Research and analysis

School and college voice: June 2025

Updated 27 November 2025

Applies to England

Introduction

The Department for Education (DfE) commissioned Verian (formerly known as Kantar Public) to recruit and maintain a panel of school and college leaders and teachers in England, known as the School and College Voice (SCV). The SCV is designed to collect robust evidence to help the Department for Education understand the perspectives of teachers and leaders. This allows us to make more effective policy.

The SCV works as a series of short surveys across the academic year, covering a range of new and longstanding policy issues. This report is about the findings from the June 2025 survey wave of the School and College Voice.

Methodology

The SCV survey is answered by teachers and leaders who have agreed to participate in short, regular research surveys on topical education issues.

We select teachers and leaders randomly using records from the School Workforce Census (SWFC) and invite them to take part in an online survey. For the first survey of the academic year, we send invitation letters and emails to teachers and leaders. For other surveys in that same academic year, we send the invitation by email and text message to the teachers and leaders who agreed to join the panel in the first survey.

We ran a survey between 26 June and 4 July 2025. The respondents were:

Audience	Responses
Primary school leaders	430
Secondary school leaders	513
Special school leaders	139
Primary school teachers	468
Secondary school teachers	491
Special school teachers	493

Questions with fewer than 30 responses (before weighting) are not included in this report, and base sizes of below 100 should be treated with caution. Complete findings are in the published data tables, which include more detail on how different groups answered each question

The report makes some comparisons to previous surveys conducted in previous academic years, for example the School and College Panel Omnibus Surveys for 2023 to 2024. These comparisons are helpful to understand how trends may be changing. However, the survey methodology changes over time and so comparisons to previous years are not as reliable as survey findings within each academic year. We introduced special school teachers and leaders to the SCV in the 2023 to 2024 academic year.

In this report we round figures to the nearest whole number. We do not describe 0% and 100% as ‘none’ and ‘all’ because figure rounding may mean this is not accurate. For instance, 100% may be 99.6% of respondents, rounded to the nearest whole number. Unless otherwise stated, when we refer to the ‘average’ we are reporting the arithmetic mean.

Further information on the survey methodology is available in the accompanying technical report.

Topics covered in this survey

The survey included questions about:

• recording attainment data
• awareness of Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) support
• extracurricular activities
• broadband social tariffs
• school readiness
• serious youth violence
• attendance management
• teaching physical education (PE)
• mental health and wellbeing support at school
• teacher and leader wellbeing

Recording attainment data

We asked primary and secondary school teachers and leaders how often teachers are required to submit attainment data for each of the classes they teach this academic year.

Figure 1: How often teachers are required to submit attainment data for each of the classes they teach this academic year

Response	Teacher	Leader
Once	1%	0%
Twice	8%	11%
Three times	52%	74%
Four times	13%	6%
Five times	3%	1%
Six times	14%	7%
More than six times	6%	1%
Never	1%	0%
Don’t know	2%	0%

Base: Primary and secondary teachers (n = 959) and primary and secondary leaders (n = 943). Data table reference = “datadrops_frequency”.

We asked primary and secondary teachers who are required to submit attainment data for the pupils they teach at least once this year, whether they think the number of times that they are expected to submit attainment data centrally is too much, too little or about right.

Figure 2: What teachers think about the frequency they are required to record attainment data

Phase	Too much	About right	Too little	Don’t know	Total
Primary	17%	80%	1%	2%	100%
Secondary	21%	74%	3%	2%	100%

Base: Primary and secondary teachers who are required to submit attainment data for the pupils they teach at least once this year (n = 928). Data table reference = “datadrops_appropriate”.

We asked primary and secondary school leaders whose teachers are required to submit attainment data how the findings from attainment data analysis are used.

Figure 3: How the findings from attainment data analysis are used

Response	Primary	Secondary
Informing pupil progress meetings	97%	87%
Feeding back to parents on pupil progress and attainment	87%	96%
Monitoring progress and consistency across the school	95%	91%
Informing targeted interventions for individual pupils	95%	93%
Discussions in department or leadership meetings	70%	91%
Sharing with governors and other stakeholders	90%	84%
Adjustments to teaching strategies	74%	72%
Informing targeted interventions for classes	72%	69%
Other	1%	2%
None of the above	1%	0%

Base: Leaders whose teachers are required to submit attainment data (n = 940). Data table reference = “datadrops_actions”. The response “Not applicable- We do not analyse the data” was not charted due to responses being <1%.

