Adela Kay, Assistant Headteacher at Aspire Virtual School, has conducted in-depth research on a variety of pressing issues affecting children and young people within our community.
For this June’s research, Adela explores a range of issues affecting children and young people, including Ofsted outcomes and disadvantage, White working-class educational outcomes, child sexual abuse response pathways, domestic abuse guidance, the disadvantage gap, inclusion bases, school readiness, supporting parents with learning disabilities, online masculinity and looksmaxxing, mobile phone use, and the growing role of AI in children’s media lives.
Please note, this update includes references to child sexual abuse and domestic abuse, which some readers may find upsetting.
Below you’ll find summaries and links to the latest research and reports relevant to our work with children and families.
Ofsted Judgement Linked to Outcomes for Disadvantaged Pupils
FFT have analysed Ofsted outcomes in comparison to different disadvantaged groups. What emerges is a pattern of lower outcomes for schools with high proportions of disadvantaged groups.
Whilst we know that certain ethnic groups within the disadvantaged cohort are more likely to underachieve, this then correlates with a higher chance of being judged as needing attention or urgent improvement.
There is various data collated in the article, but two things stand out: schools with high proportions of White disadvantaged students are likely to be judged needs attention or urgent improvement, and more schools from the highest quintile of schools based on the proportion of White disadvantaged students have been inspected.
The plan to contextualise attainment measures and then compare across similar schools will hopefully make up for this disproportionality in the medium term.
📌 Read here: The links between disadvantage and the achievement grade in school inspection – FFT Education Datalab
White Work Class Educational Outcomes
The inquiry into White working-class educational outcomes has now published its findings, which show that White working-class educational underachievement is not primarily the result of low aspiration or individual failure.
Instead, it reflects the interaction between educational disadvantage, economic decline, weakening trust in public institutions and declining confidence that education provides a reliable route to future opportunity.
As a lifelong teacher that is hard to read, but we have long been talking about the underachievement of White working-class children and yet we are still producing the same results.
The main findings see transitions as key pressure points where gaps widen and engagement declines, and we know this is true of other groups too. It also sees White working-class education outcomes as influenced not just by the education system but also by wider community and economic conditions.
There is also misalignment between how the system and working-class communities define the success and purpose of education, and as a result White working-class families have poorer experiences of the school system than their peers.
📌 Read here: Inquiry into White Working-Class Educational Outcomes
Child Sexual Abuse
The CSA Centre of Expertise has fully redesigned and updated the Child Sexual Abuse Response Pathway. If you haven’t looked at this already, please do. It has been completely redeveloped to make it quicker and easier for multi-agency professionals to understand the steps they can take to protect and support children and their families when there are concerns of sexual abuse.
It also now provides new guidance on family law and family court processes alongside existing guides on child protection and criminal justice responses.
This is the only tool of its kind in England and Wales, enabling professionals working across education, health, children’s social care, policing, criminal justice, family law, and voluntary and community services to access the latest child-centred guidance.
They have also published an updated guide, Implementing the Child Sexual Abuse Response Pathway, to help local partnerships introduce and embed the Response Pathway within their local practice and procedures.
📌 Read here:
- Response Pathway Home – CSA Centre
- Implementing the Child Sexual Abuse Response Pathway – CSA Centre
Domestic Abuse
Research in Practice has published updated guidance and resources for supporting children living with domestic abuse.
There are a number of different briefing papers, some designed for senior leaders and safeguarding partnerships, which focus on system change, and others which are designed for practitioners working with children.
The recommendations focus on support for families and communities to engage, and therefore affect long-term change.
📌 Read here:
- Rethinking domestic abuse in child protection
- Strategic and Frontline Briefings – Research in Practice
Halving the Disadvantage Gap
FFT have analysed the current levels of attainment for the full cohort and the disadvantaged cohort. They suggest that in order to meet the current government’s 2040 goal of halving the disadvantage gap between the full cohort and disadvantaged children, the disadvantaged cohort will need to see an increase in Attainment 8 scores from 35.0 to 44.4.
Schools in LBBD are already managing and enabling progress for high numbers of disadvantaged children, but this highlights the wider governmental pressure to improve.
📌 Read here : Halving the disadvantage gap – FFT Education Datalab
Inclusion Bases
The government has published a lot of guidance in the last month, which gives a little more detail to the expectations around Ordinarily Available Provision.
The new guidance on inclusion bases sets out the overarching aim of helping more children remain in local mainstream schools with the right support, rather than requiring specialist placements.
The key messages are:
- Inclusion bases should maximise pupils’ participation in mainstream lessons and wider school life wherever possible, and access to an inclusion base must never be used as a sanction, punishment or exclusion from learning.
- Schools should view inclusion on a continuum, with support flexing according to need and, where appropriate, increasing time spent in mainstream classes over time.
