News, research & insights
w/c 23 June 2025
Scotland to end two-child benefit cap from March
The Scottish government will scrap the two-child benefit cap by offering payments to affected families from March 2026, a move expected to lift 20,000 children out of relative poverty.
SEND figures continue to surge
New figures for 2024/25 show a sharp rise in pupils with special educational needs in England, with nearly 100,000 more children now receiving SEND compared to last year.
GCSE entries declining in EBacc
Provisional data from Ofqual shows a significant decline in some GCSE entries, particularly in German, the sciences, and history.
DfE seeks MAT leadership insights
The Department for Education has invited education leaders to join a multi-academy trust CEO reference group to advise the government.
Teacher training providers seek reaccreditation
Twelve providers that lost teacher training accreditation after the 2021 market review are now on track to be reaccredited following a targeted DfE round.
Research & Insights
Getting the child poverty strategy we need:
A co-produced agenda for change
[Parkes et al; CPAG, IIPR & Changing Realities, 2025]
This report is a collaboration between Changing Realities and IPPR, with support from Child Poverty Action Group. In collaboration, they have developed a roadmap for change that seeks to make a real difference to families and children across the UK facing poverty.
The authors argue that the UK Government has a time-limited opportunity to make meaningful, lasting change in its upcoming child poverty strategy.
There are some insightful datasets provided in the report that show what the fiscal and numerical impact could be if action was taken.
Central to this is removing the two-child limit and benefit cap, as well as restoring benefit rates to pre-freeze levels.
The report also calls for better support for lone parents, such as allowing access to the higher standard allowance currently reserved for couples. These changes, the authors argue, could lift a million children out of poverty by the end of the decade.
(Source: Parkes et al, 2025)
Beyond financial support, the report highlights the need for a social security and child maintenance system that treats families with dignity and responds to their individual needs, rather than making life harder.
It also recommends changes to childcare support under Universal Credit, including reforms to payment caps and protections for families who temporarily fall out of work.
I was encouraged to see that the report urges the government to work alongside parents experiencing poverty in shaping the strategy and delivering change. This is something that drives our work and approach at Tees Valley Education.
Parents involved in the Changing Realities project bring lived expertise, policymaking insight, and campaigning skills, and their voices must be heard.
Adapt-Ed: co-designing adaptations to a whole school intervention to improve the uptake and impact of food provision in special schools
Scoping research for a future trial
[O’Connell et al; School Food Matters, University of Exeter et al, 2025]
New research from the Adapt-Ed study, led by the University of Hertfordshire in partnership with the University of Essex and School Food Matters, reveals key trends useful for those of us tackling food insecurity
One in four children eligible for free school meals (FSM) in special schools are not taking them up due to unmet dietary and eating needs.
This rate is significantly higher than in mainstream schools, where 1 in 8 infant children miss out on their universal FSM.
More than 1 in 5 infant children in special schools are not accessing their Universal Infant FSM, compared with 1 in 8 children in mainstream schools, a striking finding given the importance of good food at a younger age
The study found considerable variation in how special schools implement whole-school food approaches; only four of the 16 responding schools had a written food policy and there was limited evidence of ‘recommended practice’ that schools could follow
The study highlights that children with SEND, particularly those with restrictive diets, often require familiar or ‘safe’ foods and specific ways of introducing new foods.
Without appropriate adjustments and inclusive food policies, many may go a whole school day without eating properly. This can lead to concentration difficulties, increased anxiety, and health problems.
(Source: inal collaborative logic model for ‘Adapt-Ed’ Healthy Zones)
Despite recent government expansions of FSM eligibility to more families, including all universal credit households from September 2025, the report stresses that special schools lack clear, evidence-based guidance on how to meet the complex eating requirements of SEND pupils.
As such, the study calls for improved, inclusive school food standards and reasonable adjustments to ensure all children can access nutritious meals.
