The department continuously monitors the emerging implications of artificial intelligence (AI) on education, including the impact on pupil learning, independent thinking, and academic integrity. Our published policy position on generative AI is evidence-based and sets out clear expectations for schools and colleges on safe, responsible and ethical use.

The department is working closely with Ofqual and the wider sector to assess and understand the risks that generative AI presents to the integrity of qualifications and assessment, and to ensure appropriate safeguards and mitigations are in place.

The government is taking clear, evidence-based steps to ensure artificial intelligence (AI) tools are deployed safely. The EdTech Testbeds programme will test educational technologies, including AI and Assistive Technologies, in real education settings to evaluate their impact on workload, learner outcomes and inclusion. Alongside this, we have introduced Generative AI Product Safety Standards, which set out strict safeguards. These include child-centred design, enhanced filtering of harmful content and strong data protection and safeguarding requirements.

To support safe adoption, we have published materials created with the Chiltern Learning Trust and the Chartered College of Teaching, to help teachers and leaders use AI responsibly and effectively.

These measures, combined with strengthened digital and technology standards for all schools, ensure that AI can be introduced safely while delivering meaningful educational benefits.

Nothing is more important than the safety of children and staff. It has always been the case that where we are made aware of a building that may pose an immediate risk, the Department takes immediate action.

It is the responsibility of those who run schools – academy trusts, Local Authorities, and voluntary-aided school bodies – who work with their schools on a day-to-day basis, to manage the safety and maintenance of their schools and to alert us if there is a concern with a building.

The Department has acted decisively and proactively to tackle this issue. This Government has taken more proactive action on RAAC than any other in the UK. The Department issued comprehensive guidance in 2018, and subsequent years, to all responsible bodies highlighting the potential risks associated with RAAC and supporting them to identify this within their buildings, as well as to take appropriate steps in meeting their obligations to keep buildings safe. The most recent guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reinforced-autoclaved-aerated-concrete-estates-guidance.

There are over 22,000 schools and colleges in England, and the vast majority are unaffected. A significant proportion of the estate was built outside the period where RAAC was used, with around one third of the estate built since 2001, therefore, the Department has focused efforts on buildings built in the post-war decades.

The Department issued a questionnaire in March 2022, asking responsible bodies to inform the Department of any suspected RAAC identified in their estates. Responsible bodies have submitted questionnaires for over 98% of schools with blocks built in the target era, of which there are 14,900. We are pressing all remaining schools to get checks completed, to determine which schools require surveys.

The Department is contacting responsible bodies to help them respond to this request and to advise on what needs to be done, so that they can establish whether they believe they have RAAC. This work will continue until we have a response for all target era schools.

Schools and colleges where RAAC is suspected are being fast tracked for surveying, which is used to confirm whether RAAC is actually present. All schools and colleges that have already told us they suspect they might have RAAC will be surveyed within a matter of weeks, in many cases in a matter of days.

All schools where RAAC is confirmed are provided with a dedicated caseworker to support them and help implement a mitigation plan and minimise the disruption to children’s learning.

Across Government, Departments have been asked to report on the current picture of suspected and confirmed RAAC in their estates as soon as possible. This will be updated on a regular basis as new buildings are identified and surveying and remediation are carried out. The Department for Education published lists of education settings confirmed as having RAAC on Wednesday 6 September, and committed to providing further updates.

Schools will contact parents where RAAC is identified and inform them of any impacts on their child. The vast majority of schools are unaffected. Any parents that are unsure if their child’s school is affected should contact their school directly.

While some short term disruption is inevitable, all available measures will be taken to minimise disruption to pupil learning and ensure that pupils continue to receive face-to-face teaching. Where there is any disturbance to face-to-face education, schools will prioritise attendance for vulnerable children and young people and children of key workers. The guidance published by the Department in August also includes guidance on provision for pupils with SEND and sets out expectations that schools continue to provide free school meals to eligible pupils.

The Department will fund emergency mitigation work needed to make buildings safe, including installing alternative classroom space where necessary. Where schools and colleges need additional help with revenue costs, like transport to locations or temporarily renting a local hall or office, the department will provide that support for all reasonable requests. The Department will also fund longer term refurbishment projects, or rebuilding projects where these are needed, to rectify the RAAC issue in the long term.

All previously confirmed School Rebuilding Programme projects announced in 2021 and 2022 will continue to go ahead. A full list of confirmed projects can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-rebuilding-programme-schools-in-the-programme.

Further information on RAAC in education settings is available on the Education Hub: https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/09/06/new-guidance-on-raac-in-education-settings/.

The Government is clear that disabled students should be able to travel to school easily, confidently and without additional cost. The Department is taking steps to improve accessibility across public transport, particularly for buses and coaches, which will benefit families including those with disabled children, across the country.

In March, we laid the Accessible Information Regulations (AIR) in Parliament. Subject to Parliamentary approval, these new rules will require buses and coaches used on local services to provide audible and visible announcements. This will represent a significant step forward in the accessibility of these local services. While these new rules may not capture all home-to-school services, the Department also plans to undertake a Call for Evidence on the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations (PSVAR), the rules that transport providers must follow to make sure that vehicles are accessible, including many buses and coaches used for home-to-school services. This Call for Evidence is part of a wider review of the PSVAR and will allow disabled people and their families to tell the Department how well these regulations have worked, and what steps may need to be taken to improve accessibility for disabled passengers in the future.

