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Share Each year, we bring together the voices of pupils, parents and staff to build a complete picture of school and trust life across the country. In a sector that has faced immense pressure, listening to the experiences of your whole community provides the essential clarity for leading the way forward.
Our 2025 national reports, drawing on the experiences of nearly 400,000 staff, pupils and parents during the 2024/25 school year, tell a story of cautious optimism. The findings, recently featured in Schools Week, show that while significant challenges remain, there are clear signs of recovery and positive progress.
Here are seven key insights from this year’s research…
1. Staff retention is improving for the first time since the pandemic
For school leaders, this is welcome news. The proportion of staff considering resignation fell to 41% this year, a drop most notable among teachers and middle leaders. This suggests that the dedicated work to improve school culture is having an impact.
2. Government policy is less of a driver for staff resignations
The top reasons for considering leaving remain consistent: feeling undervalued and overwhelming workloads. However, the proportion of staff citing government policy as a factor dropped from 15% to 11% this year, the largest shift in sentiment.
3. Specific staff groups need targeted support
The overall improvement masks specific challenges. Middle leaders continue to report high levels of workload and stress, while administrative staff were the only group with a higher proportion considering resignation than last year.
Understanding these varied experiences is key to retaining valued colleagues.
4. Pay and flexible working are growing concerns
Despite the positive trend in retention, staff views on pay and flexible working are going backwards. The proportion of staff reporting their pay is fair fell by four percentage points, and satisfaction with flexible working opportunities also declined, showing there is still important work to do.
5. Relationships with parents are strengthening
Our parent survey shows that engagement and communication have improved over the last three years. Satisfaction with schools’ efforts to engage parents rose to 61% last year, a testament to the hard work schools have put into building strong partnerships.
6. We are seeing small but meaningful gains in pupil experience
After declining in 2023/2024, we are seeing slight improvements in pupil happiness and wellbeing. The proportion of secondary pupils reporting they feel happy at their school rose to 44%, a small but important step in the right direction.
7. Pupil inclusion remains a critical challenge
Despite progress in wellbeing, some issues require urgent attention. Among the most concerning is that only 16% of secondary pupils feel they see themselves represented in the curriculum, a drop from 20% last year, underscoring the need for a more inclusive learning environment.
See the full findings
The seven key statistics above represent only a fraction of the rich findings our dataset of over 400,000 stakeholders offers.
Download the free national reports on staff, pupil and parent experiences to access more insights and see where schools and trusts are making progress, and where challenges remain, from staff retention to pupil wellbeing and parental confidence.
Download →Expert reflections on the 2025 findings
Each of our reports features a conclusion written by an expert in their field. Their reflections help situate our findings within the wider education landscape.
On the staff experience:
Pleasingly, the data shows some clear signs of positive progress in addressing key challenges, such as improvements to teachers’ perceptions of their workload and resignation risk. But many of the positive signs… are also modest.
The data, therefore, confirms that much more work is needed to improve working conditions in the school workforce.
Jack Worth
Education Workforce Lead, NFER
This national report on staff experience highlights encouraging signs that retention is improving, but the challenges remain clear. Trust and school leaders can use these findings to focus on the issues staff tell us matter most – workload, feeling valued, and wellbeing.
Addressing these drivers with intent will be crucial if we are to build sustainable teams and keep talented colleagues in our schools.
Sir David Carter
Former National Schools Commissioner for England
On the parent experience:
The findings demonstrate modest but meaningful improvements in parental engagement, but there are aspects of the relationship that could work more effectively. The findings underscore the need for schools to continue listening closely to their parent communities.
No single approach will meet the needs of all families, but proactive feedback, consistent communication, and flexible engagement strategies can help schools adapt to local contexts and foster genuine partnerships.
Dr Kathy Weston
Founder of Tooled Up Education
Edurio’s national report highlights both progress and challenges. While more parents feel respected and engaged, a lack of clarity around the trust’s role risks undermining that progress.
As leaders, we have a responsibility to bring parents with us, to make sure the vision, purpose and work of the trust is visible, relatable, and clearly connected to what matters most: their child’s and young person’s success. Partnership and clarity are key and ever more important going forward.
John Murphy
Former Chief Executive of Oasis Community Learning
On the pupil experience:
It’s encouraging to see that aspects of pupil experience have improved compared to previous years, however, numbers surrounding happiness are still low.
It’s striking to see a significant reduction in how happy children report feeling during the early years of secondary school, with those saying they feel happy dropping from 57% in year 7 to 42% in year 8.
Roisin McEvoy
Head of training and national programmes, Anna Freud
The rise in secondary pupils feeling safe is heartening, but we cannot stop there. The Edurio national report is clear: inclusion remains a concern, with only 16% of pupils seeing people like them reflected in the curriculum.
Belonging isn’t just about being present, it’s about being seen, heard and celebrated. That must be central to how we lead our schools.
Evelyn Forde MBE
Former President of the Association of School and College Leaders