teachers, with the highest quality preparation, and where they are needed by schools. Government should also create an appropriate career development programme that helps teachers develop their skills and expertise, as well as helps them create a career within the state school system.' (p. 19)
Professor Tanya Ovenden-Hope is co-editor with Dr Rowena Passy of Exploring Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Contextual Challenges from International Perspectives published in October 2020 by Routledge. To be in with a chance of receiving a free copy of this book, simply follow @unieducator and @passyrowena the week issue 11 of Impact is published (from 3 February) and copy them into a tweet that finishes this statement, 'Teaching is a profession because...'.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, agencies and governments appear to have realised the important role that schools play in allowing an economy to function. Public awareness of teaching and the role of teachers has also increased, as parents have spent more time with their children at home through national lockdowns. The media has reported on schools being open in many countries to vulnerable children and those of key/critical workers and of teachers creating online resources for all ages to support parent and child access to learning. Teachers, like professionals in health care, have exposed themselves to risk of infection by putting their students needs first. Teachers are professionals and the pandemic has reflected this. The time is right for truly considering teaching as a profession to break the status-based crisis of teacher supply.

References

Cambridge Dictionary (2020) Cambridge Dictionary online. Available at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/commodity (accessed 16 November 2020).

Cordingley P and Crisp B (2020) Professional learning and recruitment and retention: What global regions can tell us. In: Ovenden-Hope T and Passy R (eds) Exploring Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Contextual Challenges from International Perspectives. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 131-147.

Department for Education (DfE) (2019) Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy. London: DfE. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/786856/DFE_Teacher_Retention_Strategy_Report.pdf (accessed 16 November 2020).

Department for Education (DfE) (2020) School workforce in England. Reporting year 2019. Available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england#releaseHeadlines-tables (accessed 2 December 2020).

Garcia E and Weiss E (2019) The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought. Education Policy Institute (EPI). Available at: https://files.epi.org/pdf/163651.pdf (accessed 8 December 2020).

Gentles HC (2020) Stemming the tide: A critical examination of issues, challenges and solutions to Jamaican teacher migration. In: Ovenden-Hope T and Passy R (eds) Exploring Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Contextual Challenges from International Perspectives. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 197-209.

Huat See B, Gorard S, Morris R et al. (2020) How to recruit and retain teachers in hard-to-staff areas: A systematic review of the empirical evidence. In: Ovenden-Hope T and Passy R (eds) Exploring Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Contextual Challenges from International Perspectives. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 148-162.

Howson J (2020) Shortages, what shortages? Exploring school workforce supply in England. In: Ovenden-Hope T and Passy R (eds) Exploring Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Contextual Challenges from International Perspectives. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 9-21.

Liu H and Li Z (2020) High school teacher retention: Solutions in the Chinese context. In: Ovenden-Hope T and Passy R (eds) Exploring Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Contextual Challenges from International Perspectives. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 176-184.

Niklasson L (2020) Suggestions from national-level actors on how to handle retention and attrition of teachers. In: Ovenden-Hope T and Passy R (eds) Exploring Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Contextual Challenges from International Perspectives. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 210-220.

Ovenden-Hope T and Passy R (eds) (2020) Exploring Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Contextual Challenges from International Perspectives. Oxon: Routledge.

United Nations (UN) (2015) Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015. A/RES/70/1. Available at: www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/70/1&Lang=E (accessed 16 November 2020).

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Teacher as commodity versus teacher as professional: An international status-based crisis in teacher supply

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Tanya Ovenden-Hope, Institute of Education, Plymouth Marjon University, UK There is a discord internationally between the 'agencies' that control the supply and quality (teacher status) of the school 'workforce', such as the Department for Education on behalf of the government in England and the government and Swedish Association for Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) in [...]

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Chartered College article on teacher status and ECT R & R

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Chartered College article on teacher status and ECT R & R

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Professor Tanya Ovenden-Hope, Plymouth Marjon University, UK

In July 2022, the () monthly statistics (, 2022a) demonstrated that the recruitment of trainee teachers did not reach the government target, with the total application numbers lower than those of 2019 and the actual number of applicants achieving course places for September down by 15 per cent. The National Foundation for Education Research (NFER) have very recently (November 2022) reported on the challenge for schools in England to recruit and retain enough teachers:

National data on the teacher labour market suggests that the supply of new trainees is insufficient to meet future demand, which implies that schools are likely to face challenges recruiting teachers, perhaps leading to staff shortages .

Worth and Faulkner-Ellis, 2022, p. 2

This challenge to attract graduates to teacher training affects the number of early career teachers (ECTs) entering the profession. Since entering a new phase of recruitment to teacher training in September 2022, the situation has become even worse, suggesting that we are in the midst of a teacher supply crisis. Primary trainee teacher applications are currently eight per cent lower and secondary 23 per cent lower than in 2019. The size of the problem is clearly articulated by Jack Worth:

It's very hard to overstate how dreadfully bad these ITT application numbers are.

The Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy (DfE, 2019a) was launched by the (DfE) in January 2019 and included an Early Career Framework (ECF) (DfE, 2019b), which became mandatory in primary and secondary maintained schools in England in September 2021. The government recognised the challenge in attracting and retaining teachers, particularly ECTs, and the issues being caused in school by poor teacher supply. The hope was that structured, statutory ECT professional development, with a clear framework and mentor support (the ECF), would improve both teacher recruitment and retention. Educationalists welcomed the ECF reform, as it offered sustained, funded professional development at the beginning of a teacher's career in England (Ovenden-Hope, 2022a). However, ECT attrition currently stands at 12.5 per cent after one year of teaching and 23 per cent by year three of teaching (DfE, 2022b). The ECF therefore has a formidable and potentially impossible task in appeasing the great supply crisis that schools in England are experiencing.

Recruitment

The government in England has articulated what it believes that all new teachers should know, and be able to do, through the ECF (DfE, 2019b). It has five core areas identified as essential for ECT development: behaviour management, pedagogy, curriculum, assessment and professional behaviours. These five areas are framed within the eight Teachers' Standards, but the DfE is clear that 'the ECF is not, and should not be used, as an assessment framework' (DfE, 2019b, p. 5) and that ECTs will only be assessed against the Teachers' Standards (DfE, 2021a). Content is prescriptive, underpinned by evidence referenced in the ECF (DfE, 2019b), and aligns with the 'golden thread' of teacher development mapped by the DfE from the ITT Core Content Framework to the National Professional Qualifications (DfE, 2021b).

The ECF provides ECTs with an additional 10 per cent off timetabled teaching in their first year and five per cent in their second year (all teachers also have 10 per cent preparation, planning and assessment time allocated) to engage in professional development and learning, including with their mentor. This recognition of the importance of professional development to an occupation is core to its professional status (Ovenden-Hope, 2021). The ECF provides funded, structured professional development, and to some degree offers official affirmation of the professional status of teaching. This change in the treatment of teachers has the potential to attract to teaching more graduates and career changers who are seeking a professional career.

The ECF programmes are primarily delivered through six lead providers (a provider contracted by the DfE to deliver the statutory ECF, sometimes referred to as the training provider). Each lead provider has developed an ECF programme that meets the ECF core areas through two types of content that ECTs are required to learn: key evidence statements and practice statements. The ECF programmes content is largely prescriptive, as underpinned by evidence in the ECF (DfE, 2019b), but lead providers have attempted to contextualise their programmes to include elements that they believe should run through ECT professional development (See Ovenden-Hope, 2022c for more on this). The lead providers have connected to the 87 regional Teaching School Hubs (TSHs), which in turn have liaised with local delivery partners such as multi-academy trusts (MATs) and Teaching School Alliances. The TSH programme is also part of the government's Recruitment and Retention Strategy (DfE, 2019a), and was designed to support the roll-out of the ECF (as well as delivering school-based initial teacher training) and provide DfE-'approved' professional development for schools.

There are, however, two other approaches on offer from the DfE that schools and MATs can choose to support their ECTs and deliver the ECF:

1. Schools can use ECF resources developed by four of the lead providers, available through the DfE to deliver the ECF themselves

2. Schools can provide their own ECF programme developed fully in-house.

Using a lead provider for the ECF and using the DfE's ECF resources are fully DfE-funded for schools; however, providing their own ECF programme and resources is not. It could be argued that the DfE has incentivised schools financially to choose an approach to ECT professional development that favours the 'approved' ECF provision.

The ECF has embedded mentoring as a key component for the successful delivery of the programme and development of ECTs. Mentors have come from the schools' teaching workforce and the expectation is that they are trained in both mentoring and coaching, as well as in the content of the ECF. Mentor training is delivered by the lead provider, unless the school has chosen to use the ECF resources only or go it alone, in which case the training of mentors is by the school (with support available from the TSHs). The hope is that mentors are not line managers or induction tutors (the teacher that supports the assessed part of an ECT's professional development), but are expert teachers that will support the ECT through regular mentoring sessions that align with the chosen ECF lead provider's programme or school ECF programme. Mentors are funded by the DfE to undertake this role, demonstrating the commitment of the government to ECT development. This investment in ECT development by the government should be contributing to making teaching a more attractive career, and in turn support teacher recruitment. Unfortunately, the current data for teacher trainee applications identified above suggests that this is not the case.

The ECF is part of the most significant reform to take place in teaching in England, but was rolled out during the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools were already struggling with the changes required to keep learning happening and the additional workloads associated with this. The pace of the national roll-out was also significant, with mandatory ECT development being required in schools before full mentor training had taken place, and with little time for schools to plan and prepare. These capacity issues in teaching will all have impacted on the perceptions of those considering teaching as a career and on subsequent recruitment to both teacher training programmes and teaching once trained.

Retention

Retaining ECTs has been an ongoing challenge, with current retention data demonstrating that the problem is not going away. The DfE school's workforce data in 2021 reported that 12.5 per cent of teachers had left the profession after only one year in 2021, 23 per cent within three years and 31.2 per cent within five (DfE, 2022b). In 2015, I developed an Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) intervention called 'RETAIN', aimed at mitigating the high levels of ECT attrition in socio-economically deprived coastal and rural primary schools (Ovenden-Hope et al., 2020). RETAIN showed promise for improving ECT retention by improving ECT self-efficacy and confidence to remain in teaching (EEF, 2018). The DfE was interested in the findings from RETAIN, in particular the evidence-informed approach to the course content and ECT development, and the coaching and mentoring embedded in the programme. RETAIN was used to inform DfE's early thinking about ECT professional development (Iglehart, 2022). RETAIN was developed from 2015 as a pilot, with the potential to mitigate high levels of ECT attrition, and can therefore be used to demonstrate the long-term challenge for schools in England of ECT retention - a challenge that contributes to the current great supply crisis.

The research exploring factors that cause ECT attrition reports a complex picture and suggests that, regardless of the quality of support and training provided by the ECF, ECTs are likely to continue leaving in numbers high enough to negatively affect supply. The National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) found that the main reasons for teacher and school leader dissatisfaction were the high workload, pupil behaviour, budget cuts, pay and accountability (NASUWT, 2019). However, there is also contradictory evidence that ECTs are 'not primarily motivated to leave the profession by the prospect of increased pay' (Worth et al., 2018, p. 5). It has also been argued that ECTs primarily go into the profession to make a difference, and leave when teaching does not meet this expectation (Menzies, 2019). Overall, this suggests that with the range of reasons for ECTs leaving teaching, there is a clear issue that needs addressing, which is supporting new teachers in coping with the unexpected demands of teaching. In an ideal teaching world, one without COVID, poor pay and increasing accountability, the ECF could make this ECT support possible. The mentoring of ECTs that underpins the ECF should allow mentors to provide clear guidance and strategies to ECTs in how to manage being a teacher in an increasingly demanding environment. The challenge in achieving this mentoring need is in the time given to mentors for their role, the training that they receive to do the role and the capacity that they have for support beyond the structure of the ECF programme content. However, without mentors being able to support the wider wellbeing of the ECT, the great supply crisis will continue.

At the time of writing, the ECF has been in schools for just over a year. School leaders, ECF mentors and ECTs have reported their initial experiences of the ECF via education media, such as in the Times Education Supplement , Schools Week and Twitter, with mixed feelings about its efficacy as a supportive framework for professional development. Very little can be reported on the relationship between the ECF and ECT retention, as DfE school workforce data for the first year of the ECF will not be available until June 2023. However, clear messages have emerged from the experiences and expertise of lead providers, school leaders and academics, which I shared in my edited book on the ECF (Ovenden-Hope, 2022c), and what follows can all be understood to impact on the quality of the ECF and thereby the potential to retain ECTs:

School context matters in CPD and the ECF programme content and delivery should be adapted to align with this

Prior learning and knowledge of both ECTs and mentors matter, and the ECF programme content should be flexibly delivered to support this

Workload is important, and the ECF programme should not add to this for ECTs or mentors in any way that is not supported by the time allocated by the school via DfE funding

National reform to existing school practices takes time; schools need to be able to plan for CPD against their priorities and put timetables in place to support new roles

Schools that choose to design and deliver their own ECF programme should have access to funding for training of ECTs and mentors and free appropriate body services (Ovenden-Hope, 2022b, pp. 297-298).

For the ECF to improve ECT retention, all ECF programmes need to be relevant to the ECT and contextualised to the ECT experience, subject and school, and all schools need to be able to participate with full funding (regardless of the way in which they choose to deliver the ECF in their school). Statutory requirements to deliver the ECF only apply if schools actually have an ECT. For schools already working at full capacity, challenged by the rising costs of running a school with no additional funding on the horizon, the additional demands on resources by the ECF can be avoided by not having an ECT. If schools avoid having ECTs, the crisis in teacher supply will become ever greater still.

Effective professional development in the first years of teaching can provide teachers with the self-efficacy needed to stay in the profession (Ovenden-Hope et al., 2020). With teacher shortages reported across the globe and up to one-third of teachers in England leaving the profession by their fifth year in teaching, the ECF requires further development to fulfil its role in ECT recruitment and retention. However, whether the DfE can realise this development remains to be seen. Until then, the great teacher supply crisis will continue.

The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought.

Garcia and Weiss, 2019, p. 1

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The great supply crisis: Can the Early Career Framework appease early career teacher recruitment and retention challenges in England? : My College

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Professor Tanya Ovenden-Hope, Plymouth Marjon University, UK Introduction In July 2022, the initial teacher training (ITT) monthly statistics (DfE, 2022a) demonstrated that the recruitment of trainee teachers did not reach the government target, with the total application numbers lower than those of 2019 and the actual number of applicants achieving course places for September down [...]

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Open access to an article of ECT retention...

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Open access to an article of ECT retention...

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An article on status that may be of interest...

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An article on status that may be of interest...

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A useful read for context on teacher R&R in England and internationally.

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A useful read for context on teacher R&R in England and internationally.

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This thought-provoking collection examines the challenge of teacher shortages that is of international concern. It presents multiple perspectives, and explores the commonalities and differences in approaches from around the world to understand possible solutions for the current teacher workforce crisis.

Acknowledging that solutions to attract and retain teachers vary by country, region and in some cases locality, the contributors scrutinise a range of workforce planning interventions at local and government level, including financial incentives and early career support.

The book draws on different perspectives to understand a range of problems that negatively affect teacher recruitment and retention, unpicking key challenges, including links between the disadvantages of location and access to teachers for coastal and rural schools, rising pupil numbers, declining school budgets and the role of professional learning in raising teacher status.

Abundant in critiques, research-informed positions and context-specific discussions about the impact of teacher workforce supply and shortages, this book will be valuable reading for teacher educators, educational leaders, education policy makers and academics in the field.

Introduction

Rowena Passy and Tanya Ovenden-Hope

Part 1: Perspectives on Teacher Recruitment and Retention in England

Chapter 1: Shortages, what shortages? Exploring school workforce supply in England

John Howson

Chapter 2: The recruitment and retention of teachers in England

James Noble-Rogers

Chapter 3: Why are teachers leaving teaching in England?

Georgina Newton

Chapter 4: A high status, research-informed profession: The foundation for successful teacher recruitment and retention?

Linda la Velle, Alexandra Kendall

Chapter 5: RETAIN: A research-informed model of continuing professional development for early career teacher retention

Tanya Ovenden-Hope, Sonia Blandford, Tim Cain, Bronwen Maxwell

Chapter 6: Understanding the contribution of professional communities of practice in education technology in influencing teacher recruitment and retention

Sarah Younie, Christina Preston

Chapter 7: Understanding school context in coastal communities

Lucy Stokes, Jake Anders, Michele Bernini, Helen Gray

Chapter 8: Understanding the challenges of teacher recruitment and retention for 'educationally isolated' schools in England

Tanya Ovenden-Hope, Rowena Passy

Chapter 9: Sense-making of educational policy and workforce supply for small schools in England

Tanya Ovenden-Hope, Ian Luke

Part 2: Perspectives on Teacher Recruitment and Retention Internationally

Chapter 10: Professional learning and recruitment and retention - What global regions can tell us

Philippa Cordingley, Bart Crisp

Chapter 11: How to recruit and retain teachers in hard-to-staff areas: A systematic review of the empirical evidence

Beng Huat See, Stephen Gorard, Rebecca Morris, Nada el-Soufi

Chapter 12: Teacher recruitment and retention in Canada: Programmes for teacher selection, support and success

Shirley Van Nuland, Catherine Whalen, Elizabeth Majocha

Chapter 13: High school teacher retention: Solutions in the Chinese context

Honggang Liu, Zongqiang Li

Chapter 14: Teacher shortage and teacher surplus: Jewish vs. Arab educational sectors in Israel

Smadar Donitsa-Schmidt, Ruth Zuzovsky

Chapter 15: Stemming the tide: A critical examination of issues, challenges and solutions to Jamaican teacher migration

Carol Hordatt Gentles

Chapter 16: Suggestions from national-level actors on how to handle retention and attrition of teachers: A case study from Sweden

Laila Niklasson

Chapter 17: The challenges of staffing schools in a cosmopolitan nation: Rethinking the recruitment and retention of teachers in Australia through a spatial lens

Philip Roberts, Natalie Downes

Afterword

Tanya Ovenden-Hope and Rowena Passy

Biography

Tanya Ovenden-Hope is Provost and Professor of Education at Plymouth Marjon University. She has three decades experience as a teacher, teacher educator, senior leader and educational researcher. Her research focuses on identifying and finding solutions for inequity in education.