Awareness of Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence

We asked primary and secondary school leaders if they were aware of the Government’s Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) school support programme.

Figure 4: Whether school leaders are aware of RISE

Phase	Yes - and I know a lot about it	Yes - and I know a little about it	Yes - but I had only heard the name	No - I had not heard of it	Total
Primary	5%	25%	21%	50%	100%
Secondary	5%	29%	23%	44%	100%
Special	5%	24%	24%	47%	100%

Base: All leaders (n = 1082). Data table reference = “rise_aware”. “Prefer not to say” is not charted because it was selected by <1% of respondents.

‘Targeted RISE’ provides bespoke interventions to eligible schools via a RISE adviser to help address specific improvement needs, identified through Ofsted inspections. We asked leaders who were aware of RISE if they were aware of ‘Targeted RISE’.

Figure 5: Whether school leaders who are aware of rise are aware of ‘Targeted RISE’

Phase	Yes - and I know a lot about it	Yes - and I know a little about it	Yes - but I had only heard the name	No - I had not heard of it	Total
Primary	7%	33%	31%	30%	100%
Secondary	8%	32%	28%	32%	100%
Special	3%	37%	32%	27%	100%

Base: Leaders aware of ‘RISE’(n = 588). Data table reference = “rise_targetedaware”.

Extracurricular activities

We asked primary and secondary school leaders which extracurricular activities their school has been able to offer for pupils this academic year.

Figure 6: Top 10 types of extracurricular activities offered to pupils this academic year

Response	Primary	Secondary	Special
Competitive team sports	86%	99%	35%
Personal and social development	8%	83%	29%
Community, diversity and charity groups	8%	74%	9%
Positions of responsibility	75%	90%	45%
Orchestra, band, choir or other musical performance group	71%	88%	36%
Professional development	7%	64%	27%
Interest clubs	66%	72%	38%
Arts, crafts, and design	65%	80%	32%
Dance	61%	57%	25%
Individual instrument or singing lessons	59%	91%	19%
We have not been able to offer any of these activities this year	0%	0%	24%

Base: All leaders (n = 1082). Data table reference = “extracurricular_activities”. Top 10 types of extracurricular activities and ‘We have not been able to offer any of these activities this year’ are charted.

We asked all teachers whether they personally run any extracurricular sporting activities at their school. 17% of primary school teachers, 7% of secondary school teachers and 92% of special school teachers said they did.

We asked all teachers who run extracurricular sporting activities at their school whether they personally use any resources produced by others to help plan the running of extracurricular sporting activities.

Figure 7: Whether teachers use any resources produced by others to help plan extracurricular sporting activities

Phase	Yes - I only use resources produced by others	Yes - I use my own resources and resources produced by others	No - I only use resources I have produced	Don’t know	Total
Primary	11%	50%	36%	4%	100%
Secondary	6%	45%	47%	1%	100%
Special	7%	34%	55%	3%	100%

Base: Teachers who run extracurricular sporting activities at their school (n = 173). Data table reference = “curriculum_sport_planning”.

We asked teachers who run extracurricular sporting activities and use resources produced by others to help plan them where they access those planning resources.

Figure 8: Where teachers access planning resources for extracurricular sporting activities

Response	Percentage
School	55%
Personal or professional networks	37%
Government resources	29%
National organisations	27%
Social media	27%
Local Authority	5%
MAT	4%
Other	25%
Don’t know	5%

Base: Teachers who run extracurricular sporting activities at their school and use resources produced by others to help plan them (n = 95). Data table reference = “curriculum_sport_resources”.

Broadband social tariffs

Many internet providers offer broadband at lower cost ‘social tariffs’ for families on lower incomes or in receipt of certain benefits. We asked all leaders if they were aware that social tariffs existed.

Figure 9: Whether school leaders are aware of social tariffs

Phase	Yes - and I know a lot about them	Yes - and I know a little about them	Yes - I had only heard of them by name	No - I had never heard of them	Prefer not to say	Total
Primary	2%	17%	23%	58%	0%	100%
Secondary	2%	22%	22%	54%	0%	100%
Special	0%	19%	23%	58%	0%	100%

Base: All leaders (n = 1082). Data table reference = “socialtariffs_aware”.

We asked leaders who were aware of social tariffs if their school had shared any information about social tariffs with parents in the current academic year.

