Guidance

RISE: South West regional plan summary

Updated 3 July 2026

Applies to England

Summary    

This publication is a concise edition of the South West RISE regional plan from the Department for Education (DfE) setting 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. It aims to strengthen relationships with the wider system and provide 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 the South West

The South West is England’s largest and most geographically dispersed region, with long stretches of coastline, large rural areas, and urban centres. While the region is a leader in industries such as advanced manufacturing and contains areas of affluence, not everyone is benefiting equally, with pockets of urban, rural and coastal deprivation.

Following extensive engagement with partners across the region, and drawing on data, we have identified the following focus areas for the national priorities in the South West:

• Reception-year quality: raising good level of development (GLD) outcomes for pupils eligible for free school meals, strengthening early years teaching and focusing support in geographic areas of concern.
• Inclusive mainstream: improving inclusive practice and transitions, building an evidence‑informed system that enables more children to attend local schools and enhancing local capacity in areas that most need it.
• Attendance: improving persistent absence rates for high-risk pupils and securing stronger attendance in the key stage 2 to key stage 3 transition period.
• Attainment, with a focus on English and maths: closing the gap for disadvantaged pupils and improving key stage 2 outcomes for all.

What RISE will deliver in the South West

The South West has strong foundations of collaboration, but we know that the impact of this is not yet being seen consistently. We must now build upon these foundations to secure greater impact for children and young people across the 4 national priorities.

We will continue to support effective and impactful sharing of strong practice across the region through the South West’s thriving family of networks and through RISE discovery mornings. We will also work closely with curriculum and teaching school hubs, network leaders, and other key delivery partners through Team South West: this group will collectively oversee delivery of Universal RISE, ensuring the support offer across the South West is coherent, evidence-informed, supports effective implementation and is focused towards those parts of the region where it is most needed.

Working with Team South West, we will produce a single, comprehensive overview of the universal support offer for academic year 2026 to 2027.

We will also deliver the following activities against each national priority:

Reception-year quality

RISE support for reception improvement.

• Identify settings that are improving GLD outcomes for FSM‑eligible children, and learn from regional examples including the Cracking Communication project and Swindon’s improving GLD trend, to spotlight effective practice; roll out new RISE reception networks across the South West; and ensure South West‑specific challenges are considered to maximise impact.

• Strengthen leaders’ understanding of developmentally appropriate early years pedagogy; drive engagement with key professional development programmes; and promote proven programmes such as the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) to leaders.
• Support schools to engage earlier with harder‑to‑reach families, using the new transition guidance to understand and embed strong practice; identify and share effective examples of reception‑year parental engagement; and work with the Plymouth and Bristol Stronger Practice Hubs to disseminate learning from their effective transition work.
• Support schools, trusts and local authorities to use DfE data tools to compare performance and identify strong practice; link South West networks with DfE data experts to increase understanding and uptake of these tools; hold targeted discussions with sector leaders on how effective use of these tools can drive improvement; and use data to pinpoint and signpost schools and areas that would benefit most from extended maths and English hub reception offers.

Inclusive mainstream

RISE support for inclusive mainstream education.

• Drive access to the national SEND training offer; and promote the Regional Improvement and Innovation Alliance (RIIA)’s South West SEND Learning Academy and wider Continuing Professional Development (CPD) opportunities to improve everyday practice and build mainstream capacity.
• Promote a funded RIIA programme for trusts to work with sector specialists to develop a blueprint for delivering effective inclusion bases; and share the resulting learning to inform future provision and drive greater regional consistency.
• Promote effective local partnership practice, including use of the South West Inclusion Charter, to help settings strengthen key stage 2 to 3 transitions; and champion the RIIA’s local area partnership peer‑reviews as a mechanism to improve transition arrangements and embed inclusive practice.

Attendance

RISE support for improving attendance in schools.

• Deliver targeted, high‑quality support through attendance and behaviour hubs and work with hub leads and the regional attendance adviser to ensure alignment with wider South West initiatives.
• Identify and share examples of effective attendance practice, including showcasing strong multi‑agency models; direct best practice sharing to the areas with greatest need.
• Support schools, trusts and local authorities to use DfE attendance data tools effectively to target high‑impact areas, including key stage 2 to 3 transition; identify barriers to engagement with the data tools and follow up with additional support; and support schools to understand and make effective use of their AI‑powered attendance baseline improvement expectation (ABIE).
• Work with the South West networks to keep attendance a leadership priority; hold structured attendance conversations with trusts and local authorities; and support trusts and local authorities to strengthen strategies in areas with weaker attendance performance.

Attainment, with a focus on English and maths

RISE support for improving attainment in schools.

• The South West Attainment Task Force will develop a focused support offer for academic year 2026 to 2027 providing practical strategies to improve maths and English outcomes, especially at key stage 2 and for disadvantaged pupils.
• Work with maths and English hubs to extend the reach of their support; and work with the RISE key stage 3 alliance to support schools to develop excellence in key stage 3.
• Identify examples of strong practice and understand the drivers of underperformance; connect high‑performing schools and trusts with comparable lower‑attaining schools and trusts through roundtables and other structured opportunities for collaboration; and support schools to use data tools effectively, including the one‑stop‑shop digital platform that will be launched in 2026.

Regional themes

Four cross‑cutting enabling themes underpin and support delivery:

• System leadership: building a pipeline of leaders through NPQs and other leadership programmes, and creating the conditions for collaborative system leadership though peer review, mentoring, networks and discovery mornings.
• Financial sustainability: supporting school business professionals, strengthening financial leadership, improving strategic use of resources and supporting strategic pupil place planning in the context of falling rolls.
• Local partnerships and place-based working: supporting and facilitating effective place-based working between schools, trusts, local authorities, dioceses and other key partners.
• Innovation and technology: championing safe, evidence-informed adoption of AI and digital tools, supporting inclusive technology for SEND learners and developing regional expertise through the RISE digital and AI hub.

RISE universal school improvement architecture

The South West will develop, steward and continuously improve a coherent school improvement architecture to support RISE. The vision for the South West universal school improvement architecture is to be a connected, place-informed and evidence-led system, where every school can access support aligned to need, phase and priority and experience RISE as a coherent and joined-up offer.

Team South West will provide the forum through which delivery partners remain connected, providing strategic oversight, alignment, and direction across the region, ensuring activity is well coordinated, transparent, and connected to wider national and regional priorities.