Rowena Passy is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Plymouth. She has a wide range of research interests that focus on understanding and improving different aspects of our children's education.

"Ovenden-Hope and Passy draw on expertise from across the globe to provide a timely and comprehensive exploration of contextual challenges associated with isolation, teacher recruitment and retention. Part I explores a range of perspectives on recruitment and retention of teachers in England. The authors raise critical questions about shortages and workforce supply in England. Readers will enjoy the well-crafted critiques, research informed positions, and context-specific discussions about the impact of teacher workforce supply and shortages in England. Part II of the book expands the context contributions to include international perspectives on teacher recruitment and retention. The addition of international authors results in a mix of new challenges and challenges common to all the settings described in both parts of the book. Readers will benefit from learning about the similarities and differences in the language and approaches used across the globe to describe and address issues in teacher recruitment, preparation and retention. All readers will find much to stimulate their thinking on teacher supply issues. The breadth of topics and the geographic reach of contexts will provoke both connection and disruption. Ovenden-Hope and Passy have provided us with a rich mix of authors who help us think more clearly about the contextual challenges associated with global teacher recruitment and retention."

- Professor James O'Meara, Dean College of Education, Texas A&M International University, President, International Council on Education for Teaching, US Focal Point, International Taskforce on Teachers for Education 2030

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Exploring Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Contextual Challenges from International Perspectives

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This thought-provoking collection examines the challenge of teacher shortages that is of international concern. It presents multiple perspectives, and explores the commonalities and differences in approaches from around the world to understand possible solutions for the current teacher workforce crisis.

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Guardian - Sept 2023

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Only half of the required number of trainee secondary school teachers in England have been recruited as the academic year gets under way, analysis shows.

The figures, obtained by the National Education Union (NEU) and the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), show ministers are on course to miss their recruitment targets by 48%.

Numbers in all subjects except for history, PE and classics are below the government recruitment target, the National Foundation for Educational Research has said. "Without an urgent policy response to make teaching more attractive, schools will face increasingly intense shortages over the next few years, which are likely to impact negatively on the quality of pupils' education," said Jack Worth, the NFER's school workforce lead.

Government figures for last month - the final month before teacher training courses get under way - show there were just 13,788 recruits, well short of the target of 26,360.

The NAHT and the NEU will host a joint debate on the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention at the TUC's annual conference in Liverpool on Tuesday.

Paul Whiteman, the NAHT general secretary, said the shortages meant more children were being taught either by teachers with no qualification in the subject, by teaching assistants or by supply staff.

"The government must rip up its failed recruitment and retention strategy and replace it with a new vision which restores education as a career graduates aspire to," he said. "That means at the very least immediate action to tackle crushing workload and fundamentally reform Ofsted, as well as a plan to reverse more than a decade of real-terms pay cuts."

Daniel Kebede, the NEU general secretary, said: "This is not a sustainable situation, and the reasons behind it are all too clear. Chronic underfunding, some of the longest working hours in Europe and real-terms cuts to pay are driving many out of the profession. Not enough are coming into teaching because less stressful and better-paid jobs are available elsewhere."

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A Department for Education (DfE) spokesperson said: "Teachers will get a 6.5% pay award beginning in September and starting salaries are now at least £30,000, which recognises the hard work of teachers and leaders."

The DfE said there were a record number of teachers in schools, up by 27,000 since 2010. The unions point out, however, that the number of pupils in state-funded schools in England has risen at almost double the rate of the teaching workforce.

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Only half of required number of trainee secondary teachers in England recruited

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Figures show government is well short of 26,360 target amid crisis in teacher recruitment and retention

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Education Select Committee - evidence on Teacher R&R

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Education Select Committee - evidence on Teacher R&R

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Publications so far from the Education Select Committee on Teacher Recruitment, training and Retention

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Nuffield Foundation ran a workshop on teacher R&R which shared results from funded projects. Recording here.
It was an interesting workshop and reiterates the crisis we are facing.

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At a time of heightened concern over teacher supply and school accountability, this seminar brought together researchers, policy makers and sector leaders to examine the evidence explaining the current teacher workforce challenge.

The seminar featured presentations of projects funded by the Nuffield Foundation covering trends in teacher pay, shortages in subjects and by geography, teacher workload and well-being, the experience of Ofsted inspections, the pandemic's legacy and the impact of academisation, spanning many of the topics currently being investigated by the Education Select Committee.

Read a summary of the event here

The research presentations were followed by reflections from an expert panel on the future challenges and solutions, and audience discussion.

Expert panel

Dr Patrick Roach - General Secretary, NASUWT

Melanie Renowden - CEO, National Institute of Teaching

Sinéad Mc Brearty - CEO, Education Support

The event was chaired by Rt Hon. David Laws, Executive Chairman of the Education Policy Institute.

The aim of the event was to generate new perspectives on strengthening the future workforce and improving the learning environment for pupils, and to shape the future research agenda.

You can watch a recording of the event here:

Download the presentation slides

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What's behind the teacher workforce crisis? A look at current challenges and future solutions - Nuffield Foundation

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At a time of heightened concern over teacher supply and school accountability, this seminar will bring together researchers, policy makers and sector leaders to examine the evidence explaining the current teacher workforce challenge.

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DfE workforce data was also released JUne 2023: Headline - nearly 20% of teachers are leaving after two years.

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School workforce in England, Reporting year 2022

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This release is largely based on the School Workforce Census. The census, which runs each November, collects information from schools and local authorities on the school workforce in state-funded schools in England. Independent schools, non-maintained special schools, sixth-form colleges and further education establishments are not included.

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Here is a link to Becky Francis’s article in Schools Week on the EEF data on teacher recruitment: Schools Week and TES are running a lot of teacher supply and the crisis that is unfolding. There was an article that also demonstrated the issue with unqualified teachers (not in workforce data if on temporary or supply contracts).

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Recruitment and retention

Becky Francis sets out key findings from today's new EEF review of international evidence on successful measures to recruit and retain teachers

Becky Francis sets out key findings from today's new EEF review of international evidence on successful measures to recruit and retain teachers

Becky Francis
Chief executive, Education Endowment Foundation

8 Jun 2023, 5:00

Teachers are the beating heart of our school system. No matter the age group, subject area, or school context, it's high-quality teaching that makes the biggest difference to pupil outcomes, particularly for children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

And yet, one of the biggest challenges facing our schools is staffing; we know that many are struggling to fill vacancies and that levels of teacher churn are unsustainably high.

This recruitment and retention challenge is an urgent cause for concern. Simply put, when schools are understaffed, pupil learning and teacher wellbeing suffer. We cannot let this continue, especially in light of the hugely damaging, far-reaching impacts of the pandemic.

As ever, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) looks to the research for solutions. Today, we've published a new evidence review authored by a team from UCL's Institute of Education that summarises findings from international research about how to attract teachers to - and crucially, keep them in - the profession.

By commissioning this new review, we wanted to find out what has and hasn't worked in the past for improving recruitment and retention. Our aim was to signpost promising avenues for future research to explore.

The first step was identifying relevant studies from the global evidence base, making sure that they were conducted appropriately and that their findings were robust and worthy of inclusion. The research team then dug into the findings to draw out recurring themes to inform our conclusions.

One of the most well-evidenced findings from the review was that financial incentives, such as offering higher salaries or recruitment bonuses, could help to attract teachers to roles - particularly those in challenging schools. Rewards given directly to teachers, rather than allocating extra funds to their school of employment, showed particular promise.

Rewards given directly to teachers showed particular promise

With regards to retention, there is evidence in support of reducing workload and improving teachers' working conditions. Heavier workloads were consistently associated with higher staff turnover, with factors such as working hours and leave entitlement strongly influencing teachers' decision-making.

And importantly, making sure teachers have proper access to good quality professional development, proper support during their induction period and effective school leadership also show potential in supporting recruitment and retention.

This evidence review is a significant step in our understanding of how to approach fixing staffing issues in our schools.

But it's a first step, there's more work to be done.

One of the major issues that the review identified was that there's been a real lack of research conducted in England on this topic. As a result, this review relied heavily on findings from international studies.

If we're serious about improving recruitment and retention, we need to better understand which approaches are likely to work in English schools and for those working in them.

One of our top priorities at the EEF is to supercharge the evidence base in this area, through a multi-year research plan which aims to uncover the most effective strategies for improving recruitment and retention. We're especially interested in those that could be effective in more challenging schools.

We've therefore recently commissioned further evidence reviews, each of which will focus on specific practices that have shown promise in supporting teacher recruitment and retention in English schools, including school leadership, flexible working, and workload management.

One of these reviews will look specifically at practices in schools serving socio-economically disadvantaged communities, so that we can look to bolster numbers of high-quality teachers where pupils need them most.
The full report, Teacher quality, recruitment and retention can be read here: bit.ly/3J2kfJQ
These reviews will explore the evidence base and current practice using a range of methods, including analysing school policies and teacher job descriptions, as well as gathering perspectives from teachers and leaders using surveys and interviews.

It's difficult to overstate the importance of getting our approach to recruitment and retention right, not just in terms of securing the best academic outcomes for our children but for making sure teaching staff feel valued and see longevity in their roles.

Today's findings will be hugely helpful in sharpening the focus of our future research, making sure we put our resources behind trialling strategies with the greatest potential to make a difference in this crucial area.

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The Knowledge. Improving teacher recruitment and retention

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Becky Francis sets out key findings from today's new EEF review of international evidence on successful measures to recruit and retain teachers

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IFS Select Committee om Teacher R&R submission

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IFS Select Committee om Teacher R&R submission

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IfS report - interesting reading (June 2023)

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1.       Here is a link to the Commission on Teacher Retention’s Report, which offers some very sensible recommendations to policy makers to support with the teacher supply crisis (online 6 June, launched 7 June 2023).

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Following a six-month inquiry into the drivers and levers of the teacher retention crisis in secondary schools in England, Education Support's Commission on Teacher Retention, supported by Public First, has published its final report: "1970s Working Conditions in the 2020s: Modernising the professional lives of teachers for the 21

The full report is available here.

Combining qualitative, quantitative and immersive research with expert - and teacher - testimony, the final report paints an extraordinary picture of the state of the teaching profession in England's secondary schools in 2023.

The Commission, chaired by outgoing headteacher and ASCL president Evelyn Forde, brought together some of the most experienced educationalists, sector experts and teachers, united by a sense that too little attention is being given to the crisis of teacher retention in our schools.

Sinéad Mc Brearty - Chief Executive at Education Support

Evelyn Forde MBE (Chair) - Headteacher of Copthall School in Barnet and President of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL)

Sir Tim Brighouse - Former Schools Commissioner for London and leader of the London Challenge, educator and author

Anne-Marie Canning MBE - Chief Executive at The Brilliant Club

Dame Sally Coates - Director of Academies at United Learning

Gareth Conyard - Joint Chief Executive at the Teacher Development Trust and Trustee of Education Support

Craig Dillon - Regional Director Executive Principal at Star Academies

Russell Hobby CBE - Chief Executive at Teach First

Sarah Holdaway - Assistant Headteacher at St Bartholomew's Church of England Academy in Coventry

Professor Dame Alison Peacock - Chief Executive at the Chartered College of Teaching

The crisis in staffroom morale, and the drivers pushing tens of thousands of teachers prematurely out of their careers, is set out in stark terms. But the report also makes 10 recommendations that the government - and schools themselves - could make to stem the flow out of pedagogical talent out of the classroom.

An extensive polling exercise of secondary teachers, supported by a programme of focus groups and evidence sessions, produced a number of eyewatering conclusions. These included:

78 per cent of teachers said they would be likely to leave the profession if they were offered a job in another sector which promised a better work-life balance. This polled higher than better pay (64 per cent).

More than 1 in 5 (21 per cent) secondary school teachers said they were unlikely to be in the profession in five years' time. And with teachers working specifically in challenging educational contexts, known as Education Investment Areas (EIAs), that figure climbed to nearly one quarter (24 per cent)

72 per cent of secondary teachers said they were helping students with non-academic matters relating to mental health and cost of living issues, a data point that increases to 82 per cent in EIAs

31 per cent said of teachers said their work-life balance was either bad or very bad.

The Teacher Retention Commission's recommendations, taken together, represent a call for the complete overhaul of the working conditions of the teaching profession. They included:

1. A call for an independent review of the pay and conditions of teaching including their pay structure and their contracted hours;

2. The Department for Education and its ministers should be held account for teacher retention data in the same way it is currently held account for teacher recruitment figures, with new teacher retention targets;

3. Amid ever-increasing pressures being loaded on schools in the cost of living crisis and the post-covid era, official guidance of what is and isn't a school's responsibility should be published;

4. A formal review of school accountability including the function of Ofsted, looking specifically at the pressure it places on teachers;

5. The creation of a fully-funded specialist Human Resources advisory service for schools, tasked with promoting and supporting them with the implementation flexible working and part-time arrangements;

6. Codification of what "poor practice" around workload looks like on the Department for Education's website.

7. School leaders should commit to reviewing their own workload practices on a yearly (or more regular) basis.

8. A national conversation about the significant shift in behaviour as well as the increase in emotional and mental health needs among children and young people. The additional pressure this places on teachers is unsustainable and goes beyond their professional expertise.

9. An urgent review of the deployment and content of the training elements of the Early Careers Framework (ECF) and the suite of National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) to ensure they are grounded in the realities of teaching, tailored to the local context and relevant to teachers' different subject specialisms.

10. Every five years, headteachers should be granted a month-long, paid sabbatical to complete a new qualification - 'the NPQH+' - expertly designed to develop the people management skills required of good leaders, and with a laser focus on the current context in schools.

Sinéad Mc Brearty, Chief Executive of Education Support, said:

"Our school system does many things well, but it is antiquated and increasingly unattractive to those who have a choice in where they make their careers.

"Modernisation is not a political or philosophical preference: it is a pragmatic response to the data and to the evidence. Resetting the social contract between teachers and the state and restoring the status of classroom professionals are necessary conditions for retaining talent in the sector.

"If we can fix the retention crisis, we will also fix the recruitment crisis. We're not just trying to rebuild the lives of teachers, we're trying to rebuild the reputation of the profession."

Sir Trevor Pears, Executive Chairman of the Pears Foundation, which also supported the Teacher Retention Commission, said:

"Committed and talented teachers are being lost from our schools every term. This is a tragedy in its own right, but a failure to retain the best teachers in the poorest places puts at risk recent advances in both social mobility and social cohesion in some of this country's most deprived communities. The future of a country is only as good as its present-day schools - and so the retention crisis is a huge worry.

"As such the Pears Foundation has been delighted to be associated with Education Support's Teacher Retention Commission: its recommendations set out today demonstrate how we can begin to challenge this vicious cycle. We do hope they are adopted by the sector and the government."

Ed Dorrell, Partner at Public First, said:

"We were incredibly excited to be commissioned to carry out this hugely important work.

"What we found in our qualitative and quantitative research was a profession in crisis. What we found when we talked to extraordinary schools, and when we took evidence from world-leading experts, was that there is a way of reversing this trend. We just need to have the courage to take that route."

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The Commission on Teacher Retention: Final Report - Public First

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Following a six-month inquiry into the drivers and levers of the teacher retention crisis in secondary schools in England, Education Support's Commission on Teacher Retention, [...]

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A chapter on educationally isolated schools and a quality teacher supply

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A chapter on educationally isolated schools and a quality teacher supply

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Educational Isolation, conceptualized by Ovenden-Hope and Passy, identifies three combined elements experienced by schools that limit their access to the resources necessary for school improvement; geographical remoteness, socioeconomic deprivation, and cultural isolation. Educationally isolated schools are typically located in deprived coastal, rural, and ex-industrial areas in England. School performance of Educationally Isolated schools has been consistently lower than for urban schools with similarly socioeconomically deprived communities. The focus of education policy until recently on supporting schools in densely populated urban areas, such as The London Challenge, alongside urban schools' geographical connectedness and cultural opportunities, helps understanding of differences in school performance caused by place.

This chapter explores the challenges of place for securing and sustaining quality in teacher supply in England. Educational Isolation is used as the framework for examining the way in which a school's location can limit its access to a quality workforce. The notion of "quality" in teaching is discussed in relation to the recruitment, professional development, and retention of teachers in Educationally Isolated schools. The increasing number of unqualified teachers (and school leaders) in state-funded schools in England, 25,078 in 2019, with a higher proportion in Educationally Isolated schools, is examined. The chapter concludes by demonstrating a relationship between place and securing and sustaining a quality teacher supply, and the need for the government in England to devise policies that enable equitable school access to resources for school improvement regardless of their place.

Keywords

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Educational Isolation and the Challenge of "Place" for Securing and Sustaining a Quality Teacher Supply

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Educational Isolation, conceptualized by Ovenden-Hope and Passy, identifies three combined elements experienced by schools that limit their access to the resources necessary for school improvement; geographical remoteness, socioeconomic deprivation, and cultural...

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Education Select Committee Evidence on Teacher Recruitment and Retention (and eduationally isolated schools) 2023

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Education Select Committee Evidence on Teacher Recruitment and Retention (and eduationally isolated schools) 2023

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2015 - Was this DfE initiative effective?

