Wales have updated their attendance codes for the first time since 2010. This includes more detailed categories which should shed light on arrangements like flexischooling and online provision. It also breaks the illness code into physical and non-physical illnesses: www.gov.wales/school-atten...

School attendance codes: guidance [HTML] | GOV.WALES

The codes that schools must use when recording attendance information.

gov.wales

1/4 I’m not sure Britain ever "decided" skilled work mattered less. But we did build a system, especially in England, where academic routes gained clearer status, stronger institutions and greater visibility, then mistook that advantage for proof of greater worth. ⬇️

1/5 I believe strongly in more inclusive mainstream schools. I also think many schools are trying to hold together a SEND system that has been underfunded, over-bureaucratised and inconsistently implemented for years. But there is a risk we cannot ignore. ⬇️

Rigour cannot mean insisting every pupil succeeds through same route. Relevance cannot mean abandoning worthwhile knowledge. A genuinely inclusive system protects entitlement while recognising different aptitudes, needs & destinations. One narrow definition of success will manufacture failure.

I'm fascinated by how bits of edutwitter are responding to this. If people aren't keen, again *what is the solution* to disaffected learners who come out of school feeling like they've failed? If it's not more vocational pathways, how about making the current offer more relevant and engaging?

George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 3d ago

I'm glad to see this. It's what many of us have been arguing for a long time, but until now no one in government seemed ready to listen. Let's hope we will begin to see an education policy which works for children, and for the 21st Century. In The Times today.

Trauma-informed practice is not permissiveness. It means holding boundaries while recognising that some children need sustained safety, co-regulation and trusted relationships before they can meet them consistently. The real constraint is often staffing, time and specialist capacity.

Carrie@carrieprimary.bsky.social · 4d ago

I see the ‘trauma doesn’t need different teaching’ is doing the rounds again. I don’t often comment because it’s a bit personal but the way some people talk about children really offends me. Some children have already experienced more in their wee lives than we ever will. Some children will have -

This distinction matters. “Schools stayed closed too long” can become a convenient way of erasing who controlled mitigation, public health infrastructure and recovery funding. Schools carried the consequences of those failures, and pupils and staff are still living with them.

Dr Zubaida Haque@zubhaque.bsky.social · 4d ago

We need to separate two distinct failures: 1/Schools stayed closed longer than they needed to bec the govt failed to put in strong mitigation measures to make them safe 2/Johnson failed to invest properly in helping children recover – a failure that led Sir Kevan Collins to resign as “catch‑up tsar”

Loving life at our first #Kynren ⚔️🪓

Nicole Ponsford articulates this really well. I’ve felt for a long time that school data telld us what's happening, but not enough about how pupils experience it. Inclusion needs attainment, attendance & behaviour data, yes. But also needs voice, belonging, trust & stories behind the patterns.

BERA@beranews.bsky.social · 7d ago

📝 NEW BLOG POST What happens when school data can’t see inclusion? Rethinking evidence through kaleidoscopic data By Nicole Ponsford, Global Equality Collective Read here: https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/what-happens-when-school-data-cant-see-inclusion-rethinking-evidence-through-kaleidoscopic-data

“I am a part of all that I have met.” Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses

🎉 Steplab Summer Reads - Giveaway #2 Win: 📖 Symbiosis by Claire Hill & Kat Howard 📚 Steplab whitepapers 💧 Steplab water bottle 🖊️ Notepad & pen To enter: 1️⃣ Follow us 2️⃣ Like this post 3️⃣ Repost Enter by 9:00am Friday 31 July. Winner announced the same day. Good luck!

“Stuart had come in for potatoes. Unfortunately, he had already begun constructing a wider theory about supermarket design, civic decline and whether this particular branch felt sufficiently Nordic.”

Nanoraptor@nanoraptor.danamania.com · 2w ago

You suddenly get a narrator describing your life and there’s no way to turn it off - everyone can hear it. While shopping, at work, at home, with friends - the voice narrating your every move goes on. Who do you hope is the voice of this narrator?

Since @lucympowell.bsky.social has disabled comments. 1/3 From primary schools serving high SEND and high deprivation communities, the test is not new language but whether policy changes the conditions schools work in. Will accountability recognise complexity without making inclusion a data risk?

Absolutely thrilled to be appointed Education Secretary. For me there’s no more important job for any government than making sure young people have the best education, the best opportunities and the best future they can. Lots to do and I look forward to getting started.

Optics have become a substitute for substance.

Tes magazine@tesmagazine.bsky.social · last mo.

