Three things worth knowing this week:

* We have less children. This NFER briefing puts numbers, consequences and strategies on the issue of the falling number of student entering schools. Primary schools have already felt the consequences of the decline and it is beginning to impact secondary schools too. What middle leaders need to know is that for every student who does not come through your doors there will be at least £6000 less income for your school. That can mean less resources, less staff and even, in some places, less schools. So if you are wondering why your senior team are putting a big emphasis on recruiting students, increasing class sizes, reducing the number of subjects offered or sharing resources with other schools this is probably, at least part of the reason why. What can you do as a leader? Think about the consequences for your teams e.g. can you set more self marking tasks so larger class sizes do not lead to increased workload?

* Ofsted Framework part 2: Maybe the most important point about Matt Bromley’s second Ofsted summary, curriculum and teaching, is that there is relatively little change here. If you are used to the idea of a curriculum which is; designed to meet the needs of different groups of students, based on research, effectively delivered and setting students up for success in the subject and life, then you need to keep on doing what you have been doing. What you might want to consider is the ‘assess, plan, do, review’ cycle as a way of enabling continuous improvement. Leaders and teachers alike should be able to talk about how the curriculum works to ensure that each student is making progress from their starting points. This is a great way to constantly review the quality of your planning and delivery as well as the progress of each student in order to create a genuinely inclusive curriculum.

* Attendance is marginally improving - according to DfE data but the rate of persistent absence has risen from 10% to 18% since before the pandemic. According to EEF, telling parents the number of days their children missed is more effective than telling them the percentage attended. Sending text messages at key moments like starts or ends of terms saying, ‘Sandra missed 5 days’ rather than ‘Sandra attended 90% of the time’ led to a small improvement in attendance. This is an interesting finding because it brings together the two key issues of attendance and inclusion. A warmer, more personal and relatable message might be a significant factor in improving home school relationships and the attitude of parents and students to school. An idea worth considering if you have responsibility for attendance or even if you are just making phone calls for your form group.

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