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2015 - Was this DfE initiative effective?

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Ofsted has held a series of events across each of the 16 local authority areas in the South West to highlight the importance of middle leaders in improving education standards in the region.

Today (Friday 17 July) marks the closing event held at St. James School in Exeter.

Middle leaders play an influential role in school improvement. They are leaders of subjects, years, or key stages and are responsible for developing teaching and learning and for holding individual teachers to account for the achievement of the children they teach.

The overarching purpose of these events was to improve the quality of middle leadership in the South West in order to improve the quality of teaching and through that educational outcomes for children. The seminars focused on practical aspects of leadership and school improvement, shared good practice and challenged middle leaders to play their part in improving outcomes for children and young people across the South West.

Ofsted's priorities in the South West are to improve educational outcomes for children who are in local authority care, those eligible for free school meals and the brightest children. Inspection evidence shows that these groups of children do best in schools where they are known by middle leaders.

Speaking at St. James School in Exeter, South West Director, Bradley Simmons said:

High quality middle leadership is about more than managing a subject or an aspect of a school life. These leaders play a critical role and have the power to transform a school, especially in improving the life chances for disadvantaged children and stretching the most able students to achieve their potential.

The middle leadership events underline Ofsted's determination to challenge and support schools to do better. Her Majesty's Inspectors have been working with schools, academies and local authorities across each area in the region to ensure middle leaders are equipped to support headteachers in bringing about high quality teaching and outstanding behaviour. Having high-calibre middle leaders is particularly important because ultimately senior leaders and headteachers of tomorrow are the middle leaders of today.

Notes to editor

1. The series of middle leadership events across the South West were organised following the highly successful South West Pupil Premium Seminars held in September 2014. Headteachers who attended the seminars had requested a similar approach focusing on middle leadership as part of school improvement. Middle leadership seminars have been held in late June and July in Banes, Bournemouth, Bristol, Cornwall/ Isles of Scilly, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, South Gloucestershire, Poole, Plymouth, Somerset, North Somerset, Swindon, Torbay and Wiltshire.

2. The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) regulates and inspects to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work-based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children's services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection.

3. Media can contact the Ofsted Press Office through 03000 130415 or via Ofsted's enquiry line 0300 1231231 between 8.30am - 6.00pm, Monday - Friday. Out of these hours, during evenings and weekends, the duty press officer can be reached on 07919 057359.

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Transforming the education landscape in the South West through middle leaders

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Ofsted has held a series of events across each of the 16 local authority areas in the South West to highlight the importance of middle leaders in improving education standards in the region.

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Educational attainment gap: Regional disparities In Focus

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Educational attainment gap: Regional disparities In Focus

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Stark social mobility challenges in the South West mean poorer children in the region are more likely to lag behind in school compared to their peers elsewhere in England, experts have warned.

Just 37 per cent of poorer children reached expected standards in reading, writing and maths at the end of primary school last year - the worst results in the country.

The work was carried out as part of the University of Exeter's South West Social Mobility Commission, set up to transform educational and employment opportunities for young people in the peninsula.

The Commission is a response to poor levels of social mobility in the South West identified by University of Exeter experts. Its annual report for 2023 shows the situation is largely unchanged since the publication of an in-depth report last year, with several stark challenges remaining:

At the end of primary school, fewer children from disadvantaged backgrounds in the South West reached expected standards in reading, writing and maths than in any other region in 2021/22 - just 37 per cent, compared with 43 per cent across England and 53 per cent in London, the best-performing regionInGCSE English and maths attainment, the South West is in line with the England average for all pupils (69 per cent) but below average for disadvantaged pupils (45 per cent compared with 49 per cent)

In terms of advanced (Level 3) qualifications, including A-levels, the South West performed close to the England average for all pupils but significantly worse for disadvantaged pupils in 2020/21. Attainment was particularly poor in Torridge, where only 41 per cent of all students and 17 per cent of disadvantaged students achieved a Level 3 qualification - compared with 60 per cent of all students and 42 per cent of disadvantaged students across England

The South West continues to have the fewest young people from any background going on to Level 4 or above education or training (which includes higher education and higher-level apprenticeships). Progression rates in the South West are 60 per cent for all young people and 50 per cent for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, compared with 77 per cent and 76 per cent respectively in London

The South West peninsula continues to have high levels of overall employment but more unskilled workers than other parts of the country. For example, 44 per cent of individuals aged 25 to 34 in Bridgwater and West Somerset and 42 per cent in North Cornwall were in unskilled employment in 2021, compared with 28 per cent nationally

The Commission is being supported by a coalition of funders that includes Cornwall Council, Devon County Council, Somerset Council, the University of Exeter, the Great South West partnership and the Cobalt Trust.

Commissioners are passionate and dedicated civic leaders who are giving their time voluntarily to advocate for the region. They are:

Sir Michael Barber - Chair of the Commission

Professor Lisa Roberts, Vice Chancellor of the University of Exeter

Kate Kennally, Chief Executive of Cornwall Council

Paul von der Heyde, Chair of Somerset Integrated Care Board

Lisa Mannall, Chief Executive of Cornwall Education Learning Trust and former South West Regional Schools Commissioner

Sean Mackney, Principal and CEO of Petroc College

Brendan Staniforth, Strategy Delivery Director at Devonport Royal Dockyard (Babcock International)

Paul Crawford, Chief Executive of LiveWest

Karl Tucker, Chair of Yeo Valley Ltd, Chair of Heart of the South West LEP and Chair of Great South West

Tony Rowe, Chair and Chief Executive of Exeter Rugby Club

Alice Thomson, Associate Editor, columnist and interviewer at The Times

Andrew Moreman, Chief Executive of Young Devon

Commissioners will act as an advocate for the peninsula both nationally and regionally with the aim of highlighting the region's social mobility challenges, embedding a social mobility perspective into organisational decision-making and holding civic leaders to account.

Commissioners will work with regional and local civic leaders to ensure a focus on social mobility underpins all forms of organisational decision-making. They will establish a strategy for addressing some of the region's stubborn challenges.

The Commission will work with local and regional partners to develop and deliver programmes and best practice guidance to address the barriers faced by children, families and young people in the region.

Professor Elliot Major, one of the authors of the report, said: " Gains made over the past decade or so by disadvantaged children in other parts of the country haven't been as pronounced in the South West. And while overall educational results in the region fall in line with other parts of the country, these results mask the very poor results being achieved by children from poorer backgrounds.

"The rurality and remoteness of many places can make the provision of education and other public services difficult. Teacher recruitment and retention is a problem for isolated schools, as is low churn. The consequences are a lower proportion of good and outstanding schools compared with other regions, and particularly so in deprived areas. Meanwhile, many young people across the region travel hours each day to access further education and drop-out rates are high. Accessing apprenticeships and work can also be challenging."

Sir Michael Barber said: "The Commission brings together outstanding leaders from business, education, the voluntary sector and local government. It is ambitious for change. It has set out to combine the efforts of everyone across the region to enhance social mobility, increase opportunity and make the South West not only a wonderful place to visit but a wonderful place to live, work and bring up a family. A place of prospects, progress and prosperity for all.

"In the past, many times across the UK, we've seen insufficient collaboration across sectors to enable solutions to be found for the kind of deep-seated social problems we face in the South West. Our Commission will ensure that this time the necessary collaboration is strong, focused and sustained."

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Stark social mobility challenges in the South West leading to poorer children lagging behind in school, experts warn

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Stark social mobility challenges in the South West mean poorer children in the region are more likely to lag behind in school compared to their peers elsewhere in England, experts have warned. Just 37 per

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The authors add: "School leaders appreciated the non-judgmental, local support that helped reduce feelings of isolation inherent in a school leader role - feelings exacerbated by geographical remoteness from other schools.

The former schools minister said: "If every school is now to be in a MAT, how should they respond to counter that isolation and nurture a mindset of high aspiration? Recruiting teachers in these areas is hard, how can we create strong professional networks to drive improvement in the quality of teaching?

"These communities are normally in poorly funded local authority areas, how should schools best collaborate to ensure every child's needs are addressed? This study looks at how one MAT in the South West has responded by using a local hub model. This worked well with the London Challenge in the first years of the century, could it work in a more rural context?"

The Confederation of School Trusts' deputy chief executive Steve Rollett said: "One of the strengths of the trust system is that there are a range of potential trust models, which can be shaped to reflect local needs.

"It is important that we continue to research and understand the pros and cons of different approaches. CST's inquiry on trust-led school improvement is looking at some of these issues and while we don't believe there is a single model of how to run or improve trusts, we do think there is more we can collectively know about the effectiveness of trust models."

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MAT hubs can tackle schools suffering 'educational isolation'

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MATs operating in a local hub model, where neighbouring schools support each other, could prevent schools from suffering from educational isolation, says research

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Tanya Ovenden-Hope sets out the key findings from new research on a multi-academy trust Hub model for schools intended to mitigate educational isolation

Tanya Ovenden-Hope sets out the key findings from new research on a multi-academy trust Hub model for schools intended to mitigate educational isolation

Tanya Ovenden-Hope
Provost and professor of education, Plymouth Marjon University

19 Jun 2023, 5:00

An estimated 17 per cent of the population live in a rural or coastal area of the UK, and educational isolation is common these areas. Socioeconomic deprivation, limited cultural opportunities and poor employment prospects negatively affect housing, transport, technology, and leisure facilities in these communities. Educationally isolated schools experience these place-based infrastructural issues through challenging teacher recruitment and retention and in limited access to high-quality staff development, school-to-school support, and external funding opportunities.

This spatial inequity plays out by limiting educationally isolated schools' access to resources and in the end, this impacts on pupil outcomes. Pupils from persistently disadvantaged backgrounds in rural and coastal schools have lower attainment at the end of secondary schooling than pupils from similar backgrounds in urban schools.

For over a decade, Dr Rowena Passy and I have been exploring the experiences of coastal, rural and small schools. Our new report, published last week, demonstrates that locality matters. We share findings from a three-year study of a 'hub model' for schools implemented in a twenty-school multi-academy trust (MAT) in the south west of England.

The hub model was used to geographically group schools into smaller local units for school-to-school support. The aim was to reduce the limiting effects of educational isolation experienced by many of the schools involved.

The research team interviewed all senior leaders within the trust each year for three years. The MAT's vision was to give a better education to children by sharing resources, expertise, and knowledge at a local level. The CEO believed that smaller groups of schools working together as a hub could achieve this vision.

The findings from our research suggest that the CEO's vision was achieved. The hub model was able to mitigate place-based challenges in different ways. It reduced the effects of geographical remoteness, creating formal connections for staff development and the sharing of resources, including teachers. It also created opportunities for schools to work together to submit applications for innovative external funding.

The hub model can mitigate place-based challenges

The key to the success of the hub model was the development of trusted, supportive relationships between local school leaders. These relationships secured collaboration and encouraged partners to share resources and expertise within the hub. School leaders said they appreciated the non-judgmental, local peer support, and being close by to each other meant that the context of their communities was shared and understood.

However, we also identified areas of development for the hub model. The context of each hub of schools was different. Some had more geographical distance between schools; some had schools with different characteristics, such as size, or different foci, such as faith; and some had differentially experienced headteachers. In some cases, this resulted in a lack of sharing with regards to expertise, uneven opportunities for CPD, or a need for more rigorous MAT-level support for school improvement.

The role of hub lead was also an area of concern. Some found there was a lack of clarity about the responsibilities involved, which others noted a problem of capacity as a result of undertaking multiple roles with sometimes conflicting priorities, such as headteacher and hub lead.

This said, enabling school leaders to develop close working relationships with a small group of nearby headteachers clearly supports them to share ideas for more effective school improvement. It can also help to mitigate elements of socioeconomic deprivation in school communities, such a lower attainment. Hub school leaders were seen to provide new opportunities for children in their local communities that widened experiences, raised aspirations and reduced cultural isolation for pupils and staff.

The key message from this research is that bringing small groups of local school leaders to work together supports greater access for each school to the resources needed for school improvement. Awareness of the potential pitfalls should also help to build further on the success the schools in our project experienced.

Our recommendation is that MATs with educationally isolated schools consider a hub model of local school-to-school support. We also recommend that, in a policy arena often driven by the considerations of urban schools, policy leaders recognise and respond to the specific needs of educationally isolated schools in coastal and rural areas.

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The Knowledge. How to better support isolated schools

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Tanya Ovenden-Hope sets out the key findings from new research on a multi-academy trust Hub model for schools intended to mitigate educational isolation

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Report on Social Mobility in the South West

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Report on Social Mobility in the South West

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Not happy reading for those of us in education in the SW!

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30% disocunt code for my new book - may help as an ECT...

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30% disocunt code for my new book - may help as an ECT...

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Disadvantage in Education 2023 powerpoint

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Levelling up and Opportunity for All White Paper March 2022 - Just out! Will this solve disadvanatage in education? Does it address place-based challenges for coastal and rural schools?

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Levelling up and Opportunity for All White Paper March 2022 - Just out! Will this solve disadvanatage in education? Does it address place-based challenges for coastal and rural schools?

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Evidence on isolated schools given to House of Lords Seaside Town regeneration committee

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Evidence on isolated schools given to House of Lords Seaside Town regeneration committee

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The future of seaside towns Contents

131.Many seaside towns are facing considerable challenges across all levels of the education and skills system. Such challenges, we were told repeatedly, were affecting educational outcomes, and thereby disadvantaging young people and acting as a barrier to growth.

Educational attainment

132.We were informed that low educational attainment was a persistent problem in many seaside communities. Several areas highlighted that their educational outcomes fell below the national average, including Great Yarmouth Borough Council, Allerdale Borough Council, Brighton and Hove City Council and Blackpool Council. Dorset County Council, in a far from untypical example of the educational challenges facing seaside towns, explained that:

133.We were directed to performance data showing that pupils in seaside towns and communities were underperforming. Professor Tanya Overden-Hope emphasised a 2016 report by Century Forum which suggested that, "at Key Stage 2, less disadvantaged, non-isolated schools that are outside coastal areas have 3 percentage points higher Level 5 attainment rates . . . than those in coastal areas." Professor Overden Hope also cited research from SchoolDash, which stated that "2015 GCSE results showed that pupils in coastal schools were on average achieving 3% lower results than inland schools, based on the benchmark five A*-C GCSEs including English and maths." Furness Economic Development Forum highlighted Ofsted's 2013 20-year review of access and achievement, which identified that:

134.In seeking to understand and explain the trend of low educational attainment in coastal areas, a range of specific challenges for education provision, common to coastal communities, was identified. Many witnesses emphasised the limited accessibility to educational institutions for young people in seaside towns. Cornwall Council told us that:

136.Professor Ian Fribbance, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the Open University, elaborated: "there is never going to be a bricks-and-mortar offering of higher education in every coastal town" and so the Government must look at ways to support more flexible learning, particularly as part of its review of Post-18 Education and Funding. Professor Fribbance also made the suggestion that areas must look at ways of facilitating partnerships between the HE and FE sectors and local businesses and industry, to support greater access to education, and bring improvements to the employment prospects of students.This view was echoed elsewhere in the evidence.

137.Steven Frampton, President of the Association of Colleges, stressed that while the opportunity to encourage entrepreneurship amongst FE learners was important, it was being limited:

"The tragedy is that 10 years of cuts and frozen funding in the FE sector has meant the very things you are talking about, the entrepreneurial programmes that are there and can be delivered, have unfortunately been reduced in the college sector. It is the thing we would most like to get back."

139.Many witnesses also connected the lack of employment opportunities in coastal areas with low aspiration levels. Blackpool Council observed that: "The nature of jobs available locally tends to supress the understanding that education is important to accessing career-orientated jobs." There was broad agreement that low aspiration levels were contributing to reduced social mobility and low work expectations, something that East Lindsey District Council labelled as an "aspirational ceiling" in coastal areas.

140.A number of submissions were from areas that had been selected to participate in the Opportunity Areas Programme, which has been initiated by the Department for Education. The programme focused on how the schools system could improve social mobility, looking particularly at ways to raise progress and attainment. Blackpool, North Yorkshire Coast and Hastings have all been designated as opportunity areas. While there was broad support for the aims of the programme, those areas involved all expressed concern that the duration of the project-which is set at three years-may limit its long-term impact. Blackpool Council have called for the programme to be extended to 2030 stating that:

143.It was argued that there has been an historic lack of targeted investment and improvement programmes for education in seaside towns and communities. Professor Tanya Ovenden-Hope asserted that while in the last decade there had been an intense focus on raising achievement in inner city schools, both in support and funding through the London and City Challenges - which had been successful in raising educational outcomes - coastal communities had not yet benefitted from similar schemes.

"There is clearly a challenge for equity in education in coastal communities. This is best understood by considering how urban communities with high level of disadvantage, such as London, have achieved improved educational outcomes for children and young people from similar economic backgrounds.

144.The most prominent concern, however, that was raised about education in coastal communities centred on the recruitment and retention of teachers. Many areas remarked upon the local difficulties associated with staff recruitment in coastal schools, which were attributed to factors such as geographical isolation, poor transport links, low wages and limited opportunities for professional development.

146.Tackling the challenges that we identify above-access to further and higher education provision, low aspiration amongst pupils, a lack of targeted investment programmes for rural and coastal regions, and difficulties in recruiting and retaining teaching staff-is a very considerable task, requiring a range of interventions. There is no single transformative policy which could remedy what are, in some cases, entrenched problems.

147. Limited access to education, in particular to FE and HE institutions, is severely curtailing opportunities and denting aspirations for young people in some coastal areas.

