What are the current challenges?
An alarming number of children are losing learning. Lost learning is a risk to education standards and a loss of potential: schools cannot give children the opportunities they deserve if they are not in lessons.
Lost learning is disproportionately experienced by the children facing the greatest challenges in life, including children in poverty, in contact with social services, with special educational needs, facing a mental health crisis and experiencing discrimination. Children who lose learning are more likely to than their peers to not meet key education milestones, to not obtain passport qualifications English and maths, and not attend higher education.
Beyond the social implications, lost learning also impacts the economy.
As more children lose more learning, mainstream schools find it increasingly difficult to provide support. A system not designed to support inclusion combined with missed opportunities for early intervention, or a lack of services, leave these children without the help they need, and their needs escalate. This has resulted in growing numbers of children flowing into the special education and alternative provision (AP) sectors, with councils struggling to meet the associated costs. Meanwhile, permanent exclusion casts a lifelong shadow on the potential of children affected, and a lifelong cost to the exchequer due to reduced earnings, unemployment and contact with the criminal justice system.
We believe it is possible to break this cycle of lost learning.
Why should we address lost learning?
There is a social case for supporting mainstream schools to reduce the prevalence of lost learning. Across the ‘exclusions continuum’ introduced in the first WiLL report – from less to more severe forms of exclusion – we see that children facing the most challenges in their lives are disproportionately more likely to be losing learning. Children who lose learning are less likely than their peers to meet key educational milestones, obtain passport qualifications and to be earning or learning as young adults.
Councils are spending increasing amounts on educating children outside mainstream schools, where quality and safety is less guaranteed. While we know that many special and alternative provision schools deliver quality provision, this is often in spite of the system, not because of it. Too often children are let down by an underregulated, unappreciated, and overworked sector.
'Who Is Losing Learning? The case for reducing exclusions across mainstream schools' sets out a strong economic case to invest in reducing escalations of lost learning. The report draws together evidence suggesting that reducing exclusions across the continuum could reduce the cost to the state, youth violence, the attainment gap and youth unemployment.
How can we address lost learning?