Figure 10: Whether information about social tariffs has been shared with parents in the current academic year

Phase	Yes	No, but we plan to next year	No and we do not plan to	Don’t know	Total
Primary	17%	25%	31%	27%	100%
Secondary	16%	13%	26%	45%	100%
Special	17%	32%	10%	42%	100%

Base: All leaders who are aware of social tariffs (n = 488). Data table reference = “socialtariffs_shared”.

School readiness

‘School ready’ was defined as the skills that children should be learning before their first day in Reception, including communicating with others, physical development and looking after themselves more independently.

We asked primary school leaders whether, since September 2024, their school has communicated about what it means to be ‘school ready’ to parents of children who are in or joining reception. The majority (87%) said yes, whilst 7% said no and 5% did not know.

We asked primary school leaders whose school had sent communications how they had communicated with those parents about school readiness.

Figure 11: How schools communicated with parents about what it means to be ‘school ready’

Response	Percentage
Group sessions with parents, including open days or welcome meetings	89%
Information sent home in newsletters or leaflets	83%
Home visits	56%
One-to-one meetings with parents	47%
Emails	44%
School website or online portal	41%
School social media page	14%
Other	3%

Base: All primary leaders whose school has sent communications about what it means to be ‘school ready’(n = 371). Data table reference = “schoolreadiness_howcommunicated”. “Don’t know” is not charted because it was only selected by 1% of respondents.

We also asked primary school leaders who know how their school has sent communications about what it means to be ‘school ready’ which aspects of being ‘school ready’ their school communications most commonly focus on.

Figure 12: Aspects of being ‘school ready’ school communications most commonly focus on

Response	Percentage
Independence	92%
Attending to health and hygiene	63%
Social and emotional development	59%
Understanding school routines and expectations	30%
Basic academic skills	18%
The school’s support offer for children with specific needs	14%
Other	1%
Don’t know	2%

Base: All primary leaders who know how their school has sent communications about what it means to be ‘school ready’(n = 368). Data table reference = “schoolreadiness_focus”.

We asked all primary school leaders how their school supports children’s transition into reception year.

Figure 13: How schools support children’s transition into reception year

Response	Percentage
Taster days including morning or afternoon sessions, before the child starts their reception year	87%
Requesting information from the child’s early years setting on the child’s development	86%
Visits to early years settings before children start in reception	85%
Holding events in the school setting for children and families	74%
Home visits before children start in reception	57%
Staggered starts to the day, including morning or afternoon sessions, after the child starts in reception	56%
Sharing resources on school readiness with the child’s early years setting	35%
Assigning dedicated key workers for each child	20%
Assessments of the child’s development before they start in reception	19%
Other	4%
None of the above	4%

Base: All primary leaders(n = 430). Data table reference = “schoolreadiness_furthersupport”. “Don’t know” is not charted because it was only selected by 1% of respondents.

Serious youth violence

We asked school leaders whether their school is currently actively dealing with knife crime as a safeguarding issue. We defined this as a leader at the school having taken action, however small, as a result of recognising a safeguarding risk to a pupil in relation to knife crime.

Figure 14: Percentage of leaders reporting that their school is currently dealing with knife crime as a safeguarding issue

Survey date	Primary	Secondary	Special
June 2025	18%	49%	26%
December 2024	8%	42%	19%
May 2024	16%	53%	25%
March 2024	11%	47%	25%
December 2023	9%	42%	18%
April 2023	9%	43%
January 2023	7%	47%
September 2022	11%	41%
May 2022	10%	51%
February 2022	8%	48%

Base: All leaders. (n = 1082). Bases refer to most recent data: refer to previous reports for base sizes at each data point. Data table reference = “knife_action”.

Attendance management

We asked leaders whether their school analyses attendance data to identify pupils or cohorts that require support.

Figure 15: Whether schools analyse attendance data to identify pupils or cohorts that require support

Phase	Yes - at least fortnightly	Yes - at least half termly	Yes - less than half termly	No	Don’t know	Total
Primary	48%	38%	11%	1%	1%	100%
Secondary	74%	20%	4%	0%	2%	100%
Special	63%	32%	4%	1%	0%	100%

Base: All leaders (n = 1082). Data table reference = “attendance_monitor”.

Almost all primary leaders (92%), secondary leaders (98%) and the majority of special school leaders (89%) that analyse attendance data said that their school benchmarks their absence data against local schools, national averages or both,

We asked leaders whether their school holds meetings with the Local Authority to identify pupils and cohorts at risk of poor attendance and agreed targeted actions and access to services for those pupils.