148. We agree with Professor Fribbance's assertion above that there is never going to be "a bricks-and-mortar offering" of higher education in every coastal town. Greater scope for flexible access both to further and higher education, such as online, part- time and distance learning, must therefore be part of the solution, and we recommend that the Government produces ambitious proposals for how it can best support and encourage flexible access as part of its review of Post-18 Education and Funding.

A note by Baroness Bakewell

Britain has one of the most glorious coastlines in the world: some 7,700 miles of it. For centuries, traders and fishing communities have prospered here. Our coasts can provide tranquillity, pleasure and renewal of the spirit. The seaside - with its proximity to our tides and shores, our inlets and estuaries, our cliffs and beaches - is a vast, free asset. It would be folly to neglect it and not bring it again into the forefront of social and economic life. Here's one suggestion how.

Young people in seaside resorts love their homes; but they are not always well served when it comes to education. Young families enjoy the seaside; they come in droves for weekends and holidays. Conflate the two! Make it easier to attract teachers and their families to live and work by the seaside.

This would then raise teaching standards and attainment in seaside schools many of which are not good enough. We hear over and over about how hard it is to attract quality professionals, and how the need for them holds back many well-meaning initiatives. So, begin at the beginning with teachers, children and their schools.

Explain to teacher recruits that they are pioneering a social experiment to make schools the focus of entire communities with newly arriving, talented teachers firing up institutions that reach out to every corner of the community.

We love our coastline; we wish our resorts were happier places. Many of us would like to retire there in the hope of finding thriving and stable communities shaping their own and their children's futures.

149.As alluded to above, we were made aware of the scope for improving access and opportunity through the formation of innovative partnership models. For instance, Professor Fribbance told us:

150.We were struck by the example of the Scarborough University Technical College (UTC) which we visited. This institution, an industry-orientated school for pupils aged 14-18, is funded by the Government and is sponsored by a number of companies as well as by higher education providers. The flexibility to partner with local businesses and industry, and with HE institutions, has seemingly been invaluable, and we commend such an approach.

A note by Lord Bassam of Brighton

A major development in the Scarborough area had been the University Technical College (UTC), which opened in 2016. The UTC offers students aged 14-18 technically oriented courses of study (around 60 per cent academic / 40 per cent practical), combining National Curriculum requirements such as GCSEs and A Levels with technical and vocational elements. It was sponsored by a number of partners including McCain, Unison, Flamingo Land, GCHQ and the University of Hull. On the neighbouring site the Coventry University Scarborough Campus which also opened in 2016 offers a range of courses, with intake every six weeks and the opportunity for condensed learning, which Council representatives suggested offered flexibility, particularly to those employed in seasonal work and adult learners with family and work commitments.

During our visit, we asked whether the development of the UTC and Coventry University Scarborough Campus had helped to stem the migration of young people from the area. Council representatives stated that they believed the UTC had given young people in the area more of a reason to stay and that student numbers had increased from 20 in its first year, to 240 in 2018. The role of the UTC in meeting local skills needs was also highlighted, for example, in relation to the potash mine, which was expected to generate up to 4,000 jobs.

Source: Scarborough Visit Note, Appendix 5

152. We recommend that the Government enables the facilitation of partnership working between the FE and HE sectors , and local business and industry, in coastal and other isolated areas. The Careers and Enterprise Company and Founders4Schools are examples of best practice in this area. This best practice should be disseminated, and consideration given to launching a coastal-specific initiative, locally administered, aimed at encouraging and nurturing partnerships between schools, further education and higher education providers, and employers, in order to create a 'talent pipeline' able to serve local industries.

153.As alluded to above, and in the previous chapter, the inadequacy of transport connectivity weighs heavily on our seaside towns, and is frequently a barrier to educational access in coastal areas. As Lincolnshire County Council put it to us:

We agree.

154. The cost of post-16 transport is an impediment to accessing educational opportunities in certain coastal areas. We recommend that the Government funds relevant local authorities to provide full public transport costs for post-16 students in coastal communities.

156. We recommend that the Government undertakes a bespoke review to examine what can be done, including consideration of a major marketing campaign, to attract teachers to seaside towns and communities and to incentivise healthy levels of retention.

157.We note the historic lack of targeted investment and improvement programmes for education in seaside towns and communities, in contrast with the focus on urban areas in recent years. We recognise that resources are not limitless, but in wishing to be ambitious for our seaside communities, we conclude that there is a strong case for targeted intervention.

158. We recommend that the Government launches a targeted investment and improvement programme for both primary and secondary schools in coastal communities.

A note by Lord Knight of Weymouth

Seaside towns are communities with a proud and successful past. They are struggling in the modern economy. The Fourth Industrial Age primarily values people with the ability to outcompete machines. This requires the application of higher-level skills and thinking across academic disciplines.

The future of seaside towns requires educational success. Sadly, their current performance, as measured in school results, is normally below the national average. Few have higher education institutions within their communities, and most suffer from a vicious circle that drives down aspiration.

For individuals, success in school is realised by getting a place at university. Few seaside towns have universities or even graduate entry jobs, and so this talent leaves home. Once settled in cities, where the knowledge economy is thriving, the seaside's best home-grown talent is unlikely to return. This in turn makes it hard for public sector employers to attract professional teachers and medics to these towns, because they can't offer what graduate professionals want for themselves and their families.

The committee's visit to Blackpool showed us a town that has strong primary schools, great further education and tangible efforts to bring sector-specific off-shoots of universities. However, the secondary schools are not performing well, despite investment from the Government's Opportunity Area scheme. There appeared to be an absence of a co-ordinated leadership of this phase. These schools are also struggling to recruit the teachers they need to succeed.

Blackpool is not alone. It showed signs of being more successful than some other seaside communities, with a relatively resilient visitor economy. The extent and diversity of the hospitality sector offers career prospects that young people can aspire to. With a better range of apprenticeships, especially at the higher levels, there would be the possibility of progressing in the industry to degree level. This pathway needs to be urgently developed in Blackpool and nationwide.

But the wider lesson should not be missed.

There may be schemes that can be devised to attract public sector professionals to these places. There is a great quality of life to be had. Our meeting with Teach First teachers from south coast towns told us that these locations offered easy access on to the housing ladder for young teachers, and a more settled future than their friends in unaffordable places like London. A co-ordinated attempt to sell the benefits of living and working in seaside towns could certainly help drive improvement in education.

But co-ordination is the challenge. The future economy needs a connected vision for education from cradle to grave.

Disadvantaged families need support with pre-school parenting, high quality early years education, and a pathway into more structured learning. Later statutory schooling then needs to align more strongly to the local economy and build an aspiration to a successful future without having to move away. This in turn needs pathways into both higher-level apprenticeships and access to university, including part time, without leaving home. This requires employers to have a much closer relationship with the range of local education providers so that they can develop a talent pipeline that guarantees their future success as businesses. Finally, this should be tangible within the adult learning infrastructure, as well as a more relevant statutory school curriculum, so that locals can re-train and start new businesses.

A strong place-based education vision can deliver regeneration through education. That vision needs to be for a whole education ecosystem that serves the economic future of the town. This needs leadership and complete alignment between the Local Enterprise Partnership and a local education partnership.

This is the coastal challenge.

Employment and skills

159.In many coastal areas, poor educational performance is often combined with weak labour markets, characterised by low-skilled, low-paid employment; a number of areas referred to a skills-shortage in the local labour force. The evidence highlighted a number of (often interconnected) problems associated with skills and employment.

162.It was also suggested that an effect of the low levels of skills amongst local residents in these areas was that that industry and businesses were deterred from investing as there was little incentive for employers offering professional or technical careers to choose seaside towns as areas in which to base and expand their businesses.

163.A range of questions and concerns were raised about the effectiveness or appropriateness of national skills initiatives for seaside towns. It was put to us that some initiatives lacked the flexibility to cater for coastal areas, particularly those with high levels of seasonal employment patterns. When we visited Skegness, we heard about some of the challenges of implementing the apprenticeship scheme in coastal communities. Concerns were raised about the loss of locally-led training for hospitality and tourism, particularly that which had been offered by Butlins in-house, due to the requirement in the apprenticeship scheme to use providers that were on the register of apprenticeship training providers (RoATP). Apprenticeships are meant to run over 12 months which, we were told, posed difficulties for coastal businesses (a high proportion of which were SMEs) that tended only to be able to offer seasonal work.

165. It is vital to recognise that for young people in seasonal employment, the periods when they are not in employment should be seen as an opportunity for training and the development of skills to expand their employment prospects. For example, if a person works for six months of the year in seasonal employment, it seems reasonable to us that their employer should fund a month and a half's training (the same ratio of work to off-the-job training as applies to an apprenticeship) and paid holiday. That leaves a period of time unaccounted for , which might usefully be filled with training or off-season work.

168.Kate Nicholls of UKHospitality stated that: "There is discouragement: we hear about careers advisers telling people not to go into hospitality and not being able to give a good overview of the jobs that we provide." Ms Nicholls further added:

A note by the Bishop of Lincoln

One of the most striking features of our visit to the seaside town of Skegness was the success of the Butlin's resort as an all-year, all-weather attraction. When we visited in October 2018 we were told that it was hosting around four thousand guests. We heard that Butlin's plays a key role in supporting local employment and skills training, and an important ambition for the company was to offer more people work across 52 weeks of the year. It was led by a charismatic and entrepreneurial resort manager.

One challenge that was revealed (and this was echoed in the evidence provided by other organisations in the hospitality industry) was the difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff. Chris had attracted some high-quality recruits from the locality but many of his staff were from beyond the UK, mainly from the EU.

We were told that it was much more difficult to recruit and retain local people for several reasons.

First, and this was reinforced by the evidence provided by UKHospitality, there was a cultural issue regarding the place of the hospitality industry in the mind-set of local people.

Butlin's, Whitbread PLC and Stonegate highlighted to us that there were in fact great career opportunities in the hospitality sector for a young person (or indeed, an older person) with energy and ambition. We were told, for example, that there were a number of opportunities within Butlin's for employees to pursue managerial roles. But, from the evidence we garnered, this kind of work, which often initially involves low pay and long hours, was not attractive to some of the young people of the area.

Secondly, this cultural mid-set, which is common to most seaside towns, was reinforced in the case of Skegness by the absence of easily accessible and flexible further education (FE) opportunities for training in the hospitality sector. The nearest FE institutions were in Lincoln (42 miles away) or Boston (19 miles away), accessible only on poorly configured roads, with few options regarding buses and trains. This stood in stark contrast to the what we saw on our visit to Scarborough, where a UTC and a university campus had been built in middle of the town.

Finally, concerns over the impact of the apprenticeship scheme in coastal areas were also raised. We were told that the requirements of the apprenticeship scheme for using nationally approved training providers, took away the opportunity for locally-led training. In addition, apprenticeships are meant to run over 12 months which we were told posed difficulties for coastal businesses (a high proportion of which were SMEs) that tend only to be able to offer seasonal work.

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House of Lords - The future of seaside towns - Select Committee on Regenerating Seaside Towns and Communities

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The future of seaside towns Contents 131.Many seaside towns are facing considerable challenges across all levels of the education and skills system. Such challenges, we were told repeatedly, were affecting educational outcomes, and thereby disadvantaging young people and acting as a barrier to growth.

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TES article on the educational isolation report

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TES article on the educational isolation report

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Schools are facing an 'educational isolation' that goes beyond just being based in remote areas, a new report is set to warn.

Researchers say that coastal and rural schools can also be isolated professionally, economically and culturally meaning they lack the resources they need to improve.

The report warns that geographic remoteness can have a negative impact on teacher recruitment and retention and on parental engagement.

But the authors of the report, Professor Tanya Ovenden-Hope and Dr Rowena Passy, want policymakers to think beyond the idea of schools being simply geographically isolated.

Professor Ovenden-Hope describes what many remote schools face as "educational isolation" which is not only geographic but can also be professional, social and economic.

The academic, says it means schools having "less access to the resources they need to achieve the performance expected of them."

She said: "That includes being able to recruit and retain teachers but also access to other schools for support and professional development, support from universities, local stable employment, or access to funded educational initiatives."

Prof Ovenden-Hope, from Plymouth Marjon University, says that remote schools in both affluent and deprived areas can face challenges attracting and keeping young teachers.

"Newly qualified teacher turnover is high in rural schools, isolation from social opportunities and access to affordable housing is a real challenge to retaining early career teachers.

"It is difficult if you have geographical isolation, poor transport links, limited employment prospects for partners and long commutes from affluent areas what is there to attract you as a new teacher in a new career.

According to the new report, seen by Tes, the economic disadvantages include a lack of large-scale employers nearby which means schools are unable to attract the types of funding and support offered in more densely populated areas "that could introduce new learning and motivate pupils."

The report also warns that a high level of seasonal and poorly-paid employment was reported by school leaders in coastal and rural areas.

It says these employment conditions were seen to limit young people's expectations of work and reduced their motivation to work hard at school.

The new report will also warn that remote schools can face cultural isolation.

Research showed that rural and coastal school leaders said their pupils had limited access to opportunities, such as museums and theatres, and cultural diversity.

Interviewees reported that schools "needed to invest considerable time, money and effort in introducing children to different ethnicities and lifestyles; comparison was drawn with more populated areas that have a diverse population and in which cultural diversity is part of everyday life."

The report will be published next month.

A copy is also being sent to the House of Lords Regenerating Seaside Towns Committee.

The authors say they have also been invited to present their findings to the Department for Education.

To read a full investigation into the problems remote schools contend with, see today's edition of Tes magazine, available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here.

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Exclusive: Remote schools facing 'educational isolation' new report warns

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Schools are facing an 'educational isolation' that goes beyond just being based in remote areas, a new report is set to warn. Researchers say that coastal and rural schools can also be isolated professionally, economically and culturally meaning they lack the resources they need to improve.

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Join me at IoE UCL in May for a seminar on educational isolation

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Join me at IoE UCL in May for a seminar on educational isolation

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education isolation: the challenges of place for schools in england

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education isolation: the challenges of place for schools in england tickets

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education isolation: the challenges of place for schools in england london

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education isolation: the challenges of place for schools in england london tickets

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Education isolation: the challenges of place for schools in England

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Join us in this 2020 DLL Department Research Seminar by Tanya Ovenden-Hope (Professor of Education at Plymouth Marjon University and Lead Marjon University Cornwall) presenting on her research on early career teacher retention and research conducted with Dr Rowena Passy exploring education isolation.

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Educational Isolation | Plymouth Marjon University

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'Educational Isolation: a challenge for schools in England' aims to provide an understanding of this complexity through a considered definition of 'educational isolation' and to support schools in accessing resources for school improvement through recommendations for policy makers, funding agencies/organisations and stakeholders.

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Ofsted (2020) Fight or flight? How ‘stuck’ schools are overcoming isolation: evaluation report

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Ofsted (2020) Fight or flight? How ‘stuck’ schools are overcoming isolation: evaluation report

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Executive summary

Ofsted exists to independently inspect and report on standards in education and care. Across the country, we see schools that improve, schools that decline and schools that continue to deliver good standards of education. But hidden behind this is a set of schools in which children have been failed for too long.

In some pockets of the country, 2 whole cohorts of children have gone through all their primary or all their secondary school life without ever attending a good school - that's 13 years or more. At the end of August 2019, there were still an estimated 210,000 pupils being educated in stuck schools. Despite the system of support, intervention and inspection designed to improve schools, nothing has changed for these children.

This is not good enough for any child, but it is particularly concerning for these children, who are more likely to live in deprived areas than children attending other schools. Poor education is not an inevitability of poor communities: the majority of schools in the most deprived areas have shown that they can provide good or outstanding education despite the challenging contexts in which they work.

However, some of these good or outstanding schools have not always been so. Some of them have had difficult journeys with many different forms of intervention and support, and many different leadership strategies, finally coming together to make an impact. The reasons that they have improved have been under-investigated and are therefore far from clear cut.

This report explores why some consistently weak schools are able to improve while others are not, so that the whole system can then work together to transform education for these children. It is not intended to apportion blame or leave the problem at schools' doors alone. Indeed, the whole school and accountability system - of which inspection is a part - has some responsibility for the lack of progress in these schools. This report is a call to action for every part of the system, including government, councils, Ofsted, multi-academy trusts ( MATs) and schools themselves, to work together better so that education can be improved for every pupil.

This report draws on research visits to 20 schools, 10 of which have been graded less than good consistently for 13 years or more and are considered as 'stuck'. The other 10 were graded good in their last 2 inspections, but previously had 4 full inspections that graded them less than good. These are considered as 'unstuck'. Across the country, there are 415 stuck and 65 recently unstuck schools as of August 2019. Stuck schools represent 2% of all state-funded schools in England.

The evidence collected was self-reported through focus groups and interviews. We did not attempt to independently verify the views or facts that were given to us. This means that the evidence reported should be seen as schools' interpretation of their journey, rather than Ofsted's view.

We found that there are no substantial differences in the reported contexts of the stuck and unstuck schools we visited. All can be viewed as operating in very challenging circumstances, in which a mixture of geographical isolation, unstable pupil populations and poor parental motivation appear to be compounding the issues for children. The fact that some schools are delivering good education despite these challenges shows that it can be done. This report explores how.

We also found no systematic differences in the level or type of school improvement support that stuck and unstuck schools have been given. All have been involved in some form of government-funded support programme, most commonly receiving advice from National Leaders of Education. The programmes have not succeeded in getting these stuck schools to good and they are not perceived to have been transformative in unstuck schools either. Ofsted has also inspected these stuck schools on multiple occasions, sometimes 6 or 7 times for stuck schools generally, without seeing substantial improvement.

