Why PISA 2025 is important for schools

As a researcher with one of the PISA 2025 national research teams (at UCL and Oxford University) I am keen that participating schools, their pupils and teachers will benefit from being a part of this international study. We will be working with experts in science education to ensure we learn from the results and explore ways to feed useful findings back into national practice and policy in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. For those taking part in the PISA Main Study (between October and December 2025), your school will receive a report about your participation in PISA. We have future plans that include events for schools to share the outcomes and discuss what PISA 2025 has meant for you and your school.

The tests will be taken onscreen. In each cycle, one of the three domains is given extra emphasis and for PISA 2025, the focus is on science – meaning a larger proportion of questions will target this curriculum area.

We know schools value information about pupils’ learning beyond a grade, and PISA participation can support this – the test questions do not only measure how well pupils know facts, but also provide opportunities to demonstrate how well pupils can draw on their knowledge and real-world problem-solving skills.
The focus on science in PISA 2025 will facilitate opportunities to explore both science teaching and learning and the subject in a range of ways, perhaps asking questions like:

• Do we teach science skills that matter?
• Do young people have the scientific understanding necessary to engage with the pressing environmental issues that are impacting the world?
• Do we provide science education that helps young people know how to act on the issues that affect them?

Each country’s results are presented in a national report and we include comparisons with international results too. The national reports for PISA 2022 are due in December 2023 and you can read previous reports for England, Northern Ireland and Wales (including summaries) online.

What makes PISA distinctive, and important for schools, is that participation also involves pupils and their headteachers/principals providing feedback about their educational experiences. A key part of PISA participation are questionnaire surveys asking respondents to express their views about their schooling, the curriculum and their aspirations for the future; this gives them a voice as part of a global view of how they see their educational experiences.

By participating in PISA, your school will make a unique and valuable contribution to improving understanding of key issues in education such as quality and equity of learning outcomes, attitudes to learning and what motivates your pupils to engage with their learning. PISA outcomes also indicate more than just the test and questionnaire survey results collected at a point in time; research is demonstrating that pupils with strong PISA test outcomes are more likely to go on to achieve higher levels of education into their 20s and beyond. Understanding change and impact in education is cumulative and takes time – therefore the regular data collection that happens during PISA cycles helps us to develop richer pictures of learning and its role in the lives of young people. The data collected also enables development of the curriculum, curriculum resources and teaching practices to focus on specific areas of learning where it is needed.