DfE spending on influencer marketing at a time when schools are struggling for cash suggests the government is operating in an ‘alternate reality’, says heads’ leader www.tes.com/magazine/new...

I've never been so disinterested and disconnected with a world cup before...

Teacher Tapp@teachertapp.bsky.social · last mo.

The men's Football World Cup is underway - but most teachers aren't bringing it into the classroom ⚽ 47% of primary and 71% of secondary teachers haven't engaged with it in school at all and have no plans to. Just 3% of primary and 1% of secondary have built it into their lessons.

Tremendous resistance in politics and in Ed circles to the idea that we might need a lot of highly trained, impactful experts rather than the same people as before changing their job titles to become ‘experts at hand’. Expertise costs money and if we already had it we wouldn’t need reforms.

Biggest issue is staff believing the work is doable. SEND reform can’t just mean asking exhausted adults to absorb more complexity. Has to come with time, training, staffing, specialist support & fewer contradictory demands. Otherwise (as you know) buy-in won’t survive contact with Monday morning.

As a Teessider, this doesn't remotely surprise me...

Teacher Tapp@teachertapp.bsky.social · last mo.

With temperatures soaring, you'd be forgiven for thinking every classroom must have air con by now... Think again. Even in London, only 22% of primary and 24% of secondary teachers have it. In Yorkshire and the North East, that drops to just 8% and 12%. 🥵

This is the bit I keep coming back to. It isn’t about lowering expectations. It’s about whether the system recognises different starting points, routes and evidence of progress. If accountability only rewards one narrow path, inclusion will always be fighting uphill.

RR@rlrossi64.bsky.social · last mo.

Until schools/teachers are relieved of that pressure to get huge %%%s to ‘expected standard’ at certain points of the curriculum, then we’ll struggle to have real inclusion. And this is not about low expectations.

Inclusion bases are being promoted at precisely the moment when EHCP systems, special school capacity and LA decision-making are under extreme strain. That does not make inclusion bases wrong. It makes resourcing, accountability and honesty even more important. 1/3

So we carry on tinkering around the edges arguing over how little we can feed the donkey today in the name of efficiency & thrifty government spending. Not investing in education of both children & adults seems to be the biggest own goal a country can make. Shooting yourself in both feet. /end

Agree. We need to be much sharper about evidence. But also about implementation. An adaptation is not good because it sounds inclusive. It has to match the barrier, be delivered well, be reviewed and be possible at scale. Otherwise schools collect adjustments that don’t shift access. Again.

Ben Newmark@bennewmark.bsky.social · last mo.

Also what evidence are we using to intervene? The evidence base for many very common adaptations is shockingly bad. We won't deliver any improvement doing things that don't work. And the white paper has so far done nothing to tackle this.

1/6 Today’s DfE guidance on inclusion bases matters. It recognises something many mainstream schools already know - that some pupils need more than ordinary classroom adaptation, but still deserve to belong in their local school community.

The pressure on schools to use certain approaches because of external accountability measures is a big part of why #inclusion is so difficult. I think we have to accept that some children struggle with the level of expectations being placed on them atm. That's not 'soft bigotry'; it's reality.

Frustrating. Inclusion & attendance are not separate workstreams. The pupils most carefully held by inclusive practice are often those with the most complex barriers to attendance. Accountability needs to ask how schools are responding to that complexity, not pretend the two aims sit neatly apart!

Michael Tidd @michaelt1979.bsky.social · last mo.

Here's a pattern that summarises the challenges schools face in navigating government directives: INCLUSION is a strength, but ATTENDANCE is a weakness. And there's no acknowledgement in the report of the conflict 🙄

Very useful framing from @jpembroke.bsky.social For me, the key tension is stakes. Once stakes dominate purpose, workload rises, accuracy becomes performative and access suffers. Assessment only earns its place when it helps teachers act more precisely for pupils...

School Data Updates@jpembroke.bsky.social · last mo.

😏

From Insight data, it looks like there’s going to be a big increase in % achieving full marks in MTC. 37% last year; probably over 40% this year.

Assessment matters. But high-stakes accountability can turn it into performance theatre. The issue is not individual teachers or schools. It is a system that rewards threshold focus and public signals over diagnostic use. We should protect assessment by lowering the stakes around it.

School Data Updates@jpembroke.bsky.social · last mo.

I love the distribution of scores (2022-2025)

The White Paper hill I will die on: If accountability still judges schools mainly through attainment, inclusive schools carry the most risk. Unless measures adapt to recognise access, progress and complexity, inclusion is not just disincentivised, it is structurally penalised.