Most stuck and unstuck schools stated that they had received too much school improvement advice from too many different quarters of the school system. Often, the advice was intended to help schools with their improvement strategy. However, this rarely had the intended impact. Leaders perceived that the quality of the advice itself was often lacking. School leaders also commented on a poor match between the problems of the school and the advice on offer. While many were concerned about the lack of support available following inspection, schools often welcomed the fresh thinking and impetus that independent inspection had given them. Schools did not appear to be inhibited from discussing some of the challenges of inspection during this project.

Advice and support were perceived to have a greater impact when they were built into the school or MAT's strategy and delivered internally. This was not always possible, due to a lack of capacity within the school or MAT. When it was possible, the internal support structures that facilitated this were considered transformational. Most commonly, these support structures included revising and implementing a consistent behaviour policy and upholding high standards of teaching. These schools, typically in MATs, also had stronger systems of accountability and oversight, which were a weakness among the other schools visited.

Overall, the evidence suggests that there is enough capacity in the system to support and advise these schools. However, too little attention is given to:

This report highlights the need for a closer link between this research on stuck schools, Ofsted's inspection processes and those providing school improvement support. This approach could be achieved without Ofsted directly delivering school improvement support and with it maintaining its statutory role to independently inspect and report on school quality. We are working with the Department for Education ( DfE) to develop proposals to help improve education for children in stuck schools.

Introduction

Education policy in England has long been concerned with addressing the 'long tail of underachievement'. This is commonly characterised as the underachievement of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. A number of different policies over the last 2 decades have sought to address the issue, often focusing attention on improving standards in large cities.

However, some of the worst education is delivered in communities that have been left out of improvements in economic prosperity. These are not leafy suburbs where there is a comfortable and thriving local economy, but typically in pockets of the country with a declining industry or jobs market and a lack of broader cultural opportunities. Often, these schools are in remote areas or on the very outskirts of major cities.

In some of these areas, a pupil will go through their whole primary or whole secondary school life never having attended a good school: 13 years or more. This is failure of the highest order. The whole school system has been letting down these children for over a decade.

The definition of 'stuck' and 'unstuck' schools

Ofsted has been looking at the challenge of 'stuck schools'. A stuck school is a school (including its predecessor if it has converted to become an academy) that has had consistently weak inspection outcomes throughout the last 13 years. This means that it has:

been judged to be inadequate, satisfactory or to require improvement in every inspection it has had between 1 September 2006 and 31 August 2019

had at least 4 full inspections in the period

Since then, we have also developed a definition of an 'unstuck school'. This is a school that previously had 4 full inspections in which we graded it less than good, but it has since had 2 inspections in which it was good. This gives us a good comparison group to understand why some schools have remained stuck and others have sustainably improved.

Being 'stuck' is not a new type of Ofsted category, but rather a way to analyse a problem. Therefore, we will not be publishing a list of stuck schools. Of course, any formerly 'stuck' school that we have graded most recently as good is no longer 'stuck'. However, until it has had 2 consecutive good inspection grades, we do not define it as an 'unstuck' school. It is important that the unstuck schools we are analysing have maintained their good judgements and are not yo-yo-ing.

This report builds on our knowledge base of stuck schools. We were interested in 2 main questions:

what is the perceived impact of school improvement initiatives on stuck schools?

what strategies have unstuck schools used to improve education?

Methodology

As much as it was possible, we wanted to create a level playing field to investigate this subject. It is clear that most stuck schools operate in very challenging circumstances. However, we know that there are many schools in similar circumstances that can and do provide a good or outstanding level of education. Limiting the influence of context on the schools we visited would allow us to focus on why some schools had improved while others had not.

To do this, we matched our list at the time of roughly 490 stuck schools to a list of unstuck schools, pairing together schools with similar contextual data. For each stuck school, this produced a match with one or more unstuck schools most similar on contextual data. From this, we made a list of around 10 stuck schools (5 deemed primary and 5 secondary) from across each of Ofsted's 8 regions, and their pairs. The pairs were often not in the same region but did have similar contexts.

We contacted the 20 schools on our list to invite them to participate in the research. If they agreed, we arranged a day for inspectors to visit the school and we contacted the relevant local authority and MATs to invite them to be interviewed by telephone or during the visit. In total, we visited:

Of the 10 stuck schools, we had graded 9 as requires improvement at their latest inspection and 1 as inadequate. All of the 10 unstuck schools were graded good at their latest inspection. You can find more detail on the sample in the appendix to this report.

Each school in the sample was visited by 2 Her Majesty's Inspectors (HMI), carrying out research rather than an inspection. In total, 3 HMI were involved in the project and one HMI went on all of the 20 visits.

During the visit, inspectors interviewed or ran focus groups with the following people:

the headteacher

the senior leadership team

the governors or trustees of the MAT

long-standing classroom teachers

The questions for focus groups and interviews were open ended and intended to help participants describe the journey of their school. Participants were prompted to recall past inspections, the different types of improvement support that they had received and their view of the effect that each of these had on the direction of the school.

We analysed the notes and transcriptions from the visits using qualitative coding software and then grouped them into the themes of this report.

Limitations of the methodology

For an in-depth, qualitative study of this kind, we had a healthy and good-sized sample of 20 schools. However, the 10 stuck schools that we visited represent just over 2% of all stuck schools and so cannot be considered representative. This study was not intended to provide a representative view of all stuck and unstuck schools, but rather to uncover schools' perspectives of their journeys.

The strength of the methodology is that, compared with all schools, the pairs of schools had similar contexts. This means that we can directly compare the experiences of each of the schools. However, there are some limitations due to the qualitative design of the project and the nature of the schools that we visited.

The first limitation is that all the evidence was subjective and self-reported through focus groups and interviews. We did not attempt to independently verify the views or facts that were given to us. For example, if a school stated that they believed their school had improved due to a new behaviour policy, we did not seek to check this through inspection or other methods. This means that the evidence reported should be seen as the schools' interpretation of their journey, rather than Ofsted's view.

The second limitation is that some (though not all) of the school leaders, staff and governors we spoke to had been running or working in stuck schools for some time and their ability to look objectively at the root cause of issues was therefore reduced. Our data shows that just under half (46%) of stuck schools do not improve at their next inspection.

The final limitation is that most leaders of the stuck schools we spoke to thought that their school was on the way to getting to good. This meant that they were likely to present recent changes as positive and past changes as negative. As described above, we did not independently verify whether the schools were improving or, in the case of unstuck schools, whether any particular change had improved the school.

What are stuck schools like?

This chapter summarises information we have about stuck schools from the data and the evidence from the school visits. We found that the contexts of all the stuck and unstuck schools we visited were remarkably similar. All these schools are working in challenging areas of the country, where parents and the wider community are perceived by the schools to be disengaged in education and where geographical isolation and unstable pupil populations make good education harder to deliver.

The unstuck schools, however, are able to overcome these challenges.

We also identify 2 types of stuck schools from the data we have:

those that are chaotic and change fatigued

those that have a resistant and embedded culture

These categories will help those visiting stuck schools again, including Ofsted, to understand the background and culture of the schools, and therefore the possible support mechanisms that might help them improve.

Characteristics of stuck schools

There are currently 415 schools that fit our working definition of a stuck school. At the end of August 2019, there were an estimated 210,000 pupils in these schools.

There are stuck schools in all phases of education. However, it is a greater issue for secondary and junior schools than it is for primary. The figures show that these phases are over-represented in the list of stuck schools:

The remainder are pupil referral units, alternative provision or special schools.

The majority (86%) of stuck schools are now academies, compared with 37% nationally. This is a reflection of the current government policy of academisation to support struggling schools. However, 42% of all stuck schools are new academies that have not been inspected as a new school, because the first inspection of new schools usually takes place in the school's third year. While any school can request an early inspection, these new schools will not have had a routine opportunity to receive a judgement of good.

In turn, almost all stuck academies (95%) are part of a MAT. However, around half of these are part of MATs with fewer than 10 academies, which is similar to the proportion of all academies in MATs of this size. This is notable because it means that the scale that some larger MATs can bring to support stuck schools is not being maximised.

Stuck schools are disproportionally located in towns and small cities. Figure 1 shows that 63% of stuck schools are in towns and small cities, compared to 51% of all schools.

Figure 1: Location of stuck schools compared to all schools

Figure 2: Local authority by proportion of stuck schools

Context of stuck and unstuck schools

All the stuck and unstuck schools we visited commented on the challenges that their pupils and communities face. This was as true for stuck schools as it was for unstuck schools: there were no obvious differences between the context in which these 2 groups of schools were operating. This was not just a function of how we matched the schools. Each pair of schools differed from every other pair on the contextual data. Nonetheless, all stuck and unstuck schools stated that they faced the same broad challenges. This shows that the challenges, while difficult, are not insurmountable.

The contextual issues were around the location and social environment of the school. A number of schools invoked the phrase 'dumping ground' to refer to why they had the children they had. Although this is clearly a degrading way to refer to children, it does represent a perception that these schools are expected to take a disproportionate share of children likely to struggle at school. In several cases, schools found themselves taking children on managed moves from other schools in the area because they had dwindling pupil rolls and therefore spare capacity. In one case, this amounted to 100 children in just one year (10% of their pupil intake). It was the schools' view that children from more affluent families sent their children elsewhere.

Although many schools had concerns about funding, it was not possible to distinguish these from the wider challenges they faced in attracting a stable pupil population. Two stuck schools reported having private finance initiatives (PFI) as investment in their buildings. In one case, servicing this loan was costing 12.5% of the school's annual budget; in the other, it was £1.3 million per annum. We did not look at school accounts, so we do not know what the latter is as a percentage of the school's budget.

There are no substantial differences between the average percentage gain that stuck and unstuck schools will receive from the government's new National Funding Formula (NFF). The likely average percentage gain for these groups separately is between 3 and 4 per cent. This is compared to a likely average percentage gain of 5 per cent for all other schools. Although the NFF is yet to be implemented, many consider it to address historic inequalities in school funding. While not conclusive, the fact that stuck schools are not due to receive a higher percentage gain suggests that inequalities in per-pupil funding do not explain these schools' situations.

The contextual challenges that the stuck and unstuck schools visited claimed to operate in broadly fit into 3 categories:

Poor parental motivation

All the schools, both stuck and unstuck, reported issues with parents and the wider community that affected attendance, behaviour and attitudes in school. Many schools reported low levels of literacy and employment among parents. In some schools, children are reportedly sent to school hungry and allowed to stay up late on social media or to access inappropriate material on the internet. One school said that some children try to get excluded so that they can return home because they are concerned that their parents are victims of domestic abuse. Drugs and alcohol abuse within the school community are reported as commonplace.

The issues reported were considered to be intergenerational and deep rooted in all the schools we visited. Two senior leaders - one from a stuck and one from an unstuck school - commented:

'We have generations of the community who haven't bought into education and what it can offer.' (Senior leader, School 7a)

'There are a lot of cultural gaps that need filling... They were amazed when they visited [city name] to see the tall buildings.' (Senior leader, School 5b)

Another teacher from an unstuck school commented:

'I think we have an intake that is very low in self-worth. I think that's how I would describe it. You know, they are very down on themselves.' (Teacher, School 2b)

We did not attempt to verify the level of parental motivation for pupils at the schools. Therefore, these findings should only be considered as perceptions of those working in the schools.

Geographical isolation

Most schools we visited stated that they were challenged by the geographical location of their school. This boiled down to the fact that their school was not located in a desirable place to live in, or commute to, for teachers. There were multiple aspects to this problem.

Some schools lay just outside a greater city region, meaning that they felt they could not offer as attractive a salary package as schools within the city region. They saw policies such as the London teacher weighting as exacerbating issues they already had with teacher recruitment and retention, believing that good teachers were even less likely to apply for posts in the school.

Schools also felt that their communities were not sufficiently economically vibrant to attract good teachers, particularly due to lower pay. They believed that the wider cultural, social and economic opportunities available within bigger towns and cities were draining them of talent.

Others commented on the general undesirability of the location and its lack of transport infrastructure with cities. One senior leader commented:

'Geographically we are in an awkward area. This is not a fashionable area and most people travel in. Transport links are not very good. It's quite a difficult school to get to.' (Senior leader, School 8b)

Some of the schools we visited benefited from Teach First trainees, but they found it difficult to retain these staff once they graduated. At least 3 schools commented on their struggle to retain Teach First graduates. One staff member commented:

'We attract the Teach First trainees. However, once the 2 years of training are over, Teach Firsters want to move to trendier areas such as [city names] and do not want to stay in the area.' (Headteacher, School 5a)

Again, all these issues were similar in both stuck and unstuck schools.

Unstable pupil intake

All schools commented on the unusual lack of stability in their pupil numbers and population. In most cases, schools reported that the number of pupils on roll fell as they were put into special measures, but rose when they reached requires improvement. This has a destabilising effect on funding, particularly for small schools. A sharp reduction significantly reduces funding and a sharp rise increases it - but that money is only available the following year, due to the lagged funding system.

However, schools believed that the dramatic rise and fall of pupil numbers in these schools had less to do with parental choice than local authority decision-making. Their impression was that local authorities would not send children to schools in special measures but would send pupils on in-year transfers to a school once it was graded requires improvement. This is because the school would be seen as improving as well as having spare capacity.

Once a stuck school is graded requires improvement, the number of in-year transfers it is given appears to be extremely large. One school reported mid-year moves 'in the hundreds', which represented at least a 10% increase in its pupil population. Other schools reported significant numbers.

It is not known why these pupils were being moved. Some schools spoke of taking a large number of pupils who had been permanently excluded. Others spoke of having a highly mobile pupil population, such as those from traveller communities, migrant communities or unstable accommodation arrangements. One school commented:

'The other problem is the high churn of pupils due to the deprived area. With much housing benefit private rented, people move around.' (Governor, School 6b)

Five of the 20 schools invoked the phrase 'dumping ground' to refer to the children they had been given. Four of these schools were stuck and just one unstuck. However, general attitudes towards pupil populations tended to be disparaging. Two senior leaders of stuck schools commented:

'We get all the mid-year transfers and I've yet to see one where actually there aren't serious concerns, issues either with safeguarding or behaviour... So, we very much feel like we're a dumping ground. That's soured the relationship between us and the local authority because we were expecting a bit of respite. Like, look, we're struggling, we don't have full teachers, we don't have capacity, we're in special measures, give us a bit of a break. But it was every other week.' (Senior leader, School 4a)

'It was the dumping ground, seen as the 'toilet of schools', with under capacity. That reputation is still there. [Migrant communities] are always sent to us as we have space. Students join part way through the year. This doesn't lend itself to creating stability.' (Senior leader, School 8a)

As mentioned, this is not an appropriate way to refer to children. A cycle of poor performance has led, over time, to parent and pupil flight, which has led to spare capacity. In turn, this has led to these schools becoming the 'go to' for incoming pupils and a less stable pupil population.

The 2 types of stuck schools

Although all of the schools we visited had similar contextual challenges, the stuck schools were not addressing these challenges effectively. These schools broadly fell in 2 categories:

those that were continually changing and lacked a stable culture and staffing

those that were not and instead had a resistant and embedded culture

However, some schools had features of both categories.

In all stuck schools, governance and oversight were reported to be very weak. Most governors felt they did not have the knowledge or skills to challenge senior leadership teams. Often, the governors were led by the school, rather than the other way around. The final chapter of this report discusses this further.

Type A: Chaotic and change fatigued

Six of the 10 stuck schools fell into this category. A school fit this category if it had at least 2 of the following attributes:

Unstable leadership

These stuck schools have very unstable leadership, with a change of headteacher on average every one to 2 years. Leadership changes are generally more frequent than section 5 Ofsted inspections, which are every 3 years on average for all schools. One school reportedly had 14 different headteachers in the space of 10 years. Over the same period, it had 4 full inspections, showing that leadership change is not always related to inspection.

In most cases, incoming headteachers tried to establish a new culture at the school but had not been successful. We do not know enough about these former headteachers to know why this was the case. However, we have provided details of good leadership decision-making later in this report.

Unclear direction for school oversight

Leaders and staff within these stuck schools were anxious about the direction of their school. They often spent time worrying about academisation or a change in academy sponsor.

However, none of the schools we visited had transferred to a different academy sponsor more than once over the many years they had been stuck. Of the 15 academies that we visited, only 2 had transferred sponsors. Indeed, changes in headship were much more frequent than changes in academy sponsors.

Nevertheless, there was much speculation about potential transfers to new sponsors in these schools. This perception related to the speculation rather than reality of joining a MAT but was clearly distracting and demotivating for staff. One teacher in a stuck school commented:

'In the last 7 years, we've had 4 headteachers. We've looked like we're joining 3 different MATs.' (Teacher, School 8a)

Inexperienced teacher workforce

These schools have a high turnover of staff, with one school reporting 60% turnover on average every year. There is a strong reliance on agency staff, new graduates and Teach First trainees.

Type B: Resistant and embedded culture

Four of the stuck schools fell into this category. A school fit this category if it had just 2 of the following attributes:

Settled leadership team

These schools have had the same headteacher and a similar senior leadership team (SLT) typically for around 5 years or more. During this period, they had at least 2 full inspections graded less than good. Often, the headteacher is someone who also used to be a deputy headteacher in the school and therefore has worked there for an even longer period of time.

Long-standing teacher workforce

Teachers have been working for the school for a long period of time, often decades. The headteacher and SLT have struggled to retain good teachers and many have then left. Performance management of teachers who remain at the school was reported to be poor because the SLT relies on them for having a sufficient number of classes of a certain size.

