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It's here! : The Pearson School Report 2024

We’ve just launched our highly anticipated 2024 Pearson School Report, which brings together over 12,000+ teacher, student and sector voices on education – the challenges, solutions in action, and opportunities for the future.

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Multi-Academy Trusts

Supporting transformation and improvement across your trust 

Every trust has a unique set of needs. That’s why we’ll work with you to create the best package of teaching, learning and training solutions for your schools, teachers and learners.

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Onscreen GCSE English exams options from 2025*

We’re thrilled to announce that we’re working to offer every GCSE English student the choice to sit their exams onscreen from summer 2025.

Building on the success of our onscreen GCSE and International GCSE exams to date, we’re excited to be opening up more ways for all students to best show what they know and can do in GCSE English Language, GCSE English Literature and GCSE English Language 2.0.

* Subject to Ofqual approval

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Diversity defined.

Perspectives on diversity

Personal and unfiltered, our Diversity Defined series shines a light on the perspectives of educators and experts from across the sector, exploring what diversity in education means and how it can be realised.

The series covers a range of topics including Disability, Identity, Varying Needs, Equity, Representation, Stereotypes, Inclusion, Teaching, and Youth. Each piece provides valuable insights and actionable steps to support diversity and inclusivity in education.

DIscover the space

Practical advice from inspiring environmentalists and educators

Our Sustainability and Climate Lead, Clare Cox, puts questions to leading environmentalists and educators in our Ask the Expert series, providing you with practical advice and tips on how to make your school more sustainable and eco-friendly.

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Free mental health and wellbeing support

The Wellbeing Zone is packed with free resources to support teachers, parents and young people with mental health and wellbeing – from advice on coping with anxiety and exam stress, to fun activities and mindfulness.

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Explore blogs from Pearson Schools

  • 10 universal truths about the summer holidays for Primary school teachers

    1. In a triumph of hope over experience you will be imagining six weeks of glorious sunshine and brilliant blue skies, and will spend most of the break waiting expectantly for summer to actually arrive, before finally admitting defeat on 26 August.

    2. In the first week of the holidays you will get a cold as you finally allow yourself to relax.

    3. Luckily, you’ve got a mountain of chocolate from your pupils to keep your spirits high for at least a couple of weeks. (Oh OK, two nights with the latest box-set on the telly).

    4. The two days where the sun really does put in an appearance you’ll be so unused to it you’ll forget your sun-cream and end up just a tiny bit crisped (in spite of all your warnings to your pupils over the last term!).

    5. If travelling anywhere by ferry you are bound to bump into one of your pupils past or present (and their parents…), especially if it’s a long crossing. Get a cabin!

    6. You will lose track of the number of people who tell you how lucky you are to have such a long holiday, but lose the will after the first one to explain how many extra hours you put in the rest of the year.

    7. No matter how good your holiday was, that first night back in your home and your own bed is as comforting as hot chocolate and marshmallows.

    8. That Sunday evening feeling will probably start somewhere around the time you finally realise that summer’s not going to show. Although if you have children of your own, you may actually be looking forward to going back to work…

    9. You secretly love it when the shops fill up with stationery. Ooh, all those different coloured gel pens, geometry sets and pristine pads of paper... it’s like Christmas, but better.

    10. You’re feeling a little bit sad about the children you’ve just got to know over the past year moving on, but also excited about getting to know your new bunch. They’re the reason you do it, after all.

  • Setting the scene for SATs '16

    With SATs over for another year, the countdown to a new brand of tests covering the content of the 2014 curriculum has begun.

    Complete with a new floor standard for school accountability, pending decision-making on performance descriptors and controversy over SATs re-sits, the new age of assessment promises to be an interesting one.

    Progress versus attainment

    From 2022 schools that have elected to adopt the Reception Baseline check from September 2015 will be able to be judged on the progress that their children have made rather than on their final attainment.

    However, as the first eligible cohort work their way through the Key Stages, the measure for school accountability over the next 7 years will remain attainment. As we know, the DfE has set the bar high - 85% of pupils reaching a level equivalent to a 4b (in old money) in the core subjects, meaning that SATs pressure is about to ramp up another notch.

    The weakness of this plan is the absence of information or support relating to how schools are to achieve this, beyond a notion that by expecting more of pupils they will strive to meet up to them.

    Official figures from the DfE show that around 100,000 pupils a year currently are failing to achieve the required standards in English and maths, and with pupils now facing tests based on harder curriculum content this figure is likely to grow. Which could be a problem in light of the policy announced in April that pupils who do not pass their end of KS2 SATs will be required to re-sit them.

