Research and analysis

School and college voice: May 2024

Updated 17 December 2024

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 May 2024 survey wave of the School and College Voice. This wave took place before the new UK government took office on 5 July 2024. As a result, the content may not reflect current government policy.

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 conducted the survey between 16 May and 24 May 2024. The respondents were:

• 633 primary school teachers
• 547 secondary school teachers
• 368 special school teachers
• 399 primary school leaders
• 322 secondary school leaders
• 125 special school leaders

Unless otherwise stated, when we refer to the ‘average’ we are reporting the arithmetic mean. Complete findings can be found 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 2022 to 2023. 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, so any comparisons from previous academic years do not include these audiences.

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

Banding for percentages

We use a consistent banding system for describing percentages, as follows:

• very few - 0% to 10%
• a small minority - 11% to 32%
• a minority - 33% to 47%
• about half - 48% to 52%
• the majority - 53% to 66%
• a large majority - 67% to 89%
• almost all - 90% to 100%

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.

Topics covered in this survey

The survey included questions about:

• expectations of self-directed study
• teaching assistants
• the National Tutoring Programme (NTP)
• school leadership changes
• serious youth violence
• the National Institute of Teaching
• visa sponsorship licenses for schools
• behaviour in schools
• teacher and leader wellbeing

Expectations of self-directed study

On average, secondary school teachers who teach year 12 to 13 classes said that their school provides 9 hours of contact time for their subject each week per year 12 to 13 pupil. A small minority of secondary teachers said they didn’t know (12%)or that it varied too much to say (9%). Special school teachers who teach year 12 to 13 classes said that their school on average provides 17 hours of contact time for their subject each week on average. A minority of special school teachers said they didn’t know (33%) or that it varied too much to say (30%).

On average, secondary school teachers who teach year 12 to 13 classes said that their school expects year 12 to 13 pupils to complete 5 hours of set work outside of lessons for their subject, while special school teachers who teach year 12 to 13 classes said that their school expects year 12 to 13 pupils to complete 1 hour of set work on average outside of lessons.

We asked teachers who teach year 12 to 13 classes what they would prioritise for the year 12 to 13 pupils they teach if there was funding for an additional 5 hours of contact time every week (Figure 1).

Secondary school teachers who teach year 12 to 13 classes most commonly said that they would prioritise support with study skills (47%), additional class time on existing subjects (41%) and support with life skills (36%).

Special school teachers who teach year 12 to 13 classes most commonly said that they would prioritise support with life skills (50%), mental health and wellbeing support (49%) and enrichment activities (38%). 

Teaching assistants

We asked teachers how confident they feel that they work effectively with teaching assistants in their school (Figure 2).

Almost all primary (93%) and special school teachers (92%) and the majority of secondary school teachers (62%) said that they were fairly or very confident that they work effectively with teaching assistants.

The majority of primary (53%) and secondary school teachers (54%) and a minority of special school teachers (44%) said that the training they had received throughout their career had contained content on working effectively with teaching assistants.

Teachers most commonly said that initial teacher training (74%), other training within their school/MAT (51%) and early career framework-based training (32%) contained content on working effectively with teaching assistants.

We asked teachers how many pupils within their classes require some form of teaching assistant support (Figure 3).

Almost all special (96%) and a large majority of primary school teachers (74%) said that all or most of the pupils in their classes require some form of teaching assistant support. About half of secondary school teachers (50%) said the same.

We asked primary school teachers and secondary school teachers which teaching assistant roles they thought were the most valuable for pupils with SEND, since the start of the academic year (Figure 4).

Primary school teachers most commonly said that one-to-one targeted teaching and learning support in the classroom (78%), one-to-one or small group structured interventions outside the classroom (69%) and general teaching and learning support in the classroom (58%) were the most valuable teaching assistant roles for pupils with SEND.