Figure 16: Whether schools hold meetings with Local Authorities to identify pupils and cohorts at risk of poor attendance

Phase	Yes - at least termly	Yes - less often than termly	No - never	Don’t know	Total
Primary	48%	22%	19%	11%	100%
Secondary	57%	13%	7%	23%	100%
Special	52%	21%	18%	10%	100%

Base: All leaders (n = 1082). Data table reference = “attendance_target”.

We asked leaders whether their school has access to a single point of contact in their local authority for all attendance related issues.

Figure 17: Whether schools have access to a single point of contact in their local authority for all attendance related issues

Phase	Yes	No	Don’t know	Total
Primary	79%	9%	12%	100%
Secondary	68%	5%	27%	100%
Special	80%	9%	11%	100%

Base: All leaders (n = 1082). Data table reference = “attendance_spoc”.

Teaching physical education

We asked primary and special school teachers whether they personally teach physical education lessons at their school. The majority of primary teachers (71%) and 58% of special school teachers said yes.

We also asked teachers who teach PE whether they are responsible for leading, managing or developing the PE curriculum for their school, 16% of primary teachers, 66% of secondary teachers and 19% of special school teachers said yes.

We asked teachers who personally teach PE and use resources produced by others to help plan the lessons where they access those planning resources.

Figure 18: Whether teachers use any resources produced by others to help plan PE lessons

Phase	Yes - I only use resources produced by others	Yes - I use my own resources and resources produced by others	No - I only use resources I have produced	Don’t know	Total
Primary	47%	49%	3%	0%	100%
Secondary	3%	91%	6%	0%	100%
Special	10%	64%	26%	0%	100%

Base: All teachers who teach PE (n = 521). Data table reference = “curriculum_pe_planning”.

We asked teachers who teach PE and use resources produced by others to help plan the lessons where they access the planning resources that have been produced by others.

Figure 19: Where teachers access PE planning resources

Response	Primary	Secondary	Special
School	66%	91%	80%
Personal or professional networks	28%	71%	33%
Government resources	23%	43%	19%
National organisations	21%	40%	21%
Social media	7%	35%	16%
Local Authority	5%	0%	8%
MAT	4%	5%	3%
Other	27%	33%	27%
Don’t know	2%	0%	1%

Base: All teachers who teach PE and use resources produced by others to help plan the lessons(n = 455). Data table reference = “curriculum_pe_resources”.

Mental health and wellbeing support at school

We asked teachers to what extent they agreed or disagreed with the following statements on pupil mental health support and access in their school:

Figure 20: Extent teachers agree or disagree with statements on mental health support and access in their school

Statement	Strongly agree	Tend to agree	Neither agree nor disagree	Tend to disagree	Strongly disagree	Total
I know how to help pupils access support offered by the school if they have mental health issues	24%	53%	12%	10%	1%	100%
I know how to help pupils with mental health issues access specialist support outside of school	9%	34%	22%	29%	7%	100%
I feel equipped to teach pupils in my class who have mental health needs	12%	50%	17%	18%	4%	100%
I have access to mental health professionals if they need specialist advice about pupils’ mental health	12%	33%	15%	28%	12%	100%
Pupils are able to access specialist support when needed	12%	34%	18%	25%	12%	100%

Base: All teachers (n = 1452). Data table reference = “mh_knowledge_support”, “mh_knowledge_outside”, “mh_knowledge_equipped”, “mh_knowledge_professionals”, “mh_knowledge_access”.

We asked primary and secondary school leaders if their school has a designated lead for pupils’ mental health who has responsibility for co-ordinating the school’s Mental health and wellbeing provision. The majority of primary school leaders (90%) and 89% of secondary school leaders said yes.

We asked all leaders what types of trained professionals are available in their school to provide direct mental health support to pupils.

Figure 21: Types of trained professionals are available in schools

Response	Primary	Secondary	Special
Teacher or SENCO with specialist training in pastoral support	63%	74%	57%
Counsellor	21%	70%	24%
Specialist Teaching Assistant	67%	61%	60%
Therapist	28%	25%	54%
Nurse	15%	50%	33%
Mental Health Support Team	39%	48%	29%
Educational Psychologist	34%	47%	43%
Clinical Psychologist	3%	3%	8%
Other	7%	12%	15%
None of the above	6%	1%	7%
Prefer not to say	0%	1%	0%

Base: All leaders (n = 1082). Data table reference = “mhsupport_professionals”.