Antagonistic union voice

Although there is a helpful and constructive union voice in many schools, this is less constructive in a small number of these schools. Both teachers and leaders in at least 2 schools commented on the difficulties this created. There was a union strike in one school that we visited:

'I met with the [specific union rep] who took a personal interest in the school. They said that if there were any restructuring or redundancies, they would go on strike and cripple us.' (Headteacher, School 8a)

'The previous MAT upset people... They precipitated the strikes. I don't fully go along with this as the staff are very militant and have been in charge for years and years.' (Teacher, School 8a)

Although headteachers in unstuck schools have been prepared to have difficult discussions when needed, those in stuck schools are anxious about the time and emotional energy needed to make changes at the school with the challenge the union voice would give.

The role of school improvement support and inspection

The government has introduced a number of different school improvement initiatives over the last 2 decades to help support underperforming schools, in addition to system-wide policies such as academisation. Some of these initiatives have been available to schools (though not always mandatorily) that are judged as requires improvement, as well as those that are inadequate. A summary is listed below. This list is not exhaustive and there are other forms of school improvement support (for example, in local authorities) that also exist.

Figure 3: Summary of school improvement initiatives

2017 to present

Strategic School Improvement Fund (SSIF)

A national fund from which local authorities, MATs and teaching schools could bid to support eligible schools in their area.

Over the same period, there have also been changes to the way Ofsted inspects and reports on schools. The most relevant changes to these schools, as reported through the research visits, are the:

introduction of non-graded monitoring visits of inadequate schools in 2001 (ceased as part of routine inspection in 2016 for maintained schools, as these schools would be academised by the DfE through regional schools commissioners. We continue these for schools in which we have safeguarding concerns.)

introduction of improvement seminars for inadequate schools in 2002 (ceased in 2009)

introduction of monitoring visits for satisfactory schools in 2009 (continues for requires improvement schools)

replacement of the term 'satisfactory' with 'requires improvement' in 2012, to denote a grade 3 provider (continues)

introduction of 'getting to good' seminars for requires improvement schools in 2014 (ceased in 2015)

introduction of the common inspection framework in 2015 (replaced in 2019 with the education inspection framework)

The literature on school improvement

This chapter presents an overview of the research on school improvement initiatives and evaluates how well this is being put into practice for stuck schools.

Much of the literature on school improvement warns against schools trying to implement too many strategies at once. Research has instead concluded that focusing on a small number of core goals is more effective. Indeed, this was a main finding of our 2010 evaluation of the national strategies, which found that:

There is a significant body of literature on implementation science, particularly in health policy. The literature tends to find positive effects of using an active implementation framework, which advocates introducing initiatives that are flexible enough to be implemented with high fidelity. The Education Endowment Foundation uses this literature in its 'School's guide to implementation'.

Research has also suggested that context-specific initiatives are more effective for schools that are struggling the most. This follows a wider body of literature that supports the idea of balancing the fidelity of implementation with flexibility.

Timeline of school improvement initiatives

All the schools we visited had been involved in multiple forms of school improvement initiatives (usually around 5 to 6), receiving advice from several different organisations and individuals since 2005. Because we were not always able to speak to staff who were at the school since 2005, it is likely that the number of improvement initiatives they have received is underestimated. Most schools received advice from NLEs and could usually recall working with 2 or 3 different NLEs.

The visits highlighted the fact that just as many stuck schools had received support as unstuck schools: there was no apparent difference in levels of, or access to, support.

Figure 4: Timelines comparing school improvement initiatives for a stuck school and an unstuck school

Note: The timeline shows the years that the school took part in improvement initiatives.

Note: The timeline shows the years that the school took part in improvement initiatives.

We know, however, by the fact the stuck schools are still not graded good that these initiatives did not have a substantial enough impact. Evidence from visits also suggests that unstuck schools did not find them to be transformative either, as discussed in the next section.

Views on school improvement initiatives

This section summarises the views from stuck and unstuck schools on the effect of those initiatives. Although some of the schools we visited were unstuck, there was no evidence to suggest that any of the school improvement initiatives were important in this transformation. Our evidence is, however, based on schools' perspectives rather than a full analysis of impact. Because some of the school leaders, staff and governors that we spoke to were those who had been running or working in stuck schools for some time, their ability to fully evaluate their school's position may have been weak.

The findings contrast with schools' views of internally driven factors for improvement, such as behaviour policy change, which were often cited as having a transformative effect. Although there can be a link between external support and internal policy changes, this link was not made explicit by the schools we visited.

Overall, schools told us that they received too much advice and that this advice was 'thrown' at them without enough thought. They found that the quality of those providing advice and support was too variable. When it was seen to work, the advice was tailored to the problems within the school and the individuals involved spent time working with staff. When it was seen to fail, there was too much general, one-size-fits-all advice, with individuals spending too little time and giving too little thought to the priorities of the school.

Leaders of education

Most schools that we visited had received support from one or several of the following:

national leaders of education (NLEs), who are experienced school leaders with a track record of at least 3 years working for a school that is graded good or better

local leaders of education (LLEs), who are no longer managed by the DfE, but can be designated by teaching schools to provide leadership support

specialist leaders of education (SLEs), who are experienced leaders with a specialism in a subject area, or specialist leadership area (such as behaviour)

There were a range of views about leaders of education. Some school leadership teams had found their support helpful in the past, while others thought their work had added confusion and given misplaced attention to some areas of school improvement.

There were 2 circumstances in which leaders of education were perceived to work well:

when designated leaders (for example, NLEs or SLEs) had been found from staff within the MAT rather than outside it

when leaders took the time to understand the school and deliver bespoke support.

This is exemplified in 2 headteachers' comments:

'The MAT had commissioned support involving an NLE in the academy trust, coming to work with me doing mentoring learning walks and performance management support. Really really effective... Very much bespoke to us: what we needed and required.' (Headteacher, School 9a)

'We brought in SLEs from the MAT, who spent one or 2 days a week to up-skill teachers. This was external moderation... SLEs from outside the trust didn't have the right skill set: we needed those who'd worked in challenging schools.' (Headteacher, School 7a)

Leaders of education were considered less effective when they did not spend the time to get to know the challenges with the school:

'[The] SLE was not effective - they did not team teach and support. They spent the time monitoring without the coaching, modelling and support. Most of the time the teachers were left to their own devices.' (Deputy headteacher, School 1a)

'Local leaders of education, we didn't see them enough... It was a mismatch, it wasn't appropriate to our children. When their teachers came to work with us, their jaws dropped. They didn't have the skills they needed in our school.' (Assistant headteacher, School 2a)

'In some cases, because they didn't take the time to get to know the school, the NLE didn't always offer the right things to do' (Headteacher, School 2a)

Other schools reflected their view that leaders of education (particularly LLEs) were more interested in elevating their personal position in the local network of schools than providing high-quality advice. Some described this as 'a power thing' with senior leaders from local schools.

Some of the leaders we spoke to were leaders of education themselves. They believed that there needed to be a better matching process between the leader (usually an NLE) and the context and challenges of the school.

Teaching schools

The success of the match between the stuck school and a teaching school was also considered important. As set out in [the appendix](#appendix], a teaching school is a good or outstanding school that provides training for teachers and support to schools in its local area. When teaching schools were reported as being successful in helping a school improve, this included close working between headteachers and mentorship.

For others, teaching schools have been frustrating and confusing, with some describing the experience as 'demoralising' for staff. This was particularly the case in resistant and embedded schools when there could be a conflict of vision between the leadership of the school and the teaching school that was left unaddressed:

'In teaching school 1, I knew some heads who had worked with the school and said that the school had similar expectations. This was successful. However, teaching school 2 had a totally different outlook to me, and different to parents and children. They wanted our staff to work their way. This was frustrating for our teachers. It was confusing for teachers who asked, "do I follow you or the teaching school? You are saying different things".' (Headteacher, School 1a)

Staff in some schools (particularly classroom teachers) felt they had a lack of autonomy over which teaching schools would be appropriate for them. As school leadership teams are usually able to choose their teaching school partners, this may reflect a divergence of opinion on the school's needs. Some teachers found that teaching schools did not have the resources required to facilitate improvement, such as the necessary subject-specialist teachers.

School improvement partners

There were mixed views about the effect and quality of school improvement partners. Some schools remembered historically quite large teams of senior leaders being sent to the school from the local authorities. This was viewed as supportive but in all cases the school remained stuck afterwards. Two leaders commented:

'If I can think back, there was a team of SIPs in 2010. They'd come in, here and there, for a day, from the LA. It was saying the right things but then they'd go off for weeks and nothing really changes. It must've been a huge investment.' (Senior leader, School 7a)

'When I arrived the behaviour policy was phoning 999 to access the police. It was beyond chaotic. The SIP had no appreciation of the amount of work needed to turn around a highly challenging school. Her reports focused incorrectly on areas that were not of significance. I made a fuss - changed a SIP.' (Headteacher, School 4a)

Schools were more positive about their recent encounters with SIPs. These individuals were either attached to their MATs or from an outstanding school in the local area. Advice is welcomed when it is more practical and when the relationship with the school is sustained:

'Historically, we've had a couple of SIPs that we thought were okay but not great... But now we've got our SIP, who is a local outstanding headteacher, and has been outstanding for many years, and she's able to come in, she does a very rigorous review, and she does a lot of peer coaching with [headteacher] and is very practical... Previously too much advice was given, it was too expensive and limited impact.' (Governor, School 4a)

Opportunity areas

Only 2 of the schools we visited reported being part of an opportunity area and both schools were stuck. In the main, their involvement in the initiative was too recent for the schools to evaluate its effect. However, one school commented on the difficulty it had in accessing support with an unstable leadership:

'The opportunity area has been difficult to access in the right way. The process has been tricky, so we've missed out on this. Without the continuity and consistency of our leadership, we've not been able to access this pot of money as we've had too many changes in staff. It's a very specific process to achieve this.' (Senior leader, School 8a)

This suggests, as with other initiatives, that stuck schools need high-quality support to prioritise and coordinate their improvement journey. The leadership of these schools either lacks those essential skills or is busy dealing with the day-to-day difficulties of running the school.

The quality of advice

As the evidence from our school visits demonstrates, there is no shortage of support and advice available to stuck schools. Many schools commented on the sheer volume of initiatives and advice available out there, with the feeling that these were 'thrown at' the school without enough consideration:

'You've got to be careful not to have initiative overload. Ideas generation is my job but we've got to pick what to focus on.' (Senior leader, School 8b)

'Sometimes too many people coming in, telling us what to do, too much to deal with.' (Headteacher, School 1a)

'Before academisation, lots of things were thrown at us. LA advisors gave out lots of different messages, not all cohesive.' (Headteacher, School 10b)

'People throw things at you with the best intentions but it isn't what we need right now... I have support from MAT. My confidence grew as a result of the initial support from the MAT and to make decisions.' (Headteacher, School 9a)

This feedback suggests that there is enough capacity within the school system to support schools and that the focus should instead shift to improving the quality of advice available.

There were many examples of improvement support being perceived to work well in the schools we visited. As discussed above, the features of this working well are:

Views on Ofsted inspection

Ofsted's role in the system is different to that of schools and the DfE. We independently inspect and report on the quality of education. It is for others to take action on the basis of what we have seen.

However, our aim to be a 'force for improvement' means we should always reflect on where inspection and subsequent action by others have not led to sufficient improvements in education quality. It is important that our inspections are as useful as they can be to all those responsible for improving schools.

Data on inspection numbers shows that 83%vof the stuck schools have been inspected 4 or 5 times and the remaining schools have been inspected 6 or 7 times (see Figure 5). Although stuck schools make up only 2% of all schools in England, it is clear that inspection has not been the required catalyst for sustained improvement in these schools' cases.

Figure 5: Number of inspections since stuck schools' first requires improvement or inadequate judgement

We should never judge the effectiveness of inspection on subsequent improvements in inspection grades. To do so would create a perverse incentive for us to give higher judgements rather than to inspect independently. However, it is important for us to work with those responsible for improving schools to make sure our inspections are as useful as they can be.

Schools spoke to us about their experience of Ofsted. In general, unstuck schools were more positive than stuck schools - most likely because they had received 2 recent good judgements. Across all our research at Ofsted we find a positive correlation between a school's latest inspection judgement and its views on the experience of inspection.

Impact of inspection

Overall, school leaders spoke of the benefits of independent inspection to their school's journey. Some commented on the fresh thinking and impetus this had given them to make changes in their school. Others valued the expertise of HMI and the experience of our Ofsted Inspectors (OIs), who are serving practitioners in schools. Leaders said that they wished to commission advice from them more regularly:

'It was very difficult, but the recommendations were precise and clear, and we acted on these... I definitely think the outcomes of the inspection were helpful and reshaped our thinking.' (Senior leader, School 8a)

'We have had a very positive experience of inspection throughout the trust... We felt that inspectors had taken the time to know the school and had an ability to hold us account. We are excited by the new inspection framework. We would like to commission the support from Ofsted - feel that expertise would be so useful for improvement.' (CEO of trust, School 9b)

The impact of inspection also reached those responsible for designing and teaching the curriculum:

'You came in at the right times... For me, the first 6 or 7 years of my career, there was one Ofsted visit a year or a monitoring visit... The school was in a category of concern and received monitoring visits. It felt that SLT were firefighting hugely. Now we feel ready for inspections. You could come in now at any time and it is the normal.' (Teacher, School 5b)

'Because of the last inspection all aspects of English changed. We linked this change to the areas for improvement in the report, including the link between topic and writing. Children are now saturated with the text. Children can now see the journey, it's so much better.' (Senior leader, School 1a)

Support following inspection

Despite a view that Ofsted's recommendations and professional expertise helped schools, many governors and headteachers bemoaned the lack of support they received immediately following inspection. Usually, this was expressed in terms of Ofsted inspecting and then leaving, rather than working with the school following inspection to improve it. This is because the government does not ask or fund Ofsted to support schools following inspection. When schools were told this, they made reference to a more general lack of support immediately following inspection, in contrast to the amount of support made available to them in the longer term. The DfE aims to address this through its new School Improvement offer for requires improvement schools.

Schools found themselves without support from those that had seen and understood the school and who knew how to advise them:

'Ofsted come into the school for 2 days, identify areas to improve but do not provide support or funding to address these.' (Teacher, School 5a)

'We are one of the most vulnerable schools according to Ofsted, but we've had nothing and have been left for a year. That I find very difficult.' (Headteacher, School 2a)

'We were given the judgement without being given the support. The headteacher was unaware of where we could get the support needed to be good.' (Teacher, School 6a)

This suggests that a closer link between Ofsted inspection and the support given to schools by others could be beneficial. This approach could be achieved without Ofsted directly delivering school improvement support and with it maintaining its statutory role to independently inspect and report on school quality.

Recognising 'green shoots'

Schools also recognised that inspection teams have to make difficult judgements, particularly when there is a new leadership team at the point of inspection. In some cases, schools thought Ofsted took a risk in awarding a higher judgement to validate the approach of new leaders; in others, they thought we did not give the new leadership team enough of a chance. Others thought we were too generous and that this led to inaction and a deepening of the problems at the school.

One executive member of a MAT with a stuck school told us that receiving a judgement of good for leadership and management made things worse for the school and its pupils in the long run:

'The first Ofsted report after it became an academy gave the school a false lift... The MAT thought they could ease off as the school got a 2 for leadership and management. This was the mistake. There were 2 monitoring visits, the signs should have been there, and this was reflected in these. At that stage it was right that the school went into a Grade 4. It was a huge shock. This kick started everyone into action. Who knows how long the school would have drifted.' (Executive principal, School 7a)

There were varying views about whether recognising 'green shoots' in the potential of new leadership teams was helpful. Some teachers felt that Ofsted did not give new leadership teams enough of a chance, while some of those responsible for governance thought inspectors' desire to recognise potential had harmed the school:

'I do not believe that the school was inadequate when inspected. The headteacher was new in the school, she had clear ambition and knew what she needed to do. This was not helped by the inspection; it was destructive.' (Teacher, School 5a)

'Some inspectors were generous but that wasn't helpful. I think the school had coasted and it should have been pulled up before this. Sometimes an RI [requires improvement] judgement feels kinder but doesn't help.' (Governor, School 2a)

Monitoring visits

It is not easy to assess whether Ofsted inspections and visits were right to be firm or right to recognise green shoots. In 2016, we carried out internal research and found that most schools that remained requires improvement or declined at their re-inspection had been judged to be 'taking effective action' at their previous monitoring visit. Very few monitoring visits had been complained about (less than 1% of visits). This may be indicative of effective inspecting and maintaining a strong professional dialogue, or indeed too little robust challenge.

Nevertheless, when we identified that leaders were 'not taking effective action', over half subsequently improved at their next inspection. This suggests that when visits are clear and direct in their view of the insufficiency of leaders' actions, monitoring visits can motivate improvement and change.

We have since invested in training to ensure that monitoring visits are as effective at encouraging improvement as they can be.

School leadership decisions

This section summarises the evidence from visits on the leadership decisions that governors, teachers and leaders considered to be the most effective. Those researching struggling schools often point to effectiveness of leadership as being crucial, but there is little research on what leaders in stuck schools should do.

Upholding high teaching standards

All senior leaders commented on the importance of recruiting and retaining good teachers. However, there were different views about how to achieve this. Schools that were unstuck believed the following were crucial in the transformation of the school:

achieving the right balance between teacher turnover and quality

using the 'teachers' standards'

improving flexibility for staff

As discussed earlier, the context of stuck schools made recruitment and retention challenging. There were different views about the relative importance that the SLT gave to retention compared with upholding high standards of teaching.

In stuck schools, there was a tendency to see reducing turnover as important above all else, even if this meant keeping poor teachers at the school. In unstuck schools, a greater number of senior leaders saw high turnover or temporary understaffing as a price worth paying for upholding good teaching standards.