Secondary school teachers most commonly said that one-to-one targeted teaching and learning support in the classroom (66%), general teaching and learning support in the classroom (55%) and one-to-one or small group structured interventions outside the classroom (42%) were the most valuable teaching assistant roles for pupils with SEND.

We asked teachers what has helped the effectiveness of teaching assistant support given to pupils with SEND in their class (Figure 5).

Primary school teachers most commonly said that more teaching assistant capacity to support pupils with SEND (40%), more teaching assistant capacity to undertake training and develop new skills (30%) and improving classroom teacher approach to teaching assistant deployment (23%) helped the effectiveness of teaching assistant support given to pupils with SEND in their class. A small minority (22%) said nothing has helped the effectiveness of teaching assistant support.

Secondary school teachers most commonly said that more teaching assistant capacity to support pupils with SEND (33%) helped the effectiveness of teaching assistant support given to pupils with SEND in their class, while 26% of secondary school teachers said that nothing has helped the effectiveness of teaching assistant support.

The National Tutoring Programme

The National Tutoring Programme (NTP) operated between the 2020 to 2021 and 2023 to 2024 academic years. We asked primary and secondary school leaders which NTP routes their school was using, or planning to use, during the 2023 to 2024 academic year (Figure 6).

School-led tutoring was the most common NTP route being used, or planning to be used, during the 2023 to 2024 academic year. The majority of secondary school leaders (53%) and about half of primary school leaders (50%) said they were using this route.

A minority of primary school leaders (40%) and a small minority of secondary school leaders (19%) said they were not using or planning to use any NTP routes this academic year.

A minority of leaders (44%) said their school will continue to offer tutoring as an academic intervention in future, after the NTP concludes. Of those leaders, a large majority (75%) said they would use pupil premium to fund tutoring, while a minority (34%) said they would use school administrative budgets.

We asked leaders who said that their school intends to continue offering tutoring in the future who they intend to deliver that tutoring (Figure 7).

Both primary school leaders (72%) and secondary school leaders (67%) most commonly said that they intend for employed teachers with QTS to deliver tutoring in the future. Teaching assistants were also commonly expected to deliver tutoring by primary school leaders (68%) and secondary school leaders (34%). A minority of secondary school leaders (27%) expected tutoring agencies to deliver tutoring at their school when NTP had concluded, whereas very few primary school leaders (2%) did.

If leaders did not intend for undergraduate students to deliver tutoring, we asked them how likely they would be to use undergraduate students to deliver tutoring in the future (Figure 8).

A minority of primary school leaders (22%) and about half of secondary school leaders (51%) said that they would be quite likely or very likely to use undergraduate students for tutoring at their school in the future.

School leadership changes

We asked school leaders which type of leadership roles, if any, had increased in number in their school since the start of the academic year (Figure 9).

A large majority of primary school leaders (78%), and a majority of secondary school leaders (61%) and special school leaders (60%) said that there had been no increase in leadership roles since the start of the academic year.

We asked leaders at schools where the number of senior leadership roles had increased, what their main reasons were for this increase (Figure 10).

Leaders most commonly said that greater support needed for managing pupil behaviour (45%), providing promotion or development opportunities (42%) and more pupils on roll (39%) were the main reasons for increasing the number of senior leadership roles in their school.

We asked school leaders who had increased the number of middle leadership roles in their school what their main reasons were for increasing the number of middle leadership roles (Figure 11).

Leaders most commonly said that middle leadership roles had increased to provide promotion or development opportunities (66%), followed by reducing workload for existing leadership teachers (33%) and attempting to retain staff (31%).

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 12).

Fifty-three percent (53%) of secondary school leaders said their school was dealing with knife crime as a safeguarding issue, while 16% of primary and 25% of special school leaders said the same.

A larger proportion of primary and secondary school leaders said their school was dealing with knife crime as a safeguarding issue compared to when last asked in March 2024, when 11% of primary school leaders and 47% of secondary school leaders said they were dealing with knife crime as a safeguarding issue. The proportion for special school leaders was about the same as in March 2024 (25%).