- Inclusion bases should provide a broad, ambitious curriculum that remains aligned to mainstream learning wherever possible, and high expectations should be maintained for all pupils.
- Support should remove barriers rather than reduce ambition.
- Progress should be measured through academic outcomes as well as attendance, wellbeing, communication, independence, social development and preparation for adulthood.
- Schools should use robust assessment, clear baselines and regular review processes to evaluate the impact of provision.
- Effective inclusion bases are teacher-led, supported by strong leadership, specialist expertise and multidisciplinary working.
- Collaboration between education, health, social care and specialist services is critical to success.
- The expertise within the base should be used to improve inclusive practice across the whole school, not just within the base itself.
- Strong partnerships with families are essential, with parents and carers involved in decisions, planning and reviews from the outset.
- Children and young people’s views should inform support plans, transitions and provision design.
- Physical environments should be accessible, flexible and integrated into mainstream school life rather than isolated from it.
- Local authorities and schools should strategically plan and commission inclusion bases based on local need, quality assurance and expected outcomes.
📌 Read here: Inclusion bases in schools
School Readiness
The Centre for Young Lives has released a report on school readiness. The report has case studies from areas where GLD has improved, supporting “what works” conversations, and comes with a range of key recommendations.
Some highlights include:
- Setting a bold and ambitious local vision for early years.
- The absence of a coordinating framework set by central government, linking up HCP, Families First, Best Start in Life and Family Hubs.
- Local authorities delivering the strongest integration combined co-location of services in Family Hubs with robust governance and commissioning structures.
- Where live birth data is shared effectively, services can proactively reach vulnerable families earlier.
- Several areas worked to maximise the 2–2½ year review as an intervention trigger and developed targeted, proactive outreach to underserved families least likely to engage independently.
- Reframing the review as an “offer” to families, rather than a check or assessment, was identified as an effective way to boost uptake among those who would benefit most.
- Building on the Best Start in Life strategy, government should develop a long-term, cross-government societal strategy from pregnancy to reception, underpinned by a mandatory, strengthened common outcomes framework for babies, children, young people and families.
- A recurring concern was that the GLD measure is simply not designed to reflect the diversity of many children’s circumstances and backgrounds, for example children with SEND, children with English as an additional language, children born in the summer term, children from deprived backgrounds, or children with experiences of trauma as a result of ACEs.
- The nature of the ASQ check itself does not align closely enough with the EYFS Profile measuring good level of development, which may explain the significant and consistent gap in development outcomes across the two measures.
Supporting Parents with Learning Disabilities
A recent report has been published on parents with learning disabilities.
The key findings are that parents with learning disabilities are overrepresented in care proceedings, although research shows parenting capacity is more influenced by life experience, trauma, support available and social circumstances than by learning disability itself.
High levels of professional scrutiny can also increase parental anxiety and influence behaviour during assessments, which may affect professional judgements.
The research suggests that parents have a willingness to give their children a positive start but felt they were often being judged.
This is also something for professional networks to consider in the context of parents’ ability to engage with material schools and agencies are sending out. If literacy levels are low, a parent may not be able to read the newsletter that tells them their child needs a costume for World Book Day or extra money for a trip.
When we are supporting families, it is important to remember the needs not only of the child but also of the adults around them, to ensure the support is right for that family.
📌 Read here: Parents with learning disabilities: research findings – Community Care
Online Masculinity and Looksmaxxing
The Centre for Young Lives has published a report about boys, online masculinity and looksmaxxing.
I found this particularly interesting in the context of the conversations I know have been had about the impact of online images around girls, because I hadn’t considered it in a boy context.
This report considers the influence of social media from mild skincare suggestions and gym routines through to extreme methods of appearance-changing such as bone-smashing, starvemaxxing, steroid cycles and unregulated injections.
I think it is really important to remember the image influence social media can have on young boys and the untold impact it can have on personal perception, and how it can change core beliefs about oneself to, at its extreme, the incel movement.
📌 Read here: Looksmaxxing Report – Centre for Young Lives
Mobile phone use and the use of AI
In light of the expected changes to mobile phone and social media, I wanted to share this news article about phone use in young people and the use of AI. This is a response to a recent Ofcom report looking at how media is used by children and young people.
Key findings from the report show that children are growing up in an increasingly online, individualised media environment, with offline media and activities playing a diminishing role in children’s everyday lives.
For looked after young people, we need to think about how contact with friends and family may be found through the phone and where this can be both a positive and a negative influence or experience for them.
📌 Read here:
- Younger phone owners, the rise of AI, and consumption over creation – Ofcom
- Children’s Media Use and Attitudes – Ofcom
Hope you have a lovely sunny weekend,
Adela
