Questions from the Department for Education:
Every child achieving and thriving: Attendance
• What is the experience of those outside mainstream education (whether being home schooled, excluded from school, in Alternative Provision, attending special schools or Young Offender Institutions) and their parents? Where relevant: how and when could/should these children be helped back into mainstream education?
Department for Education, 2025
Every child achieving and thriving: Attendance
• What types of practice and/or interventions (including both by schools and other parties such as local authorities), work to prevent or reduce the different types of absence (including low-level, persistent and severe absence) and how do they affect other outcomes (including wellbeing)?• What conditions need to be in place for schools and/or local authorities to effectively implement these interventions?
Department for Education, 2025
Every child achieving and thriving: Attendance
• What (individual, school and wider) factors contribute to different types of absences (low-level, persistent, and severe)? Are there significant differences in the root causes of these various types, or differences by age?
Department for Education, 2025
Every child achieving and thriving: Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
• How can we improve outcomes for those [pupils/students] who need a specialist placement, preparing them to be as independent and prepared for adulthood as possible? What do the best special schools do that could be replicated elsewhere, including in mainstream provision?
Department for Education, 2025
Every child achieving and thriving: Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
• How can schools effectively monitor and evaluate the impact of provision they make for children with SEND? How should progress and attainment be assessed for those with different types of SEND?
Department for Education, 2025
Every child achieving and thriving: Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
• When and how should targeted and specialist support – including SENCOs, other specialist professionals, specialist units and special schools – be employed [in education]? What is/should be the role of in-school support units in supporting children and inclusive education?
Department for Education, 2025
Every child achieving and thriving: Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
• What are the barriers to learning experienced by children with SEND, and what universal and targeted strategies and interventions are effective in helping them overcome these barriers? How do they vary depending on type of SEND?
Department for Education, 2025
Every child achieving and thriving: Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
• What are the elements that need to be in place or adaptions that need to be made to mainstream schools and teaching practice to make education settings inclusive to children with different types of SEND (at the child, school, and system level?)
Department for Education, 2025
Every child achieving and thriving: Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
• What differences in support are needed across different educational settings (including early years, colleges, and Alternative Provision) to ensure the best support for learners with SEND to thrive and achieve? What support can be universal, and which support needs to be targeted?
Department for Education, 2025
Every child achieving and thriving: Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
What teaching approaches, particularly through inclusion in mainstream education, would better support children with different types of Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND) to achieve and thrive?
Department for Education, 2025
Every child achieving and thriving: Achieving
What teaching approaches and learning environments are most effective in helping children to concentrate, grasp new ideas, develop skill (such as writing), retain knowledge, transfer knowledge, and be motivated to learn?
• How do these things vary for different groups, such as students with SEND, disadvantaged children and for different age groups? Why are these approaches most effective and how can we scale them up?
Department for Education, 2025