We asked leaders who said they were actively dealing with knife crime as a safeguarding issue how many individual incidents their school was actively dealing with. Among those who provided a number, the average number of incidents was 2.2 per 1,000 pupils. This was lower than when we last asked this in March 2024, when the average number of incidents per 1,000 pupils was 3.1.

The National Institute of Teaching

We asked teachers and leaders whether they had heard of the National Institute of Teaching before this survey. A small minority of teachers (25%) and about half of leaders (49%) said they had. Teacher awareness is similar to when this question was last asked in January 2023 (23%), and leader awareness is higher than when it was last asked at the same time (33%).

We asked teachers and leaders who were aware of the National Institute of Teaching what they thought the main roles of the National Institute of Teaching are (Figure 13).

Teachers most commonly said that they thought delivering National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) (43%), delivering Initial Teacher Training (ITT) (39%) and conducting research around professional development (38%) are the main roles of the National Institute of Teaching.

Leaders most commonly said that they thought delivering National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) (46%), delivering Initial Teacher Training (ITT) (45%) and delivering the Early Career Framework (42%) are the main roles of the National Institute of Teaching.

A minority of teachers (36%) and a small minority of leaders (31%) did not know what the main roles of the National Institute of Teaching are.

Visa sponsorship licenses for schools

We asked school leaders if their school is currently covered by a visa sponsorship license, allowing them to hire overseas teachers.

The majority of primary school leaders (58%), secondary school leaders (54%) and special school leaders (58%) did not know if their school was covered by a visa sponsorship license. Very few primary school leaders (5%) and special school leaders (10%), and a small minority (19%) of secondary school leaders, said that their school is currently covered by a visa sponsorship license.

Behaviour in schools

We asked teachers how they would rate the behaviour of pupils in their school over the past week of term (Figure 14).

About half of primary school teachers (51%) and a minority of secondary school teachers (40%) and special school teachers (47%) said that the behaviour of pupils at their school over the previous week had been good or very good.

A small minority of primary school teachers (28%) and special school teachers (29%) said behaviour had been poor or very poor. A minority of secondary school teachers (39%) said the same.

A higher proportion of primary school teachers (66%) rated behaviour as good or very good when last asked in March 2023. A similar proportion of secondary school teachers (44%) and special school teachers (52%) rated behaviour as good or very good when last asked in March 2023. A higher proportion of teachers also rated behaviour as good or very good in December 2023, when 80% of primary school teachers, 58% of secondary school teachers and 60% of special school teachers rated behaviour as good or very good.

We also asked leaders how they would rate the behaviour of pupils in their school over the previous week of term (Figure 15).

Leaders typically gave more positive ratings of behaviour than teachers. A large majority of primary school leaders (81%) and special school leaders (77%), and the majority of secondary school leaders (56%) rated behaviour over the previous week as good or very good.

Very few primary school leaders (7%) and special school leaders (5%), and a small minority of secondary school leaders (18%) said behaviour had been poor or very poor.

A lower proportion of primary, secondary and special school leaders rated behaviour as good or very good compared to March 2024, when 90% of primary school leaders, 65% of secondary school leaders and 83% of special school leaders rated behaviour as good or very good.

A lower proportion of primary, secondary and special school leaders rated behaviour as good or very good compared to December 2023, when 95% of primary leaders, 82% of secondary leaders and 84% of special school leaders rated behaviour as good or very good.

Frequency of positive behaviours

We asked teachers how often their school had been calm and orderly over the previous week of term (Figure 16).

The majority of primary school teachers (58%), about half of secondary (48%) and a minority of special school teachers (47%) said that their school had been calm and orderly every day or most days.

A smaller proportion of teachers said that their school had been calm and orderly every day or most days compared to March 2024, when 66% of primary school teachers, 54% of secondary school teachers and 52% of special school teachers said that their school had been calm and orderly every day or most days.

