New article: Experimental education research: rethinking why, how, and when to use random assignment Out today (even though it’s Saturday): doi.org/10.1080/1380... With @drsamsims.bsky.social @mjinglis.bsky.social @benweidmann.bsky.social @benstyles.bsky.social & Hugues Lortie-Forgues

FFT Attendance Tracker is now updated with the latest school and national weekly attendance data up to Friday 26 June 2026. View your school's attendance: 🔍👇 https://signin.fft.org.uk/Account/Login #attendancematters #education

NEW: Pupil absence during the heatwave We look at look much school pupils missed during last week's heatwave, and how much of it was due to school closures. vist.ly/59jd9

FFT Regional Attendance Tracker is updated with the latest national & regional attendance. 📊 View the latest data here 👇 vist.ly/59fdq #attendance #attendancematters #education

FFT Attendance Tracker is now updated with the latest school and national weekly attendance data up to Friday 19 June 2026. View your school's attendance. 🔍 👇 vist.ly/58vqd #attendancematters #education

NEW: The links between disadvantage and the achievement grade in school inspection Recent Ofsted analysis showed that achievement grades in inspection were related to the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. We dig into this a bit more in our latest post. vist.ly/58zbp

NEW: Halving the disadvantage gap Quantifying the level of challenge in the Government's twin ambitions of raising Key Stage 4 attainment overall and halving the disadvantage gap. vist.ly/58uug

NEW: Key Stage 2 attainment, lifetime absence and context We look at the relationship between KS2 attainment and absence over (almost) the whole of primary school but also show the importance of considering context when interpreting attainment data alongside absence data. 🔗 vist.ly/57wa5

Our latest newsletter is now out! Get the latest on the impact of exclusions, SEND magnets, MATs and more. 📖 Read it here: vist.ly/57874 ✏️ Sign up to receive future editions here: vist.ly/57876

NEW: Primary school teachers matter for learning, but may have little impact on attendance - with John Jerrim Findings from @nuffieldfoundation.org funded research show strong teacher effects on grades in maths and reading at primary, but not attendance. ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2026/06/prim...

The latest edition of our half-termly newsletter will come out next week! 🔗 Sign up now to receive your copy ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/newsletter/

WEBINAR: Using distance as an Instrumental Variable in LEO to analyse post-16 transitions of disadvantaged young people - with Prof Peter Urwin 📅 10:00-13:00 Wed 24th June 2026 🌏 Face-to-face event, 35 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5LS. Register here: vist.ly/54v8v

NEW: Intersectionality and modern foreign languages at Key Stage 5 We look at the number of students studying modern foreign languages at A-Level by gender, ethnicity and disadvantage. vist.ly/55r4g

🚨🚨🚨New journal article just published! Focuses on the strong differences in educational outcomes for children in care between local authority areas and how this relates to how many schools resist the admission of children in care... www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

WEBINAR: Using distance as an Instrumental Variable in LEO to analyse post-16 transitions of disadvantaged young people - with Prof Peter Urwin 📅 10:00-13:00 Wednesday, 24th June 2026 🌏 Face-to-face event, 35 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5LS. Register here: vist.ly/54v8v

🎓📊 New update to the Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) dataset! Iteration 2.1 extends labour market data to 2023–24 and introduces derived variables for free school meals & special educational needs. Learn more from our ADR-UK blog by Claire Crawford: www.adruk.org/news-publica...

NEW: When is it too late? What exclusions tell us about classroom disruption - with Veruska Oppedisiano A summary of some new research examining how the timing of excluding disruptive pupils affects the outcomes of peers at the same school. vist.ly/54nx4

FFT Attendance Tracker is now updated with the latest school and national weekly attendance data up to Friday 8 May 2026. View your school's attendance. 🔍 👇 vist.ly/53vz8 #attendancematters #education

Iteration 2.1 of the LEO dataset (which brings together education and employment/earnings data in England) is now available and earnings and benefits data are now available up until 2023/24 (up to age 37 for the oldest cohort). Find out more and get access details here: www.gov.uk/government/p...

FFT Regional Attendance Tracker is updated with the latest national & regional attendance. 📊 View the latest data here 👇 vist.ly/53rxs #attendance #attendancematters #education

Two types of free school meal eligibility from now on: Targeted and Expanded

📣 UPDATE: Schools Like Yours has now been updated with the latest KS2/KS4, attendance and Ofsted data. Our free Schools Like Yours tool is designed to help you benchmark your school against a group of similar schools, where you get to choose how similar is defined. vist.ly/4i9mj

NEW: What genetics can (and can’t) tell us about educational inequality - with John Jerrim Recent research allows us to ask new questions about how children differ in their educational development and what this does – and does not - mean for schools. vist.ly/536y7

FFT Attendance Tracker is now updated with the latest school and national weekly attendance data up to Friday 1 May 2026. View your school's attendance. 🔍 👇 vist.ly/5336y #attendancematters #education

NEW: The state of play for MATs in 2026 According to the schools white paper, all schools will eventually be part of a trust. We look at the current situation. vist.ly/423gs

FFT Regional Attendance Tracker is updated with the latest national & regional attendance. 📊 View the latest data here 👇 vist.ly/4zxii #attendance #attendancematters #education

The Unlocking Reading online portal is now open! 🔓 Free, on-demand CPD for secondary teachers, TAs and leaders — 10 modules to help your whole team support struggling readers. Start here 👉 vist.ly/4zdkf #FFT #DfE #UnlockingReading #CPD

My inaugural lecture is now publicly available online if you are interested in my research into how we can improve the life chances of disadvantaged young people (including a little about my own social mobility journey) @cepeo-ucl.bsky.social @sriucl.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBbC...

