12 June, 2026

Top education news stories

Explore this week’s news roundup to uncover the key challenges and priorities for schools across the country.

6 min read

1. £2.5m fund to study how AI tools are affecting learning

Researchers will investigate whether pupils are now ‘offloading’ thinking tasks, writes Schools Week.

The government’s go-to education research body has opened a £2.5 million research fund to fill an “urgent evidence gap” on how tools like ChatGPT have impacted the way pupils learn.

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) said the project will aim to understand how generative AI (GenAI) influences learning processes and outcomes. The foundation is especially interested in how the technology may lead pupils to “offload” thinking tasks such as recall, planning, reasoning or drafting onto the tools.

The project will look at whether it supports deeper learning, or whether it weakens pupils’ engagement, reduces their ability to remember what they have learned, or risks making them overly reliant on AI.

More than two-thirds of 13 to 18-year-olds are using AI to support their literacy and learning, according to a recent National Literacy Trust report.

Becky Francis, EEF chief executive, hoped the programme would create a “more robust understanding” of AI’s impact on learners.

“There has been a lot of speculation about the potential of GenAI tools like ChatGPT to change teaching and learning, for better or worse. But the collection of robust evidence on their actual impact on learning has barely begun – especially for learners under age 16. As these tools become more widely embedded, there is an urgent need to develop a much clearer understanding of whether and how GenAI supports or hinders the outcomes we want for learners.”

Source: £2.5m fund to study how AI tools are affecting learning (schoolsweek.co.uk)

Assess how technology and AI are affecting teaching, workload and learning at your trust

Technology is moving fast in education. But for most school and trust leaders, the honest picture of what’s working, what’s adding pressure, and where staff genuinely need support is still unclear.

2. More than 500k pupils in schools with EHCPs

New data shows another 11% rise in pupils with statutory plans as SEND reforms loom, writes Schools week.

The number of pupils with an education health and care plan (EHCP) has reached another record high, with more than 500,000 children now receiving statutory support for special educational needs in school.

Annual data released by the DfE shows there are 11.6% more pupils with an education, health and care plan (EHCP) in schools in the 2025/26 academic year, a total of 538,547. This is up from 482,640 in 2024/25, and represents 6% of the school population.

It is the second time there has been a jump of 11.6% – the highest since 2016 – in the past decade.

The number of pupils receiving SEN support but without an EHCP has also increased by 2.8%, to more than 1.3 million.

In total, around 1.8 million pupils in England have SEN, up by 5.2% from last year.

General secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, Paul Whiteman, said the figures show “families still desperately struggling to get help from schools which simply don’t have the funding, staff, space or specialist support to cope on their own with rising demand”.

“The government’s proposed reforms to this ailing system, including plans for more pupils to be supported in their local mainstream school, are welcome in principle. But many school leaders have concerns about the likely extra workload and the timeframes envisaged.”

Source: More than 500k pupils in schools with EHCPs (schoolsweek.co.uk)

3. ‘No room for complacency’ as 35,000 teachers choose to walk away

More than 35,000 teachers walked away from the profession last year for reasons other than retirement, writes Sec-Ed.

England’s teacher workforce shrank again last year, with more than 35,000 teachers leaving the profession for reasons other than retirement, according to the DfE’s latest workforce statistics.

The total number of full-time equivalent teachers in state schools now stands at 466,400, a drop of 1,900 from the previous year. While 41,012 new teachers entered the profession in 2025/26, that figure is 1,400 lower than last year. The DfE has so far recruited 4,654 of the additional 6,500 teachers it pledged.

Around 90% of teachers who qualified in 2024 are still teaching a year on, but only 67.4% of those who qualified five years ago remain in the classroom. Nearly half of teachers have left within 15 years of qualifying.

Jack Worth from NFER highlighted increases in the use of non-specialist teachers and rising secondary class sizes as warning signs that shortages still exist in the system. While NEU’s Daniel Kebede urged ministers to use falling pupil rolls as an opportunity to shrink class sizes rather than teacher numbers.

Source: ‘No room for complacency’ as 35,000 teachers choose to walk away (sec-ed.co.uk)

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