A lower proportion of primary, secondary and special school teachers said that their school was calm and orderly either every day or most days when compared to December 2023, when 79% of primary school teachers, 65% of secondary school teachers and 53% of special school teachers said that their school had been calm and orderly every day or most days.

We also asked leaders how often their school had been calm and orderly over the previous week of term (Figure 17).

A higher proportion of leaders than teachers in each school phase said that their school had been calm and orderly every day or most days over the previous week. A large majority of primary (87%) secondary (72%) and special school leaders (74%) said that their school had been calm and orderly every day or most days over the previous week.

A similar proportion of primary and secondary school leaders said that their school had been calm and orderly either every day or most days compared to March 2024, when 90% of primary school leaders and 77% of secondary school leaders said that their school had been calm and orderly every day or most days. A higher proportion of special school leaders (86%) said the same in March 2024.

A lower proportion of primary, secondary and special school leaders said that their school was calm and orderly either most or all days when compared to December 2023, when 96% of primary school leaders, 89% of secondary school leaders and 90% of special school leaders said that their school had been calm and orderly every day or most days.

We asked teachers how often their school had been a safe environment for pupils over the previous week of term (Figure 18).

A large majority of primary (88%) secondary (81%) and special school teachers (81%) said their school had been a safe environment for pupils every day or most days.

A similar proportion of primary and secondary school teachers said that their school was a safe environment for pupils compared to March 2024, when 93%of primary school teachers and 83% of secondary school teachers said that they felt their school was a safe environment for pupils over the previous week of term. A higher proportion of special school teachers (89%) said the same in March 2024.

A lower proportion of primary, secondary and special school teachers said that their school was a safe environment for pupils when compared to December 2023, when 97%of primary school teachers, 89% of secondary school teachers and 87% of special school teachers said that they felt their school was a safe environment for pupils over the previous week of term.

We also asked leaders how often their school had been a safe environment for pupils over the previous week of term (Figure 19).

A higher proportion of leaders than teachers in each school phase said that their school had been a safe environment for pupils over the previous week. Almost all primary (98%), secondary (94%) and special school leaders (96%) said their school had been a safe environment for pupils over the previous week of term.

A similar proportion of primary, secondary and special school leaders said that they felt their school had been a safe environment compared to March 2024 when 97% of primary, 94% of secondary and 94% of special school leaders said that they felt their school had been a safe environment. Findings were also similar compared to December 2023.

We asked teachers and leaders how often pupils had been respectful to each other over the previous week (Figure 20).

The majority of teachers (67%) and a large majority of leaders (88%) said that pupils had been respectful to each other every day or most days over the previous week.

A similar percentage of teachers said that pupils had been respectful to each other every day or most days compared to March 2024 (69%). Fewer leaders said that pupils had been respectful to each other every day or most days compared to March 2024 (90%).

We also asked teachers and leaders how often staff had been respectful to each other over the previous week (Figure 21).

A large majority of teachers (89%) and almost all leaders (95%) said that they felt staff had been respectful to each other over the previous week of term.

A similar percentage of teachers (91%) and leaders (97%) said that staff had been respectful to each other every day or most days compared to March 2024.

Impacts of misbehaviour

We asked teachers and leaders how frequently pupil misbehaviour had interrupted the lessons they taught in the past week (Figure 22).

A minority of teachers (40%) and a small minority of leaders (12%) said that pupil misbehaviour had interrupted all or most of the lessons they had taught in the previous week.

A similar proportion of teachers and leaders said that pupil misbehaviour had interrupted all or most of their lessons compared to March 2024, when 37% of teachers and 11% of leaders said all or most of their lessons had been disrupted. A similar proportion of leaders said that pupil misbehaviour had interrupted all or most of their lessons than when compared to December 2023 (7%). However, more teachers said that pupil misbehaviour had interrupted all or most of their lessons than when compared to December 2023 (27%).