All unstuck schools highlighted the importance of managing performance well. This included challenging poor teachers and encouraging those with potential. During the school's journey to becoming good, senior leaders of unstuck schools stated that they heavily relied on the 'teachers' standards' to manage performance. In some cases, this led to the school removing poor teachers and raising motivation and expectations for good teachers. Once schools became good, they tended to move to more flexible methods. One school commented:

'A big issue was the quality of teaching in 2016, without the staff realising. The mantra was "Ofsted got it wrong". I was staggered by how unaware they were. When the teacher standards came out, staff started to become aware of what good teaching looks like - this had a dramatic impact.' (Headteacher, School 7a)

When it came to improving the quality of teaching through recruitment, senior leaders spoke of the need to change the culture within the school. Two different schools commented:

'There was poor quality staff previously. We've managed to retain quite a lot of the good staff and we've managed to shed the not so good staff... And the appeal of working in [city], if we're talking back to recruitment I think that's a back factor. Getting good quality graduates to come and work in this town, and I think the lack of aspiration in the town is an important factor.' (Senior leader, School 3b)

'We brought in staff who knew what they were doing. There was significant negativity; staff were very resistant to change on the back of lots of new people coming in... Successful recruitment has been around telling people about the moral purpose. People have left us when they don't fit with our ethos. We don't recruit from the merry go round of teachers here in the local area.' (Headteacher, School 7a)

The headteachers of at least 2 stuck schools were challenged by strong union representation resisting action to improve the culture of the school. These headteachers saw previous leaders as weak for not being able to handle these challenges. Often, however, these leaders lacked the support of strong governors who knew about the issues and were prepared to back them.

In one stuck school, the headteacher had been in post for 12 months and commented:

'The 2 problems have been the finance and the unions... I prepared for dismissals of staff. It would have been a tough move but I was prepared to do that... Then I worked on a staffing restructuring and saved £650,000. The unions were objecting to the basics of monitoring and leadership and it made leadership untenable. We've had some really good recruitment for next year including school improvement.' (Headteacher, School 8a)

Similarly, a senior leader told us:

'Previously we had a great deal of unionisation. Staff are now more open however in the past there was a real hill to climb in order to develop the school... Previously governors were not skilled to take on the challenge. I just think everything in the school has been 'ramped up'; everything is more professional now.' (Senior leader, School 7b)

A number of unstuck schools considered innovative methods for retaining talented staff. This included implementing the following strategies:

The success of these initiatives depends on the context of the school and its workforce. However, staff, senior leaders and governors in these schools believed that they helped them to retain good teachers and leaders in an otherwise difficult labour market.

Getting behaviour right

When asked what changes had led to improving education, nearly all unstuck schools made reference to behaviour policy. This included both setting the right policy and implementing it consistently across the school. Only 2 of the 10 unstuck schools did not mention behaviour policy at all.

Some stuck schools also mentioned changes that they had made to behaviour policy and its implementation, stating that they thought these had improved their ability to teach and the quality of education in the school. However, fewer stuck than unstuck schools mentioned this, and in all cases their new behaviour policy had been implemented after their most recent full inspection.

There are several aspects to the changes that unstuck schools had made on behaviour policy:

Many school leaders and teachers recognised that having sufficiently high expectations of the whole-school community - including pupils, parents and other teachers - was fundamental to their transformation. Sometimes, this meant changing the culture for pupils and families from one that accepted disruption and violence, to one that challenged it with clear processes. Leaders told us:

'The behaviour policy changed the culture... We raised the expectations. There were low expectations of our pupils even from staff. We needed to say "this is the standard". Now the behaviour policy is strict but clear. Pupils and teachers know that there is a consistent approach. Teachers and pupils now want to come to the school. Basically, when I came there were no processes.' (Headteacher, School 5a)

'When I first came to this school the behaviour was really poor - it was crowd control. I really would not turn my back on any pupils or give them scissors. Not enough time therefore to teach... Now we have developed a culture when student ethos is positive' (Senior leader, School 5a)

As these comments show, ensuring consistency is a crucial part of implementing good behaviour policy. This includes taking decision-making away from teachers, so that they have the reassurance that leaders will support them in following the school's behaviour policy. One senior leader at a stuck school commented:

'Behaviour was "tricky" when I joined. There was a lot of time when I was in my teaching role but I couldn't teach because I was constantly sorting out behaviour issues... We now have that more or less under control - we've got really good systems now. But that's taken a long time to embed.' (Senior leader, School 10a)

It is clear that the leadership's ownership of the behaviour policy has a large impact on the retention of high-quality teachers. This is clear from focus groups with teachers, who worked in schools where behaviour clearly had been an issue in the past:

'Strategies for behaviour since joining the MAT has made the biggest change, along with professional development... Prior to academisation we were desperate to train in behaviour interventions. It was frustrating not to be given these opportunities, but good now that we are able to.' (Teacher, School 10b)

'Having a strong behaviour lead has been invaluable - you can focus on teaching and not managing behaviour extremes.' (Teacher, School 6a)

Some senior leaders in stuck schools have recognised the impact of poor behaviour on teacher retention:

'Retention issues have been a mixture of teachers which have not "fitted" the school and others who have left - reasons for leaving include leadership responsibility pressures against the stresses of managing behaviour.' (Senior leader, 10a)

The impact of effective MATs

Most unstuck schools that were part of a MAT considered the influence of the MAT as crucial to their recent success. Teachers and leaders at all levels within these schools recognised the importance of the MAT. They usually made reference to the MAT's role in raising expectations and developing curriculum subject expertise.

These schools considered the scale and management of the trust to be critical in developing subject expertise. This includes creating opportunities for sharing knowledge and expertise, and using the scale of the trust to fill vacancies or establish subject career development:

'Academy-led subject networks have been significant - they have been a huge investment in CPD. We are given a lot of opportunities to develop our practice. We have built leadership capacity. There have been a lot of secondments to enrich people's awareness of roles.' (Teacher, School 7b)

'Teachers are now collaborating; subject leaders work together. If one leaves, you retain some subject specialists. Previously, where staff left, you were left with inadequate teachers. Scale through the trust gives solutions and protection against these problems.' (Governor, School 5b)

Teachers and leaders in these schools also recognised the importance of the MAT in setting high expectations and providing challenge where needed:

'I think it's quite telling that my first port of call is always the MAT. This is where most impact support and intervention has come from. Without this we wouldn't have made the sustained improvement that we have.' (Headteacher, School 5b)

'The trust expectations have ramped up expectations: they are looking for commonality across the academy schools. This has changed rapidly. As the trust has grown, the structures have improved. Previously they were too laissez-faire.' (Teacher, School 7b)

However, it was clear from the visits that being part of just any MAT does not make the difference. A number of stuck schools were part of their current MATs at their latest inspection and had been for at least 3 years (in one case, 7 years), but still had not been graded good. Only 2 schools (one stuck and one unstuck) had been transferred to another MAT once since 2005.

The stuck schools that were paired with the above unstuck schools (5a and 7a) saw the failure of the MAT to provide effective challenge and insight as a make-or-break moment for the improvement of their school. One headteacher thought the MAT invested too much at the senior level, rather than at other levels, within the school:

'Working with MAT wasn't as impactful as I would have liked... They sent into the school someone to work in the school for 2 days per week... I felt we were just hiring a less than capable senior leader - an extra body yes but not an expert.' (Headteacher, School 5a)

Improving the parlous state of oversight

The lack of thorough scrutiny and oversight of school leadership was an issue for most schools we visited. The only schools that thought they were effectively held to account were unstuck schools in MATs. In these instances, it was the executive team, rather than the local governing body, that was fulfilling this important duty. These executive teams tended to be part of a national structure.

The rest of the schools we visited commented on the lack of scrutiny, support and challenge given by those with responsibility for governance. This was often put down to a lack of skills in school leadership and management.

The headteacher was seen as the accountable officer in these instances, holding to account those responsible for governance, rather than the other way around. One teacher in an unstuck school commented on the 'abdication' of responsibility by governors and the good work of the headteacher to control this:

'We've not had good governors in the past: they had no concept of what it was like. The head had to get rid of governors who were misogynists. They were enraged that she stopped the residential where everyone got drunk. She wasn't popular, but it was worth it.' (Teacher, School 8b)

Sometimes, governors recognised how they could be easily led by senior leaders. The proliferation of internal performance data has not helped this situation, in which governors find themselves 'bamboozled' by senior leaders. This problem is particularly significant when the leadership is weak:

'We are in the hands of senior leaders... We were bombarded by data by leaders and, with hindsight, could not see the wood for the trees... I do not think that we had a true understanding of the issues for this school of the effectiveness of the trust to manage this.' (Vice chair of trust, School 6a)

It is likely that the same issues affecting the recruitment of good teachers and leaders also affects the recruitment of good governors in these areas. This issue is avoided in some of the larger, less localised MATs, because a national or regional executive team provides governance and oversight. However, the data on stuck schools shows that around half of stuck academies are part of a small or medium MAT (with under 10 schools) compared with 25% of all academies. The opportunities to improve governance by recruiting executive members from a broader geographical area are therefore not being maximised.

Conclusions

This research should give hope to anyone attending or working in a stuck school. It is possible to improve, even in the most challenging of circumstances. There are unstuck schools working in similar environments that are making it happen. The leaders of these schools focus on:

However, the findings suggest that the separate systems of inspection and support are not working together as effectively as they could. Improvement support is rarely seen as transformative. Schools feel they receive too much advice from too many different directions and, although this may have helped some schools, the quality of those delivering it is too often questioned. There is certainly no lack of capacity for school improvement, but rather a need to improve its quality.

We recognise the part that Ofsted has to play. As an independent inspectorate, our job is to inspect and provide a thorough view of the quality of education being delivered, but one that is sufficiently detailed so that these schools can respond effectively. We work within a policy framework in which others support and improve schools.

However, stuck schools are complex. Their pupils face incredibly challenging social circumstances. It takes time and expertise to fully diagnose the issues within these schools. We are therefore working with the DfE to jointly review our approach to independent inspection and the support provided by others in these schools, so that the system as a whole can improve education for all children.

Appendix

Basic characteristics of schools visited

The below table provides some basic statistics on the stuck schools we visited and their unstuck pairs. The schools came from all of Ofsted's 8 regions.

We have not included detailed contextual information to prevent the schools being identified. We committed to take all reasonable steps to prevent the schools or individuals spoken to as part of this research being identified.

Pair

Stuck or unstuck

Phase of education

Academy or maintained or other6

Urban or rural

School size

Note: 'Other' includes voluntary aided and foundation schools.

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Fight or flight? How 'stuck' schools are overcoming isolation: evaluation report

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Ofsted exists to independently inspect and report on standards in education and care. Across the country, we see schools that improve, schools that decline and schools that continue to deliver good standards of education. But hidden behind this is a set of schools in which children have been failed for too long.

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People living in the north-east are the most pessimistic about their chances to progress in the area they live in, with more than half feeling marginalised, new research shows today (21 January 2020).

The Social Mobility Commission's 2019 poll underlines stark regional differences about people's perceptions of their life prospects. Just 31% of people living in the north-east think there are good opportunities to make progress in their own region compared with 74% in the south-east and 78% of Londoners. Only 48% of those in the north-west felt this optimism.

Published to coincide with the first anniversary of the new commission, the poll reveals deep unease in many regions about whether people have the same access to good education, jobs and housing as those living in the south. This 'northern wall' played out dramatically in the general election and has already become a focus of Boris Johnson's new government.

These stark figures, showing a much broader sense of regional unease, highlight the need to make greater efforts to improve social mobility in schools, further education, training and job security in many regions outside the south-east.

The social mobility barometer, a poll of just under 5,000 people carried out by YouGov, also disclosed that more than half (52%) of those questioned felt the government was not doing enough to help the least well-off. Almost twice as many people felt it was becoming harder rather than easier to move up in society.

Dame Martina, chair of the Social Mobility Commission, said:

This poll is a 'call to action' for this government to do more to help social mobility. Politicians at national and local level must listen to it. Regions which have been marginalised for decades should get the investment they need to provide opportunities for young people so they don't have to move out to move up.

The survey also suggested that although people felt there had been improvements in education compared to when their parents went to school this did not translate into a better standard of living or job security.

Overall 63% of people felt they were better off than their parents in terms of education they received but only 29% felt they had better job security. Fewer than half felt they had a better standard of living.

This suggests that the focus on improving educational opportunities may have started to pay off but much more attention is needed on training, jobs, and pay levels, said Dame Martina.

The majority of people continue to feel there are fewer opportunities for people from disadvantaged backgrounds compared to better-off peers, including going to a top university, owning their own home and having access to quality childcare.

The poll also coincides with the publication of the commission's first research report this year into further education. The report, led by Learning and Work Institute, will be launched at an event in central London today, and looks at which interventions work best to help disadvantaged learners access and achieve in further education.

The commission is now urging the government to set up an independent What Works Centre for Further Education and Adult Learning. With a proposed budget of £20 million over the next 5 years, the centre would act as a knowledge and research hub; translating the best available evidence and testing a variety of approaches to ensure resources for poorer students, who make up the bulk of students in further education, are targeted more effectively.

Fay Sadro, head of evidence at Learning and Work Institute said:

Against the backdrop of continued funding pressures on further education and adult learning, there is an urgent need to share knowledge across the sector, improve judgments about investments through the use of evidence and support an increase in research and experimentation.

The study is the first of a series of research projects which the commission is publishing this year covering mental and physical health, downward mobility, apprenticeships and geographical differences in social mobility. Next month it will launch a social mobility toolkit to help employers recruit and train those from poorer backgrounds.

Other main findings from the Social Mobility Barometer poll include:

almost half of people (44%) say that where you end up in society is largely determined by your background, Just over a third (35%) feel that everyone has a chance to get on

the majority of people (77%) think there is a large gap between the social classes in Britain today

twice as many middle class people think their background gave them an advantage in their education (50%) compared to almost half (48%) of those aged 65 and over

only a third (30%) of 18 to 24 year olds think that everyone in Britain today has a fair chance compared to almost (48%) of those aged 65 and over

50% of people think central government should be doing more to improve social mobility and to ensure opportunity for all - 38% felt local government should do more and 37% felt schools should do more

Notes to editors

All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. The total sample size was 4,860 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 11 to 18 March 2019. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+). YouGov is registered with the Information Commissioner, and is a member of the British Polling Council.

The Social Mobility Commission is an independent advisory non-departmental public body established under the Life Chances Act 2010 as modified by the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. It has a duty to assess progress in improving social mobility in the UK and to promote social mobility in England.

The commission board comprises:

Dame Martina Milburn (Chair)

Alastair da Costa, Chair of Capital City College Group

Farrah Storr, Editor-in-chief, Elle

Harvey Matthewson, Aviation Activity Officer at Aerobility and Volunteer

Jessica Oghenegweke, Broadcast and Digital Coordinator at The Roundhouse

Jody Walker, Senior Vice President at TJX Europe (TK Maxx and Home Sense in the UK)

Liz Williams, Group Director of Digital Society at BT

Pippa Dunn, Founder of Broody, helping entrepreneurs and start ups

Saeed Atcha, Chief Executive Officer of Youth Leads UK

Sam Friedman, Associate Professor in Sociology at London School of Economics

Sammy Wright, Vice Principal of Southmoor Academy, Sunderland

Sandra Wallace, Joint Managing Director Europe at DLA Piper

Steven Cooper, Chief Executive Officer C.Hoare & Co

*GB:[Great Britain]

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Social mobility barometer poll results for 2019

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People living in the north-east are the most pessimistic about their chances to progress in the area they live in, with more than half feeling marginalised, new research shows today (21 January 2020). The Social Mobility Commission's 2019 poll underlines stark regional differences about people's perceptions of their life prospects.

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Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy

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Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy

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House of Lords Select Committee Report 2019

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House of Lords Select Committee Report 2019

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Read section on Education

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Professor Tanya Ovenden-Hope and Dr Rowena Passy
Download the report in this link.

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Educational Isolation | Plymouth Marjon University

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'Educational Isolation: a challenge for schools in England' aims to provide an understanding of this complexity through a considered definition of 'educational isolation' and to support schools in accessing resources for school improvement through recommendations for policy makers, funding agencies/organisations and stakeholders.

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Coastal Schools | Plymouth Marjon University

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Socioeconomic disadvantage in Education: an evidence base!

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Socioeconomic disadvantage in Education: an evidence base!

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There is a demand from schools for evidence on the best way to retain early career teachers, because the stress and difficulty associated with working as an ECT can make it hard for schools to recruit and retain them. In addition, existing evidence indicates that teachers' first few years on the job are a formative period during which improvements to teaching practice are easiest to achieve. The EEF funded RETAIN to assess its promise as an intervention which can deliver greater knowledge and confidence and reduce the likelihood of teachers leaving the profession.

Participating teachers saw an increase in their knowledge and understanding of strategies for teaching disadvantaged students, and reported changes in their classroom practice. Their self-efficacy, confidence and research-use also increased. However, because this pilot was not designed to measure impact, it did not use a comparison group of teachers, and so it is possible that this improvement may have occurred anyway, as the teachers became more experienced, or due to general school support.

The teachers received extensive support in line with the evidence about effective professional development. However, the extent to which they could put learning into practice varied: teachers in schools which were open to changing existing school practices found it easier to apply their learning.

While this pilot found that RETAIN is ready for a trial, the programme would benefit from further development work, including a tighter focus on improving pupil outcomes, so the EEF is not currently taking it forward to an efficacy trial. We are always cautious about conducting efficacy trials before programmes are fully ready as it risks underestimating their potential. This is a decision we will keep under review.