Cleaning some #ofsted data for a publication. The new report cards are tougher than TES reported in January, when they stated: > 1 in 7 schools in first wave gets ‘exceptional’ grade [14.2%] ... no school has given the lowest grade of ‘urgent improvement’

New @fftedudatalab.bsky.social research has identified 73 SEND magnet schools where the level of pupils with EHCPs is markedly higher than would be expected given the rates in their local area. It has also found they tend to achieve negative Progress 8 scores. www.tes.com/magazine/new...

NEW: The transition from primary to secondary for pupils with special educational needs (SEN) We look at how identification of SEN changes from Year 6 to Year 7, and the types of school that pupils move into. vist.ly/4zb23

NEW: Using administrative data to study initial post-16 destinations Some thoughts about the advantages and disadvantages of using administrative data from the National Pupil Database to calculate rates of young people not in education, employment and training (NEET). vist.ly/4z7hq

The most read article of the week was ‘Outcomes for pupils with low reading attainment at Key Stage 2' by @fftedudatalab.bsky.social 📚

Interested in using administrative data for youth transitions research? We'll be helping to run these free webinars this month, and there's still time to sign up. Register here: www.adruk.org/news-publica...

📢📢 interested in doing research on youth transitions using adminstrative data? 📢📢 join our very own @jakeanders.uk who will be giving a practical introduction to exactly that next tuesday (14/04) online sign up for the webinar here: zoom.us/webinar/regi... @adruk.bsky.social community catalyst

The point about high-achieving disadvantaged children being more likely to live at home during university is really important to consider when thinking about course/campus closures and regional "cold spots" for specific subjects.

Lots of really interesting data in this, including long term impacts of the gifted and talent programme (which gave larger benefits to those from better-off backgrounds)

NEW: 10 key findings about the outcomes of initially high-achieving children from disadvantaged backgrounds - with John Jerrim and Maria Palma Carvajal This post brings together some of the “greatest hits” from across this research project. ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2026/04/10-k...

FFT Attendance Tracker is now updated with the latest school and national weekly attendance data up to Friday 27 March 2026. View your school's attendance. 🔍 👇 vist.ly/4wkvv #attendancematters #education

FFT Attendance Tracker is now updated with the latest school and national weekly attendance data up to Friday 20 March 2026. View your school's attendance. 🔍 👇 vist.ly/4vwjq #attendancematters #education

NEW: How will qualification entry patterns change as a result of changes to Attainment 8? Expect an increase in entries in creative subjects and fewer entries in geography, history and triple science. vist.ly/4w343

NEW: Exclusions and suspensions in Autumn 2025/26 Early signs for 2025/26 suggest that suspensions are continuing to fall from their 2023/24 peak vist.ly/4vwi8

Early days for the new framework, but based on the outcomes for the first 50 or so secondary schools to be inspected, those with lower-attaining intakes are disproportionately more likely to be deemed as needing attention for achievement

NEW: Outcomes for pupils with low reading attainment at Key Stage 2 Low attainment in Key Stage 2 reading tests does not necessarily lead to poor outcomes at secondary school, but it does increase the chances of poor outcomes. vist.ly/4vezi

FFT Regional Attendance Tracker is updated with the latest national & regional attendance. 📊 View the latest data here 👇 vist.ly/4u2wu #attendance #attendancematters #education

NEW: The education and labour market outcomes of England’s gifted and talented children This post outlines the findings from a new paper looking at England's former Gifted and Talented programme. Who was identified as gifted and talented, and what difference did it make? vist.ly/4us7j

🚨 Last chance to enter our #FFTReadAnywhere World Book Day Challenge! 📚 Share a photo of where reading happens beyond the classroom for a chance to win a £50 book token! Entries close 13 March. All the information you need to enter is below 👇 T&Cs: vist.ly/4uf5u

NEW: Understanding unauthorised absence We look at patterns in unauthorised absence, including the numbers of students missing school for unauthorised reasons very frequently, and the contribution such pupils make to headline absence figures. vist.ly/4uh86

NEW: “Fair banding” schools In collaboration with TES magazine last year, we analysed the characteristics of pupils in schools which used banding tests in their admissions processes. Here we set out our full methodology and findings. vist.ly/4tnuw

NEW: Are DfE right to ditch confidence intervals? DfE are proposing a change to the way they calculate bandings that summarise schools' progress scores. We look at the pros and cons of doing so. vist.ly/4ssyj