12,000+ teachers and learners speak up for the changes they want to see in education: key insights from the Pearson School Report 2024

Sharon Hague, Managing Director, School Assessment and Qualification | Pearson

4 min read29 July Partner content

Exactly one week before this year’s general election, thousands of learners and teachers took part in a different movement. They contributed to a national report which maps how the views of learners and teachers have changed over the years and the pressing issues affecting schools and our young people today. These insights have the power to spark fresh ideas about how sitting parliamentarians can support positive change in schools and across the education community.

12,000+ voices speaking from schools

The Pearson School Report 2024: Your voices, our future launched on 27th June and presents how 10,000 educators and 2,000 students feel about the key challenges and opportunities in education today. Covering student engagement, attendance, school budgets and more, the third annual School Report from the global lifelong learning company, Pearson, is our biggest-ever reflection on what’s happening inside schools and settings across England.

The report includes findings from a comprehensive range of learners and teachers – at primary and secondary levels, from the least to the most deprived schools, as well as both state-funded and independent settings. The nationally weighted findings offer fascinating insights that anyone can now explore at a regional level too. They tell us, for example, that:

only 68 per cent of learners in the South West feel “accepted” and that they feel like “they belong” in their schools – a figure that rises to 85 per cent in Greater London
Brighton, Bristol, Liverpool, Plymouth, Sheffield, and Southampton are all cities where at least three-quarters of students struggle to engage in lessons compared to two-thirds of those in London and the East of England
just under 30 per cent of teachers in east England want flexible working, compared with more than 40 per cent of teachers in the North West

Crucial insights on SEND, the curriculum and recruitment

On a broader level, this year’s report also paints a big-picture portrait of what matters most to today’s educators and the young people they support. The impact of special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), the curriculum, and teacher recruitment and retention were once again themes of huge significance to respondents this year.

61 per cent of educators say the prevalence of SEND has become an increasing concern for them in the past twelve months

At both primary and secondary level, SEND is high up on the list of expected barriers to pupil learning this year, with three-quarters of all teachers reporting this as a concern – a rise of 18 percentage points on the same period in 2022-2023. At the same time, many shared their schools’ positive strategies for SEND support, with one in two schools now offering training for SEND, and 61 per cent of educators predicting technology will improve SEND accessibility by 2027.

Only 5 per cent of teachers feel the national curriculum reflects the world around us

With almost six in 10 teachers revealing that pupil disengagement in learning has been an increasing concern for them in the last 12 months, the majority say changes to the national curriculum could make a positive difference. Three-quarters of all teachers would put core life skills, e.g. financial management, into the curriculum, while as many as 70 per cent would add mental health/wellbeing. Primary and secondary students’ top choice on what could best impact education proved to be digital flexibility for their assessments, while educators cited mental health and wellbeing initiatives, digital learning resources, and more diverse resources and texts, as the top three things that have positively impacted schools in the past two years.

Teacher recruitment and retention is considered a top challenge by more educators this year than 12 months ago

57 per cent of educators today say teacher recruitment and retention will be one of the biggest challenges their school faces this year, putting this just two percentage points behind the top reported challenge: budget pressures. Teacher recruitment and retention are expected to be an increasing concern among secondary teachers especially (84 per cent) compared to primary teachers (55 per cent), with 45 per cent of educators highlighting that a "national workforce plan to recruit and retain teachers" would be one of the changes that could most impact education in future.

Driving positive change together

This is just a snapshot of what teachers and students say about what matters most to them about education. You can find much more on our Pearson School Report 2024 hub – including statistics, stories and a range of inspiring in-school solutions from communities nationwide.

As we at Pearson endeavour to act on these insights, making real change for schools today and going forward means joining our voices together and working in partnership across the sector. So please contact us for an in-depth briefing on what the data shows and for ideas on the range of solutions to the issues raised by our research. Together we can drive forward positive change for everyone’s futures – starting right here, right now.

For more information on the Pearson School Report or any other education issue, please contact Daniel Pedley, at Pearson’s Government Relations team, at daniel.pedley@pearson.com.

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