Research to understand pupil engagement launched

A new research commission involving some of the country’s best-known education leaders has launched today in a bid to gather timely national data on student engagement that can act as a predictive tool for teachers and leaders tackling attendance, wellbeing and attainment gaps.

The Commission has been established by ImpactEd Group and is being convened by representatives from the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), Confederation of School Trusts (CST), The Reach Foundation and Challenge Partners, and includes representatives from a number of academy trusts and local authorities from across the country. The Commissioners will serve under the research direction of Professor John Jerrim from University College London.

The aim is to determine whether student engagement – the level of commitment, involvement and emotional investment a student has with their school – is a powerful signal of their future attendance and attainment. It will examine the cognitive, emotional and behavioural factors influencing a child’s engagement. 

If the level of engagement is indeed an early warning signal, this may be a crucial missing piece of the puzzle needed to help drive positive outcomes for all students. The Commission will also examine staff and parental engagement and how it links to student data and school improvement.

The Commission hopes to contribute to the national and global evidence base on the topic and will draw upon large-scale, multi-year research projects from the United States. All the findings will be published and shared with the sector.

It will collect data from more than 100,000 children and young people at primary and secondary schools across the country at different points throughout the academic year.

Commissioners will then seek to understand whether student engagement trends are acting as lead indicators, or early warning signals, for fluctuations in attendance or attainment. With nearly 700,000 children still missing school on average every day across the 2023-2024 academic year – compared to 395,000 pre-Covid - the research couldn't be more pressing.

The Research Commission on Engagement and Lead Indicators will be chaired by Dame Sue John, Co-Founder of Challenge Partners and the former Director of the London Leadership Strategy for secondary schools during the London Challenge in the early 2000s.

Dame Sue John, chair of the Research Commission on Engagement and Lead Indicators, said: “It is crucial we are seeking every possible solution to the ongoing attendance crisis in schools since the pandemic – students need to be in school every day in order to have the best possible chance to thrive in life.

“Schools know intuitively that student engagement matters for getting children into school and excited about their learning, but until now they have lacked a methodical, reliable way to measure and act upon it. That is where this Commission comes in.

“Our work will show schools what the early warning signs are — the lead indicators that will help schools intervene before a disengaged student becomes an absent one. With the right data, schools will be able to identify trends, allocate resources more effectively and tailor interventions to the specific needs of individual students.”

The Commission already has over 30 academy trusts and local authorities signed up to participate in the fully funded research project but is opening the opportunity for 10 more Trusts to join the Group. Participating trusts and schools will be able to utilise the findings to develop evidence-based strategies on the ground in their schools, and each receive a detailed report of their school group. The Commission welcomes expressions of interest from trust and local authority leaders who might be interested to join the research cohort.

The Commission's data collection will be undertaken by The Engagement Platform (TEP), with dissemination of the findings supported by Commissioners and PLMR. TEP earlier this year generated groundbreaking findings on how to predict which employees were most likely to resign at the end of the academic year based on their levels of engagement at the start of the year. Those findings are now informing employee retention strategies at schools and trusts that took part.

Schools participating in the Research Commission on Engagement and Lead Indicators will begin to receive data and insights from early 2025, with full analysis in the summer term. The Commission will publish a report on the study’s overall findings in May 2025.