Researchers urge the government to investigate FSM uptake in special schools further, potentially through the Child Poverty Taskforce, and to publish data on FSM access for SEND pupils in mainstream schools, where uptake may be even lower.
The report provides further evidence that tackling these barriers is critical given that children with SEND are more likely to live in poverty and depend on school meals for nutrition.
This policy briefing paper presents a clear summary of the findings and recommendations for action.
To save diversity and inclusion, employers need to bring class into the conversation
[Montacute; Sutton Trust, 2025]
The recent piece by Rebecca Montacute highlights a critical oversight in UK DEI efforts, the importance of social class.
Montacute argues that, unlike gender or ethnicity, class is often ignored, even though working-class background remains a powerful predictor of career success or failure.
A state school student from a low-income household is 4.5 times less likely to become a top earner than a private school peer
Working-class individuals face systemic barriers (e.g. accent discrimination, unpaid internships, slower promotions, and pay gaps) even when they're in so-called inclusive workplaces
The blog lays out concrete actions employers can take to integrate class into their DEI programmes: banning unpaid internships, reviewing hiring and promotion processes, and tracking pay disparities by socio-economic background
This post is essential reading for anyone invested in workplace equity.
It shines a light on class as a hidden axis of exclusion, affects diverse groups (like working-class women and ethnic minorities etc), and offers practical solutions.
Food poverty support: distribution data
Locality and community datasets for your area
[Trussell; 2025]
Recent figures released from Trussell show that 2.9 million emergency food parcels were provided to people facing hardship across the UK between April 2024 and March 2025
More than a million of these were provided for children. This is equivalent to one parcel every 11 seconds and a 51% increase compared to five years ago.
Families with children under five have seen a 32% rise over the past five years
The annual figures also show significant numbers of parents struggling to afford the essentials.
Since 2019/20 there has been a 46% rise in emergency food parcels provided to families with children, and a 32% rise in parcels to support children under the age of five.
(Source: Number of emergency food parcels distributed by food banks in the Trussell community: 1 April – 31 March 2019/20, 2023/24, and 2024/25)
In my work with schools nationally, I often encourage use of data such as this to get a more forensic understanding of disadvantage beyond FSM/PP proxies
There is a useful tool here provided by Trussell that allows you to see what this datasets look like in your community
Please do engage with the data if you work in schools and/or community support services. There’s also resources provided by Trussell to engage with your MP on the issue and report the local stats for your community.
Opportunities
🧭 Can you move from Neighbourhood to National?
As part of the Fair Education Alliance’s Neighbourhood to National strategy, a pioneering new role is open for a Director of Regional Collaboration
This is a unique opportunity to lead deep partnerships with combined authorities, build peer learning networks, and shape national policy through local insight.
With a salary of up to £90k and applications closing 9am, Monday 7 July, this is your chance to lead lasting, community-rooted change. 🌍✨
Plus, you’ll get to work closely with me and the team at Tees Valley Education (amongst many other FEA members)
FEA are looking for someone who brings ambition, humility and a collaborative mindset, who sees the value in place-based relational work and who knows that driving change means shifting the full set of conditions that hold the problem in place - policy, resources and practices, mental models, power, and people.
👉 Not the right fit? Express your interest in other upcoming roles on the Regional Collaboration team. Find out more here
🎉Summer Sale! 🎉
Summer’s nearly here, and Bloomsbury are celebrating with a brilliant Bloomsbury Education sale - and yes, Tackling Poverty and Disadvantage in Schools is included!
Readers can now get 30% off all Bloomsbury Education titles.
It’s the perfect chance for schools to stock up on inspiring reads (including ours!) before the new school year.
Remember, all royalties from the our book go back to Tees Valley Education with projects supporting children facing poverty-related barriers to learning.
“Help! I need some reading on the topic of….”
There’s now a landing page of FREE resources and quick-links on my Substack
You can access it in the tabs on my homepage or by visiting this link
Please do share with those working to better understand and tackle inequality