    Resisting resits

    It is fair to say that SATs resits have not been well received by the teaching community. First and foremost, it is in direct contradiction of the original intention of SATs to benchmark school performance, not that of the children. Even the kindest of critics believe it’s an idea that has not been fully worked through.

    Rhetoric around the time of the election was unhelpful, obscuring the intention of this policy to give children a further chance to catch-up before they get stuck into their Secondary education. Language such as “zero tolerance of failure and mediocrity” and claims that Conservative educational policy would not allow children who failed their SATs to drag down standards for brighter pupils (reported in the Telegraph) came off to many as discriminatory.

    However, removed from all of the pre-election bluster, the policy is at its core about a pre-emptive strike to help pupils destined for poor performance at GCSE. “We know that the biggest predictor of success at GCSE is whether young people have mastered the basics at age 11. That means if we fail to get it right for young people at the start of secondary school they’ll struggle for the rest of their time in education,” argues Nicky Morgan.

    Not many could argue with the sentiment. There needs to be more of a focus on supporting struggling pupils, particularly as the harder curriculum may mean this group becomes more numerous, pulling in pupils previously considered ‘middling’ into its orbit.

    A policy with potential…?

    In an extremely well-argued article, Laura McInerney, editor of Schools Week, concludes that there is potential to the policy – as long as certain ‘sticking points’ can be overcome, and it comes with ideas and resources for support, rather than becoming a stick to beat schools with.

    McInerney’s conditions really are the key, of course. The ‘sticking points’ are substantial: relating primarily to the increased pressures on both children and teachers.

    Although children will be taking the resits once they start in Secondary, and therefore the onus is on their new school to help them pass – the threat of resits increases the pressure on children to succeed first time round, and the pressure on Primary teachers to ensure they do so.

    Whereas previously the impact of poor results would be felt largely by the school, in future they will also be borne by the children themselves.

    A stressful start to secondary

    In a worst-case scenario, we may see desperate secondary schools seeking ways to minimise their intake of children with weak results or ability-streaming enacted from the very start of Year 7.

    Children starting their secondary lives in the position of having to retake their SATs could feel stigmatised – a failure from the start, which can only exacerbate the growing social problem of anxiety and depression in children. The NSPCC reports a 200% increase over recent years in calls related to exam stress.

    We must therefore find ways to relieve the pressure on the children. This may take the form of pastoral care, a focus for PSHE lessons, or best of all by removing the pressure from the whole of the accountability chain, so that it doesn’t trickle down to the most vulnerable. In this regard, it might be helpful if the DfE would reconsider the target for the number of pupils expected to pass re-sits (currently set at 80%, criticised by the ASCL as ‘arbitrary’) and the obligation on Secondary schools to report on these results.

    All this being said, there are mitigating factors for the re-sits: they will be slimmed down versions of the actual SATs, and will be internally marked, which might help make them slightly less of an administrative burden.

    Children will have two opportunities in the year to pass them, but crucially will not be held back if they persistently fail. And finally, contrary to the furore over resits penalising those with Special Education Needs, there is in fact no requirement for this group to take them.

    Support and direction needed

    Beyond this, there is also the information and support gap already mentioned. What needs to happen to help children pass tests that they failed only a few months earlier – that has not already been attempted by talented and hard-working Primary teaching professionals?

    How will secondary teachers close a gap potentially made worse by summer slide? Will there be any central recommendations or co-ordination?

    Early intervention seems a better route: it feels less rushed, and less stigmatising than an all-or-nothing Year 7 sprint. But in a world of overstretched class sizes, overworked teachers and dwindling budgets – still more investment in resources and training is needed.

    Let us hope that having announced the birth of this particular policy, Nicky Morgan’s department has spent the intervening time working out how to bring it up.

    It is a policy that comes from a good place, but which risks sinking - dragging pupil and teacher morale with it – unless it can be buoyed by some real investment in resource and some rethinking around whether there is any real benefit in setting reportable targets for the resit pass rate.

  • Pearson Primary manifesto: #3 We work with charities that really make a difference to children's lives.

    Alongside our commitment to making resources that have a measurable impact on children’s lives, we seek out and support charities that are equally dedicated to helping people make progress in their lives through learning.

    Feeding imaginations (and tummies)

    We know for example a child’s ability to concentrate is seriously impaired when they come to school hungry, as sadly an estimated 700,000 children in the UK do each day. So we’ve donated over £64,500 to Magic Breakfast and voted them our charity of the year for three years running. Donate to Magic Breakfast.
     

    Reading for pleasure isn’t just fun but also a key indicator of future academic success; that having books at home and being read to from an early age is crucial to making this happen. That’s why, through Booktime, we’ve given away over 10 million books to Reception-aged children, and why we’re extremely proud to sponsor the annual national Read for my School competition that has over 200,000 children in over 3500 schools reading one million books each year.