We asked primary and secondary school leaders to what extent the following mental health practices are embedded in their school:

Figure 22: Extent that mental health practices are embedded in schools

Statement	Don’t do this and have no plans to do this	We are planning to do this	Partially embedded	Fully embedded	Don’t know	Total
A published school ethos or value is followed which includes promoting positive mental health and wellbeing	3%	5%	45%	43%	4%	100%
Training for staff on how to support pupils’ mental health and wellbeing	4%	8%	61%	24%	2%	100%
All pupils’ mental health and wellbeing are measured to inform practice	22%	12%	39%	17%	10%	100%
Pupils are engaged on the development of the mental health and wellbeing offer	11%	12%	50%	16%	11%	100%
Pupils are taught about mental health and wellbeing	0%	1%	32%	65%	1%	100%
Pupils with identified mental health needs are provided support in school	NA	1%	31%	66%	2%	100%
Pupils are provided with accessible referral routes for specialist support where needed	1%	1%	29%	66%	4%	100%
Staff are supported in relation to their own health and wellbeing	2%	3%	40%	54%	2%	100%

Base:Primary and secondary school leaders (n = 943). Data table references = “mhpractices_published”, “mhpractices_training”, “mhpractices_measured”, “mhpractices_pupilengaged”, “mhpractices_pupiltaught”, “mhpractices_pupilsupported”, “mhpractices_pupilreferral”, “mhpractices_staffsupport”.

Teacher and leader wellbeing

We asked teachers and leaders a series of questions about personal wellbeing validated by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). These questions are known as the ‘ONS4’ personal wellbeing measures and are answered using a scale from 0 to 10. For happiness, life satisfaction, and the sense of things you do in life being worthwhile, a higher score indicates better personal wellbeing. For anxiety, a lower score indicates better personal wellbeing.

Across this academic year and the previous academic year, the average scores for teachers’ wellbeing were:

Figure 23: Teachers’ ONS4 personal wellbeing measures scores

Survey date	Happiness	Worthwhile	Life satisfaction	Anxiety
June 2025	6.5	7.4	6.9	4.6
September 2024	6.5	7.8	7.0	4.6
May 2024	6.6	7.4	6.9	4.5
March 2024	6.4	7.4	6.8	4.5
December 2023	6.8	7.7	7.1	4.4

Base: All teachers (n = 1452).Bases refer to most recent data: refer to previous reports for base sizes at each data point. Data table references = “wellbeing_anxious”; “wellbeing_happy”; “wellbeing_worthwhile”; “wellbeing_satisfied”.

Across this academic year and previous academic years, the average scores for leaders’ wellbeing were:

Figure 24: Leaders’ ONS4 personal wellbeing measures scores

Survey date	Happiness	Worthwhile	Life satisfaction	Anxiety
June 2025	6.9	7.9	7.3	4.2
September 2024	6.8	7.9	7.3	4.3
May 2024	6.8	7.9	7.2	4.4
March 2024	6.8	8.0	7.4	3.7
December 2023	7.2	8.2	7.4	3.8

Base: All leaders (n = 1082).Bases refer to most recent data: refer to previous reports for base sizes at each data point. Data table references = “wellbeing_anxious”; “wellbeing_happy”; “wellbeing_worthwhile”; “wellbeing_satisfied”.

We also asked teachers and leaders how satisfied they are with their job. This question used a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 means ‘completely dissatisfied’ and 7 means ‘completely satisfied’. Across this academic year and the previous academic year, the proportion of teachers and leaders who said they were somewhat, mostly, or completely satisfied with their job were:

Figure 25: Teacher and leader job satisfaction

Survey date	Teacher	Leader
June 2025	64%	75%
September 2024	67%	76%
May 2024	62%	72%
March 2024	62%	77%
December 2023	68%	76%

Base: All teachers (n = 1452) and all leaders (n = 1082). Bases refer to most recent data: refer to previous reports for base sizes at each data point. Data table reference = “wellbeing_jobsat”.

Glossary of terms

Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND): A child or young person has SEND if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for them. A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if they:

• have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age
• have a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post-16 institutions.

Some children and young people who have SEND may also have a disability under the Equality Act 2010 – that is ‘…a physical or mental impairment which has a long-term and substantial adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities’. Where a disabled child or young person requires special educational provision, they will also be covered by the SEND definition.

Special schools: Schools which provide an education for children with a special educational need or disability. Almost all pupils in special schools have an education, health and care plan (EHCP).