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the project    this project will develop and pilot a year-long cpd course for teachers in their first three years after qualification. the cpd aims to improve the teaching of disadvantaged children

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but is also intended as a potential solution to the teacher recruitment and retention crisis. almost 50

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000 qualified teachers in england left the state sector in 2014. this equates to one in 10 teachers leaving the profession – the highest for 10 years

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and an increase of more than 25 per cent over five years. the stress and difficulty of working as an early career teacher means that they are especially likely to leave teaching. four leading providers of teacher training and continuing professional development for teachers will contribute to the design and delivery of the programme: the cornwall college group

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edge hill university and birmingham city university. the course will consist of three modules: 1. understanding the impact of socio-economic disadvantage on schools and pupils. 2. skills and practice: pedagogy. this will provide teachers with an understanding of the latest evidence-based approaches to teaching disadvantaged children. 3. professional teaching: processes

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structures and career pathways. this module will focus on helping teachers deal with the professional and organisational demands of teaching.  why are we funding it?    the stress and difficulty associated with working as an early career teacher can make it hard for schools to recruit and retain them. this programme will seek to overcome these barriers with training specially designed for these teachers. the programme has not been evaluated previously

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but the grantee is an expert in teacher education

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and will use the latest evidence on effective teacher training to inform the development of the programme. the grantee will also use the latest evidence from eef trials and syntheses to create the content of the course.  how are we evaluating it?    the programme will be evaluated by a team from sheffield hallam university. during the development phase the evaluation team will develop a theory of change for the programme

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conduct a light-touch review of its development

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and consider its readiness for the pilot. after the programme has been developed it will be piloted in 12 schools. an evaluation of this delivery phase will ascertain the programme’s feasibility

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evidence of promise and readiness for a trial.  when will the evaluation report be due?    the evaluation report will be published in spring 2018.

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A year-long CPD course for early career teachers

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21/2/17 Education Select Committee Report

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21/2/17 Education Select Committee Report

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Teacher recruitment and retention crisis

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Teacher recruitment and retention crisis

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What is it like in your school?

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West Briton article on funding in schools in Cornwall

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West Briton article on funding in schools in Cornwall

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Your thoughts

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Education Select Committee Report on MATs (28/2/17)

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Education Select Committee Report on MATs (28/2/17)

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Find our paper in the journal on behaviour and coastal schools that became academies due to national challenge circumstances.

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Based on our work with the Future Leaders Trust

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With grey sea on one side and poor transport links on the other, the isolation of many of our coastal schools is holding pupils back, writes Heath Monk

The seaside in the summer is a great place for a child to live. It's exciting, warm (well, warm enough - it's still Britain, after all) and, in tourist towns, there's usually lots to see and do.

But in winter, that sense of vibrancy disappears. With the forbidding grey sea on one side and often-poor transport links on the other, the true isolation of many of our coastal towns becomes apparent.

I grew up in a fading seaside resort - and despite a growing arts and antiques scene, it can still seem desolate on a cold winter's day.

In general, coastal industries have declined since the 1970s and children in coastal towns have a higher than average chance of having no parents in work. Those in work are often low-paid.

"I grew up in a fading seaside resort - and despite a growing arts and antiques scene, it can still seem desolate on a cold winter's day."

Towns are isolated geographically, economically and culturally, with their distance from urban centres often resulting in narrowed horizons. It's no wonder that many children and their families struggle to see the point of education. My organisation is working to change this.

Lowestoft in Suffolk has 20 primary schools and 12 of them are rated 'Inadequate' or 'Requires Improvement' by Ofsted. At the end of the train line, almost an hour from the nearest city, built on the declining industries of tourism, fishing and, more recently, oil and gas, Lowestoft suffers from the challenges identified by Dr Tanya Ovenden-Hope in her 2015 study, Coastal Academies: Changing school cultures in disadvantaged coastal regions in England.

One part of this picture is Lowestoft's Meadow Primary. It hasn't been decorated in 30 years and the roof leaks when it rains. Much more importantly, fewer than 50 per cent of Year 6 students reached expected levels in reading, writing and maths in the last two years, more than 25 percentage points below than the national average.

Over 200 miles away, at Northumberland CofE Academy in Ashington, the story was depressingly similar. It's an hour by public transport to Newcastle. Some students come from families with four generations of unemployment: in 2012 the largest employer in the community, a mining company, shut down. In 2011, only 27 per cent of students went on to higher education.

Schools can't update the rail network or build motorways, but they can show students that there is a way forward. They can't create jobs in the local area, but they can help students meet employers from further afield. Schools, when they work well, expand students' horizons and become the engines of social change.

At Northumberland CofE Academy, headteacher Andrew Day has raised local expectations of the school and its students. He's pulled in high-profile visitors, from politicians to sportspeople to members of the royal family. Their visits show children and the wider community that people care and want them to succeed.

This year, the school achieved its best ever results and more than half of the academy's most recent leavers gained university places.

Meadow Primary's luck is changing too. Its new head, Nadia Paczuska, recently ran a bold teacher recruitment campaign, based on the well-known WW1 enlistment poster, to find the passionate teachers that her students deserve.

After a lot of hard work, she received 155 applications and recruited nine new members of staff, some from as far afield as the USA. She ran a Summer School for her new Year 6s and pulled in volunteers to finally redecorate and make the school a more inviting place.

"A great headteacher is the surest way to change the outcomes of every student in a school. But coastal schools find it very hard to recruit."

It is true that coastal schools face different challenges to other schools. They are charged with reversing the isolation that leaves thousands of children with a limited education and limited opportunities in life.

A great headteacher is the surest way to change the outcomes of every student in a school. But coastal schools find it very hard to recruit and retain the leadership - at all levels - that they need.

Through our Talented Leaders programme, we're aiming to recruit heads and match them with the schools that need them most.

The tide is turning. Today, we released a publication building on Ovenden-Hope's research. It brings together the work that six headteachers across the country, including Nadia and Andrew, are doing to change the coastal schools they lead. Through hard work, they and other school leaders like them are replacing isolation with opportunity.

But there are still many coastal schools without a great headteacher. We need more great heads to take up the challenge of leading these schools in order to make sure all children get the opportunities they deserve - wherever they live."

Heath Monk is Chief Executive of The Future Leaders Trust

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'It's time to change the depressing reality of inadequate coastal schools'

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With grey sea on one side and poor transport links on the other, the isolation of many of our coastal schools is holding pupils back, writes Heath Monk The seaside in the summer is a great place for a child to live.

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Based on our research and work with the Future Leaders Trust

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An in-depth study into school leadership has identified four key ways in which leaders are transforming struggling schools.

And its conclusions suggest that even in areas that have experienced economic decline and where school leavers have limited prospects, it is possible to make a difference.

The study was published this week by the Future Leaders Trust, a U.K. charity which aims to develop school leaders, and focuses on the problems faced by coastal schools in England.

But the findings contain wider lessons for school leaders serving communities that have been hit by economic decline.

The report identifies a number of challenges facing coastal schools as a result of their socio-economic context, which includes the decline of long-established industries such as fishing or ship-building and the seasonal nature of employment.

One is that of educational isolation. These schools are often in areas where there is no local university providing a natural next-step for students, and without the investment that is drawn to big cities.

They also find it hard to recruit staff, partly a result of their geographical isolation and poor employment prospect for partners, and they find it difficult to engage with students and families. As the report says, "In areas with high levels of unemployment that sometimes spanned generations, many families failed to see the point of education".

In addition, they often suffer from low quality teaching, a result of a lack of accessible professional development, low morale and high sickness rates.

In response to these challenges, leaders of the schools examined in the study took a series of measures that broadly fall into four themes:

1. Engaging students with learning: instead of simply trying to ensure that students attended school, there was an emphasis on engaging them, through opportunities such as educational trips and projects with local businesses;

2. Raising expectations: school leaders aimed to create a sense of urgency about improving standards, recruiting and developing staff and ensuring data systems and leadership structures were up-to-scratch;

3. Changing student behaviour: reinforcing positive role-models, involving students in decision-making and setting out clear expectations also helped improve behaviour;

4. Working with the community: leaders worked closely with elementary schools to ensure a smooth transition to high school, and opened up their schools to turn them into a focus for community activities.

Some of their actions have been unconventional. One school advertised for teachers in the form of a wartime recruitment poster, after regular advertizing failed to produce the desired response.

But all the schools included in the study have seen significant gains in student grades, as well as school attendance and behaviour. Many have also seen improvements in the verdict of school inspectors.

The findings do not provide an easy template for school success, but nor are their lessons confined to schools in the particular circumstances of those featured in the report.

What they do show is that even in challenging circumstances, where employment prospects are bleak and attitudes towards education are less than positive, it is still possible for school leaders to make a difference.

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Four Ways Leaders Are Transforming Schools

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An in-depth study into school leadership has identified four key ways in which leaders are transforming struggling schools. And its conclusions suggest that even in areas that have experienced economic decline and where school leavers have limited prospects, it is possible to make a difference.

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Used our research to frame discussion

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Is where you live the key defining feature in being in an underachieving school? Is geography the new poverty?

The rise of London as an education superpower, succeeding despite high levels of deprivation, has redrawn the map of expectations in school achievement.

And where once there used to be generalisations about the problems of schools in the "inner cities", the attention has now switched to coastal towns.

The fading seaside towns, with unreliable transport links and local economies as rattled as a pier in a gale, have become a growing cause for concern for education ministers and inspectors.

But why should schools in coastal areas struggle?

Setting suns

Instead of sunny postcard images, a report last month from the Future Leaders Trust described towns on the coast in terms of geographically isolated communities based around declining industries.

The charity, which works for fairer opportunities in school, says there is a culture in "which students are given limited experience beyond their own town and where they see little value in academic qualifications".

Even though there are wide horizons of the sea, economic perspectives are narrow.

The Trust's report argues that "exceptional head teachers" need to be recruited and deployed to seaside towns.

The struggle to get enough good teachers has been cited as a major problem for coastal schools.

There is a staffing problem for all kinds of schools in England - and coastal towns face particular difficulties in competing.

They can't offer the attractions and good transport links of big cities and they don't have the more comfortable surroundings of the well-upholstered suburbs or shires.

End of the pier

In response, Teach First, set up to bring top graduates into classrooms in struggling inner-city schools, has now turned its missionary zeal to places such as the Isle of Wight, Great Yarmouth, Blackpool and Thanet.

The charity built to tackle urban deprivation is now beside the seaside.

Coastal schools are also more likely to serve groups of youngsters associated with lower achievement. There are higher concentrations of white working-class pupils, often the lowest achieving in exam results.

Tanya Ovenden-Hope from Plymouth University, who has studied coastal academies, identifies an inter-generational lack of engagement. Parents who themselves had a poor experience of education have low levels of expectation that it will offer much more to their own children.

Populations can be transient, with seasonal work and families that move in and out of the area. The grand Victorian and Edwardian seaside villas have often been chopped up into bedsits, bed and breakfasts and temporary accommodation.

Seaside towns have lacked the jobs that will attract and keep bright young graduates, so talented youngsters are less likely to remain.

Isolation

Towns relying on tourism have faced tough times and it's been far from plain sailing for communities based around shipping or fishing.

And high-skill, high-tech industries have clustered around universities or big city start-up hubs rather than at the end of a coast road.

A 2013 report from the Centre for Social Justice described seaside towns as "dumping grounds" for social problems, with just five towns - Rhyl, Margate, Clacton-on-Sea, Blackpool and Great Yarmouth - costing £365m per year in benefits and housing support for working-age adults.

Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw has defined the problem for schools as being about "isolation".

As well as being physically isolated, he says that too often coastal schools are cut off from the help they need and the pressure to do better.

"These schools are deprived of effective support when times are bad. They are left unchallenged when they flirt with complacency," said Sir Michael, launching last year's annual report.

It's another organisational version of being bypassed.

Lower results

And there is some fascinating number crunching showing that coastal schools are not catching up.

SchoolDash, which analyses education data, has examined the performance of coastal schools in this year's provisional GCSE results.

And these figures from summer 2015 show that pupils in coastal schools are on average achieving 3% lower results than inland schools, based on the benchmark five good GCSEs including English and maths.

This might seem narrow, but in exam results it is quite significant when annual changes are measured in a fraction of a percentage point.

And the summer results for coastal schools, at least provisionally, are lower than in any of the previous four years and consistently below the average for inland schools. There are no signs of results rising.

If the coastal schools were counted as a separate region they would be below average, but ahead of England's lowest-performing regions, the north east, Yorkshire and the Humber and the east Midlands.

The figures also show that coastal schools have a more deprived intake, with 3% more pupils eligible for free school meals - a figure similar to the achievement gap.

There are exceptions. The SchoolDash data shows that places such as North Tyneside and Lancashire coastal schools outperform their inland counterparts. And there are some coastal areas which are conspicuously affluent.

But the national picture shows a trend of overall lower performance in coastal schools. And as you focus more tightly, a map of the south east shows pockets of underachievement pinned around the coastline.

And if you go in closer again, such as a map of West Sussex, there is a discernible trend for a strip of lower results on the coast and then rising further inland.

Is this really all about poverty, but made more poignant by the trappings of seaside optimism? Is it about communities left behind by changing times?

And why are more deprived areas of London much more successful and ambitious?

Like a grabbing crane in one of those arcade games, always missing out on the top prize, it's proving difficult to pick up the right answer.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

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Why are coastal schools at such a low ebb?

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Is where you live the key defining feature in being in an underachieving school? Is geography the new poverty? The rise of London as an education superpower, succeeding despite high levels of deprivation, has redrawn the map of expectations in school achievement.

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Powerpoint on longitudinal study on a coastal academy in England

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Powerpoint on longitudinal study on a coastal academy in England

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Please read me and post questions.

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Coastal towns in England have specific challenges that impact on education. Discuss the challenges identified by our research and potential solutions put in place by schools. 

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Coastal towns in England have specific challenges that impact on education. Discuss the challenges identified by our research and potential solutions put in place by schools. 

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Tanya

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The coastal school conundrum: five challenges and how to fix them. (The Guardian, 2015)

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The coastal school conundrum: five challenges and how to fix them. (The Guardian, 2015)

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The Guardian newspaper took our work (Ovenden-Hope and Passy 2015) and used it to demonstrate coastal school improvement opportunities.

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Situated in areas of declining industry, limited transport and low-paid work, coastal schools are struggling to support their students, recruit good teachers and raise aspirations.A new report by Future Leaders highlights the transformative effect strong leaders can have on these schools. The analysis, based on a study by researchers from Plymouth University, also highlights the challenges coastal schools face - and what we can do to improve them. Here's a round up of the key takeaways:

Five reasons coastal schools are failing

A lack of good teachers
Headteachers in some coastal schools in the study reported low response to job adverts, receiving one, two or in even no applications for certain roles. The big challenge is that coastal areas are isolated, with little or no transport links, long commutes and few employment opportunities for partners and family.

Low aspiration
The study found it was difficult engaging students and their families - noting that sometimes parents' own poor experiences of school influenced their children. There was little belief in the value of education in families affected by unemployment.

Headteacher Deborah Sutton, who has helped transform Bassett Green primary school in Southampton, talked about the benefits of getting teachers to support families. "I cannot overstate the importance of ... developing relationships with harder-to-reach families, and ensuring that the welfare and education of the most vulnerable in our society are kept at the top of our priority list."

A bad start for students
Of the academies involved in the study, three reported low or variable standards in local primary schools. This had a big impact on secondary education, with year 7 intakes heavily affected by low-performing feeder schools. The report also notes that this led to lower expectations for students among teachers.

Educational isolation
The study found three areas where this affected coastal schools. The lack of universities in the local area meant there was no one to "engage directly with the difficulties and the challenges of urban schooling". What's more, targeted investment for inner-city schools - such as London Challenge -hasn't been matched in coastal areas. And finally, without high-performing local schools to share best practice, school improvement was much more difficult.

Changes in education policy
Coastal regions aren't immune to education policy changes either. They have been affected by the focus on academy organisations, reform to the curriculum and exam changes, which makes the struggle to improve grades even harder.

How to save coastal schools

Engage with the community
The report recommends secondary schools work closely with feeder primaries to aid transition, allow teachers an insight into pupils before they join in year 7 and improve standards.

The coastal academies: changing school cultures in disadvantaged coastal regions in England notes how some academies have also organised funding for community buildings to provide a meeting space and offer services for residents.

Raise expectations
Teachers need to have high expectations for their students. The study explored ways that schools can raise standards by recruiting dynamic teachers, developing staff, altering the timetable and improving leadership structures. Great Yarmouth primary academy encouraged staff by telling them that other deprived parts of the country were achieving outstanding results. The executive principal, Craig Avieson, also ensured staff were aware of the latest research on growth mindset and any best practice was publicly celebrated.

Change students' behaviour
This was improved through getting pupils involved in leadership and giving them more responsibility, as well as extracurricular activities.

Great Yarmouth primary academy spent a year developing core values with parents and students, followed by acting them out and rewarding children for good behaviour.

In Oasis Academy Immingham, principal Kevin Rowlands developed a new approach to behaviour: "We evolved our behaviour policy away from 'carrot and stick' and towards building intrinsic motivation. We still have zero tolerance for mobile phones and social media abuse. But detentions and isolations have been removed and students are supported to engage with their education, building resilience and not allowing them to give up."

Engage students in learning
It's not enough just for students to attend school, they need to engage. The report recommends taking students to cultural places of interest (such as universities, historical sites and museums) to spark young imaginations.

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The coastal school conundrum: five challenges and how to fix them

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Situated in areas of declining industry, limited transport and low-paid work, coastal schools are struggling to support their students, recruit good teachers and raise aspirations.A new report by Future Leaders highlights the transformative effect strong leaders can have on these schools.

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Used Drs Ovenden-Hope and Passy's research report on Coastal Academies to review coastal school improvement in other coastal schools.

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