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* School exclusion numbers are falling. FFT has got ahead of the DfE in looking at exclusion data from the autumn term 2025. The headline is that exclusions are declining. However, there continue to be differences between primary and secondary schools with primaries reporting an increase in exclusions in years 1 -4 and little change in 5 and 6. Secondary schools excluded less students with decreases of about 1% from 10 to 9% of students in year 9 for example.

What should really concern schools though is who is being excluded. For example, about 5% of all 9 year students were excluded during that term, that is 1 student in 20. That figure rose to over 9% for disadvantaged students (almost 1 in 10) and over 10% if they had SEND needs. Conversely non disadvantaged students were at around 2 - 2.5% compared with SEND or disadvantage (closer to a 1 in 50 chance of being excluded). In that respect little has changed.

Attendance is showing similar trends. Overall it is improving but the gap between disadvantaged students and non-disadvantaged students is actually widening. According to Schools Week, students eligible for free school meals are now absent 5.19% more than non FSM students. The gap is also growing for SEND students and, if you are a secondary pastoral leader it may also be worth noting that the biggest jump in absence is between years 7 and 8. So, if you are responsible for behaviour or attendance it is worth considering what is happening with your disadvantaged, SEND and year 8 students

* The DfE has published its inclusion expectations. That issue is becoming more prominent as the government publishes its expectations for inclusion. Each school will have to publish an annual inclusion plan by December 31st this year. They will then be eligible for a share in £400 million of funding to support implementation. The expectations look very similar to the expectations around pupil premium funding, they include references to leadership, evidence based practice and high quality teaching. The more significant elements relate principally to expectations around enrichment, culture and home school relationships as well as the physical environment. What this means for leaders is that you will need to consider the needs of individual students and groups of students, ensure that the curriculum and culture of the school meets their needs in terms of content, delivery, opportunities and the engagement of families in the process. All this represents sound ambition but the challenges will arise in implementation, how will schools meet growing needs at a time of declining resources?

* AI can reduce stress. Perhaps the other theme we keep returning to is AI which does offer some helpful solutions. Betty Johnson shared that the main cause of stress is workload but less the number of hours taught and more the supporting activities; planning, reports, emails, resources, adaptation and documentation. She argues that AI can help here but that the real value is in learning how to prompt it to get the best impact possible. She offers her top 10 AI prompts covering everything from adapting lesson resources to summarising school policies (see below). Finally, she reminds us that AI should reduce workload but that teachers must still apply professional judgement. I recently asked an AI to give me a model answer for an exam question, it got it wrong. AI is helpful but not infallible, remember that you are the professional and what you share from AI will reflect on you, whether it is good or bad!

* Lesson planning: “Create 5 retrieval practice questions for a Year 8 history lesson on the Industrial Revolution. Include one stretch question.”

* Adaptation: “Create three versions of these maths questions: • support level • core level • stretch challenge.”

* Parent communication: “Write a supportive email to a parent explaining that their child needs additional support in reading comprehension.”

* Knowledge checks: “Create a 5-question multiple choice quiz for a Year 9 biology lesson on photosynthesis.”

* Report comments: “Write a report comment for a student who works hard but needs to improve organisation and written explanations.”

* Policy summaries: “Summarise this safeguarding policy into the 5 key responsibilities for classroom teachers.”

* Model answers: “Write a model GCSE English paragraph analysing Macbeth’s ambition.”

* Adapted reading texts: “Rewrite this text for a lower reading level suitable for Year 6.”

* Lesson activity ideas: “Suggest three engaging classroom activities for teaching fractions to Year 5.”

* Meeting summaries: “Summarise these meeting notes into key decisions and action points.”

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