    To help facilitate the sharing of outstanding teaching and leadership practice, we’re working with the Cambridge Primary Review Trust to help schools to build an outstanding, creative curriculum in a principled, evidence-based way. Plus we’re proud to sponsor the Pearson Teaching Awards, giving a platform for rewarding and recognising the unsung heroes that are so vital to our children’s futures.

    So many children all over the world are far less privileged than our own children, which is why Pearson has been working with Book Aid International since 1980, donating over 2.5 million books, including many of our primary titles.

    Literacy is the key to transforming lives. So, Pearson has embarked on a campaign to inspire new collaboration on the evolving challenges and opportunities around literacy. If Project Literacy was to achieve one thing in the next five years, what would it be? Do share with us at #projectliteracy.

    And lastly but certainly by no means least, Save the Children and Pearson have launched an ‘Every Child Learning’ partnership, to help out-of-school children caught in the Syrian refugee crisis access quality education.

    Providing education for children in conflict and emergency settings presents many unique challenges. Over the course of the three year partnership, Pearson has committed £1 million to work with Save the Children to identify and develop solutions for delivering education in emergencies, drawing on the expertise and assets of both organisations. Of course, the credit for all these achievements goes to the wonderful organisations we work with. We are honoured to be able to play a part in making them happen.

The latest news in school education

  • Pearson to develop frameworks for OECD's PISA student assessment for 2015

    Pearson, the world’s leading learning company, has been chosen to develop the frameworks for the OECD’s landmark PISA educational assessment in 2015.

    The PISA assessment is widely recognised as the benchmark for measuring the improvement of education systems worldwide. 74 countries/economies participated in the 2009 test.

    In 2015, PISA’s main focus will be testing the scientific literacy of students around the world. The test will feature significant new elements:

    • A new Collaborative Problem Solving assessment will be added, in recognition of the ways young people will have to learn and work throughout their lives. Pearson will develop this new domain for PISA
    • Greater use of computer-based testing

    Pearson will also provide advice to the PISA study on the benefits, opportunities and implications of implementing computer adaptive testing for PISA in future.

    Pearson International chief executive John Fallon said:

    “High quality education is vital to a nation's economic development and social well-being - and PISA is a key benchmark by which nations can measure their own progress and learn from each other. So we are thrilled to have the chance to work with the OECD and academic communities around the world to develop the 2015 test.

    “We are committed to developing a global benchmark that, through assessing a wider range of skills and making better use of technology, will be even more relevant to helping countries prosper in an increasingly global and knowledge-based economy."

    Head of the PISA programme at the OECD Andreas Schleicher said:

    “PISA 2015 has the potential to be the start of a new phase of our international assessments. We need to make much smarter use of technology in how we test young people, and we need to assess problem-solving abilities as governments around the world seek to equip young people with the skills they need for life and employment.

    “Pearson have put forward an ambitious strategy to support the OECD and member governments in creating a global benchmark for education.”

    Notes on this story

    1. The OECD’s PISA test (www.pisa.oecd.org) is widely recognised as the benchmark for measuring the improvement of education systems worldwide. 74 countries/economies participated in the 2009 test representing around 87% of the world’s economy. Representative samples of students are selected at age 15 in each country in order to provide consistency across borders and regions.

      The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (www.oecd.org) exists to promote policies that improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.
    2. Pearson (www.pearson.com) is the world’s leading learning company, providing educational materials, technologies, assessments and related services to teachers and students of all ages. From pre-school to higher education and professional education, our curriculum materials, digital learning tools and testing programmes help to educate more than 100 million people worldwide.

      Together with the OECD, Pearson has formed international panels of experts in science, collaborative problem solving, mathematics and reading to define the competencies, understanding and reasoning that students should be tested on in 2015, involving academics from thirteen different countries representing a spread across five continents.
  • Educational partnership set to widen access to degrees

    Pearson has announced a new educational partnership with Royal Holloway, which will see the college validating their new business degree.

    The new degrees will combine the highest levels of academic rigour alongside practical learning relevant to the workplace. Students will start to enrol students on these Pearson degree programmes from September 2012.

    Pearson is the world’s biggest learning company, working in more than 70 countries and with over 100 years of experience. Royal Holloway is in the top 1% of universities in the world and has an excellent record in graduate employment. This makes it the perfect partner to help develop flexible Pearson degrees that balance academic achievement and the needs of employers.

    Rod Bristow, President of Pearson UK, said:

    “We’re delighted that Royal Holloway has come on board as our validating university partner for this exciting project. Pearson has a long heritage of working in higher education around the world and we’re really looking forward to bringing this expertise to UK degrees”.

