Guidance

RISE: South East regional plan summary

Updated 3 July 2026

Applies to England

Summary    

This publication is a concise edition of the South East regional improvement for standards and excellence (RISE) regional plan from the Department for Education (DfE) which sets out how RISE will be delivered locally to improve outcomes for all children and young people.

It translates the RISE national priorities into a clear local approach, builds on existing strengths, and aligns with wider local strategies.

The plan:

• supports collaboration across schools, trusts, local authorities and wider partners
• plans to strengthen relationships with the wider system
• provides a practical framework for improving practice, building capacity and sharing learning

Delivering RISE depends on collective effort, with all partners focusing on what matters most, using evidence well and contributing to a more connected, confident and resilient system.

Regional focus for South East

The South East region has the largest population of any region in England; it is home to over 9 million people and 1.4 million pupils. The region covers a diverse geographic area, stretching across busy urban centres, the southern coast, island communities and large rural landscapes.

The region benefits from strong finance, technology and advanced manufacturing sectors and many residents have access to employment and cultural opportunities with good transport links to London. However, some communities, particularly those in rural and coastal areas, face significant barriers to opportunity including high levels of deprivation, limited access to services and poor connectivity.

Where pockets of inequality exist, especially in coastal and rural areas, employment opportunities can be more limited. Similarly, educational outcomes and pupil experiences vary significantly across the region.

While the South East region as a whole consistently performs well across key educational indicators compared to other regions in England, we know this success masks significant variation across and within the region’s 19 local authority areas. Our regional focus will be on:

• Reception-year quality: enhancing the quality of reception provision, especially in coastal communities and for disadvantaged pupils.
• Inclusive mainstream: strengthening mainstream inclusive practice, including improving provision for pupils with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) and social, emotional and mental health (SEMH).
• Attendance: improving attendance, particularly for disadvantaged pupils and pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
• Attainment, with a focus on English and maths: raising attainment in English and maths, with a focus on closing gaps for disadvantaged pupils.

What RISE will deliver in the South East

To achieve our regional focus ambitions we will carry out the following activities:

Reception-year quality

• Support 5 RISE reception networks to spread best practice; utilise the RISE Universal Grant Scheme to establish several local place-based networks; work with early years stronger practice hubs to share strong practice, particularly for children eligible for free school meals; support schools to use data to inform practice.
• Expand early education places; share best practice around transition, including home visits, family engagement and parental guidance; strengthen partnerships across early years settings.
• Work with English hubs to provide expert phonics, writing and language support, promote the writing framework and programmes such as Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) and focus on inclusive language development, especially for free school meal pupils.

Inclusive mainstream

• Work with specialist providers and inclusive mainstream settings to highlight effective strategies and share strong SEND practice; encourage alternative provision settings to provide outreach support to mainstream schools; collaborate with existing networks and forums to facilitate the sharing of best practice, and create a new South East Mainstream Inclusion Forum to coordinate regional programmes relating to inclusive mainstream.
• Map the South East’s inclusion base landscape and its ability to meet current and projected SEND need; support proposals for new bases where appropriate and share strong integrated practice from high‑quality existing ones.
• Utilise the expertise of those working in-region to drive improvement at a local level, including through funding for the South East Regional Improvement and Innovation Alliance (SESLIP).

Attendance

• Structured conversations with responsible bodies that have lower‑than‑expected attendance; a data‑led approach that identifies responsible bodies with low attendance for disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND; support‑and‑challenge model used to diagnose issues, agree actions, and identify effective strategies to share with others; high‑performing responsible bodies are paired with lower‑performing ones to share successful approaches.
• Universal support, guidance, templates, and webinars for all schools; a light‑touch offer of a year of continuing professional development (6 online sessions) and 3 open days; enhanced offer of up to 10 days of targeted support for schools with the greatest need (open to up to 60 schools per year over three years).
• Support for accessing and using DfE attendance data, webinars, case studies, and the View Your Education Data platform; signposting to universal RISE resources and evidence‑informed strategies.
• DfE engagement with local networks; creating action learning sets to help similar schools discuss shared challenges.

Attainment, with a focus on English and maths

• Focus on pupils in coastal areas, pockets of disadvantage in inland towns and schools with small cohorts of disadvantaged pupils who outcomes are lower than those of their peers; review existing research and programmes for disadvantaged pupils; identify and bring together schools with cohorts that align with the three focus groupings in order to share effective practice.
• Identify schools with lowest outcomes for disadvantaged pupils and hold data‑led challenge conversations; support schools to access relevant support.
• Develop South East key stage 2 and key stage 3 networks to address barriers, improve transition, and share effective practice; support the Regional Improvement Team pilot in Kent and Medway to deliver innovative place-based approaches that tackle the root causes of post 16 underperformance; support schools to prepare for the 2027 National Curriculum.

Regional themes

Three cross-cutting themes underpin and support delivery:

• Strong leadership and effective governance - focusing on promoting a culture of collaborative leadership and effective partnership working between all stakeholders.
• Supporting the use of technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce workload, improve teaching quality, and support inclusion.
• Financial sustainability and capacity – to help ensure schools can engage effectively in collaborative school improvement work, a particular challenge for some small rural schools.

RISE universal school improvement architecture

To be as effective as possible for South East schools, we aim to develop our school improvement architecture (DfE hubs, networks and alliances) so all elements are:

• accessible to all schools
• well-connected – with the department, with key stakeholders and, where needed, with one another
• aligned with RISE priorities
• delivering evidence-led support

So the work of this system can reach every school, we will work with a range of organisations and groupings in the South East which will be key to enabling effective communication to, and engagement of, schools.

These enabling organisations and groupings include:

• trust and CEO forums
• diocesan networks
• local education partnerships
• well‑established subject and phase networks
• regional groupings of local authorities
• multi‑academy trusts
• strategic partnerships with SESLIP, diocesan education teams, sector alliances and SEND networks

A new RISE regional delivery partnership, bringing together local authorities, trusts, dioceses, hubs and network leads, will provide strategic oversight to ensure activity is coordinated, transparent and aligned with wider priorities.