We asked teachers and leaders who had taught a lesson in the past week of term how many minutes had been lost to misbehaviour per 30 minutes of lesson time. On average, leaders reported that 5 minutes had been lost due to misbehaviour for every 30 minutes of lesson time. In March 2024, this figure was 4 minutes.

On average, teachers reported that 7 minutes had been lost due to misbehaviour for every 30 minutes of lesson time. In March 2024, this figure was 6 minutes.

We asked teachers and leaders how confident they feel managing misbehaviour in their school (Figure 23).

Almost all teachers (91%) and leaders (98%) said they felt very or fairly confident dealing with misbehaviour.

These results are similar to those from March 2024, when 92% of teachers and 99% of leaders said they felt very or fairly confident dealing with pupil misbehaviour.

Finally, we asked teachers and leaders whether pupil misbehaviour had impacted their wellbeing in the previous week of term (Figure 24).

A large majority of teachers (78%) and the majority of leaders (58%) said pupil misbehaviour had affected their wellbeing to a great extent or to some extent. A small minority of teachers (13%) and very few leaders (5%) said it had affected their wellbeing to a great extent.

A similar proportion of teachers and leaders said pupil misbehaviour had affected their wellbeing compared to March 2024 when 77% of teachers and 53% of leaders said that pupil misbehaviour had affected their wellbeing.

A larger proportion of teachers and leaders said pupil misbehaviour had affected their wellbeing when compared to December 2023, when 68% of teachers and 46% of leaders said that pupil misbehaviour had affected their wellbeing.

Teacher and leader wellbeing

We asked teachers and leaders a series of ONS-validated questions about personal wellbeing. These questions are known as the ‘ONS-4’ measures and are answered using a scale from 0 to 10.

Happiness

We asked teachers and leaders (on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being happiest) how happy they felt yesterday (Figure 25).

The average happiness score was 6.6 for teachers and 6.8 for leaders.

The average happiness scores were similar compared to March 2024, when the average scores were 6.4 for teachers and 6.8 for leaders.

Life satisfaction

We asked teachers and leaders (on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the most satisfied) how satisfied they are with their life nowadays (Figure 26).

The average life satisfaction score was 6.9 for teachers and 7.2 for leaders.

The average life satisfaction scores were similar to March 2024, when the average scores were 6.8 for teachers and 7.4 for leaders.

Extent to which teacher and leaders feel the things they do are worthwhile

We asked teachers and leaders (on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the most worthwhile) to what extent they feel that the things they do in their life are worthwhile (Figure 27).

The average score was 7.4 for teachers and 7.9 for leaders.

These scores were similar to those reported in March 2024, when the average scores were 7.4 for teachers and 8.0 for leaders.

Anxiousness

We asked teachers and leaders (on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the most anxious) how anxious they felt yesterday, with 0 being ‘not at all anxious’ and 10 being ‘completely anxious’ (Figure 28).

The average anxiousness score was 4.5 for teachers and 4.4 for leaders.

The average anxiousness score for teachers was similar to when last asked in March 2024 (4.5). The average anxiousness score for leaders was higher than in March 2024 (3.7).

Job satisfaction

Finally, we asked teachers and leaders (on a scale of 1-7 where 1 means ‘completely dissatisfied’ and 7 means ‘completely satisfied’) how satisfied they are with their present job overall (Figure 29).

The majority of teachers (62%) and a large majority of leaders (72%) said they were somewhat, mostly or completely satisfied with their job.

The proportion of teachers who said they were satisfied with their job was the same as in March 2024 (62%), while the proportion of leaders who said they were satisfied with their job was lower than in March 2024 (77%).

Glossary of terms

Mental Health Support Team (MHST)

Provide additional capacity for early support and meeting the mental health needs of children and young people in primary, secondary and further education settings. They have 3 core functions:

• deliver evidence-based interventions for mild to moderate mental health issues
• help mental health leads develop and introduce a whole school or college approach give timely advice to school and college staff
• liaise with external specialist services, to help children and young people get the right support and stay in education

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).