    Roxanne Stockwell, Managing Director of Higher Education Awards at Pearson will be leading the Pearson degree development team. She said:

    “Working with Royal Holloway will allow us to produce a degree that is not only academically stretching, but also gives students the skills that are genuinely valuable to employers. There is a real demand for flexible academic degrees which facilitate progression to the workplace. Thanks to this partnership, students will have more choice in the higher education marketplace, and will be able to choose a degree that suits their needs and helps them make progress in their lives.”

    As the validating university Royal Holloway will ensure the high academic quality of the degrees, while Pearson will undertake its design, development and delivery through a network of suitable locations such as such as Corporations and Further Education colleges.

    Professor Rob Kemp, Deputy Principal of Royal Holloway, said:

    “Our founders, in opening colleges for women in the 19th Century, were the first to address the challenge of widening access and we are delighted to continue this tradition today by supporting Pearson in this initiative.”

    The first degree to be offered will be Business, with further degree programmes being developed by Pearson in the future.

    About Royal Holloway

    Royal Holloway, University of London is one of the UK’s leading teaching and research university institutions, ranked in the top 20 for research in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise. One of the larger colleges of the University of London, Royal Holloway has a strong profile across the sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities. Its 8,000 students work with internationally-renowned scholars in 18 academic departments. Over 20% of students are postgraduates and 22% come from 130 different countries. Renowned for its iconic Founder’s Building, Royal Holloway is situated on an extensive parkland campus in Egham, Surrey, only 40 minutes from central London.

  • First ever national awards to recognise excellence in BTEC qualifications

    The first National BTEC Awards are all about celebrating the outstanding achievements of students, teachers, schools and colleges in vocational learning.

    The Awards will be hosted by Radio One DJ Scott Mills, at the Royal Society of Arts in London and will be attended by nominated students, teachers, and leaders in education. John Hayes, Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning will be opening the ceremony.

    Today’s Awards ceremony is being held in recognition of the nearly a million students around the country who are studying BTEC qualifications this year. Pearson UK, who own Edexcel, the awarding body for BTECs, announced that it was inviting nominations for the National BTEC Awards in April 2011. In total, over 450 nominations were received, across the award categories.

    The ceremony will see the winners of the following four top prizes, as well as eight sector-specific winners, formally announced:

    • Outstanding BTEC Student of the Year: Grant Ridley, National Enterprise Academy
    • Outstanding BTEC Teacher/Tutor of the Year: Euthan Newman, South Thames College
    • Outstanding BTEC School/College of the Year: Newlands Girls’ School
    • Outstanding BTEC Adult Learner: Keith Southern, Mid Cheshire College

    A full list of categories and winners is included in the notes below.

    The judging panel for the Awards, who will all be present at the ceremony, included:

    • Gerard Kelly, Editor of the Times Education Supplement 
    • Robert Halfon, MP for Harlow 
    • Despina Panayi, a former Teaching Awards winner 
    • Nick Chambers, Direct of Education Employers Taskforce

    Rod Bristow, President, Pearson UK said:

    “I am delighted to be hosting the first ever National BTEC Awards today. The quality and number of nominations was incredibly heartening and truly emphasised that it’s high time that vocational excellence is celebrated just as much as we celebrate academic achievement.

    Every year, thousands of BTEC students go on to great universities and fantastic jobs. They achieve great things in a wide variety of careers; from business and engineering to ICT and healthcare. It is just as important to support and officially celebrate the hard work and achievements of outstanding BTEC students and their teachers.”

    Awards host, Radio One DJ Scott Mills said, “I am very excited to be part of the first ever National BTEC Awards. It is important to recognise the different routes through which young people can achieve their ambitions and today’s ceremony will remind people that vocational education is just as valued and valuable as traditional academic routes.”

    About the Awards

    The full list of winners of the National BTEC Awards will be formally announced at the ceremony on 7 July 2012, but please contact Depali or Alexa for more information if you wish to speak to specific winners.

    The full list of categories is as follows:

    1. Outstanding BTEC student of the year
    2. Outstanding BTEC tutor of the year
    3. Outstanding BTEC centre of the year
    4. Outstanding contribution to the community by a BTEC student
    5. Outstanding BTEC student in ICT
    6. Outstanding BTEC student in Business and Enterprise
    7. Outstanding BTEC student in Public services
    8. Outstanding BTEC student in Construction and Engineering
    9. Outstanding BTEC student in Creative and Media
    10. Outstanding BTEC student in Healthcare and Science
    11. Outstanding BTEC student in Hospitality and Beauty
    12. Outstanding BTEC student on a short course

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