These steps to make transport more accessible sit alongside existing local authority Special Educational and Disability (SEND) duties to provide free home-to-school transport for eligible students.

On 8 March 2023 the government announced funding to support PE and Sport during the school day and after school, encouraging all schools to provide sports equally for girls and boys. The department is working with the Department for Culture Media and Sport, the Youth Sport Trust, the Football Association, and other governing bodies to add equality criteria to the School Games Mark which would cover curricular and extracurricular sport provision. The department will identify schools that deliver equal provision of PE and Sport and will disseminate how they are making this practice available, to inform all schools on how they can achieve it.

The department is also funding the Your:Time programme, which trains teenage girls to be able to coach their peers and improve their participation in competitive sport, including football.

The department continues to deliver year on year increases to school funding, with the total core school budget increasing to £56.8 billion by the 2024/25 academic year. This is a £7 billion cash increase, compared with 2021/22.

In addition to the school’s core budget, the department confirmed that for the 2022/23 academic year, primary schools will continue to receive the £320 million PE and sport premium.

In October 2021, the department announced nearly £30 million a year to improve the teaching of physical education at primary school, and to open primary and secondary school sport facilities in the evenings, at weekends, and during the holidays.

To support the pupils who the department knows are most inactive, such as girls and pupils with special education needs and disabilities, we are investing nearly £2 million over a three-year period to deliver the Inclusion 2024 programme and the girls’ competitive sport Your Time initiative.

There is no place for racism in our education system and schools have an important role in preparing pupils for life in modern Britain, by supporting them to understand the society in which they grow up in and teaching about respect for other people and difference.

The department has no plans to place specific requirements on schools, but we expect them to take steps to tackle racist and discriminatory attitudes or incidents and condemn racism within the school and wider society. Challenging intolerant, racist or discriminatory views, where these are shared at school, should be seen as part of schools’ wider anti-bullying and safeguarding duties.

Further to this, relationships education is now compulsory in all schools and the relationships, sex and health education curriculum has a strong focus on equality, respect, the harmful impact of stereotyping, as well as the importance of valuing difference.

Under the Equality Act 2010, schools must not discriminate against a pupil in a number of respects because of a characteristic protected by the act. State-funded schools are also subject to the public sector equality duty. The department has published guidance for schools to help them comply with their duties, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/equality-act-2010-advice-for-schools.

The government is committed to reducing energy use in new and existing buildings, and to meeting the legislative net zero greenhouse gas emissions target by 2050.

The department’s capital funding and programmes help both to reduce carbon emissions and to save schools money on operating costs, through delivering new school buildings and improving the existing school estate.

The department recognises that schools will be facing cost pressures in the coming months, particularly due to the increase in energy prices. We are looking carefully at how this will impact schools and are considering what additional support we could offer.

The department has contacted all schools in England to get basic data on their current and future energy tariffs to better understand how they have been affected by recent energy price increases, so we can consider what additional support we can offer. The survey closed on 2 June 2022.

The department’s schools resource management tools include recommended deals for energy costs and ancillary services relating to energy. We will also update and strengthen guidance on a regular basis to inform schools of the market and commercial position, with practical advice on exiting existing and entering new contracts, available here: https://www.get-help-buying-for-schools.service.gov.uk/procurement-support. The ‘get help buying for schools’ service will also be able to offer support to schools in switching and entering new contracts and is available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/find-a-dfe-approved-framework-for-your-school.

The department knows that every school’s circumstances are different, and where schools are in serious financial difficulty, they should contact their local authority or the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

The department stands with Ukraine. We continue to work across government to ensure we are supporting all arrivals in the UK from Ukraine to give them the same access to education and childcare as a UK citizen.

The department believes that the best place for all children to be educated is in schools. Local authorities will work with families to enable all children to attend school in the local area as soon as possible, even if these places are not in the immediate vicinity of their accommodation. We understand the challenges of finding suitable school places for new arrivals and will work with local authorities, where necessary, to make this as smooth as possible.

The history curriculum gives teachers and schools the freedom to use specific examples to teach pupils about the history of Britain and the wider world.

Gypsy, Roma and Travellers’ history can already be taught as part of schools offering a broad and balanced curriculum. Resources are available from experts in the communities themselves and bodies such as the Historical Association.

In recognition of its importance, the Holocaust is the only historic event which is compulsory within the national curriculum for history at key stage 3. The curriculum gives teachers and schools the freedom to decide how to teach the subject and what resources to use to support an understanding of the Holocaust, and the experiences of non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution.

The department is providing over £1.1 million of funding, between 10 August 2021 and 31 March 2022, to five anti-bullying organisations, to support schools to tackle bullying. We are working with all five organisations to ensure any training and resources produced as part of these projects are in line with our requirements.

Our preventing and tackling bullying guidance sets out that schools should develop a consistent approach to monitoring bullying incidents and evaluating the effectiveness of their approaches.

Alongside guidance, the department’s Educate Against Hate website provides teachers, school leaders and parents with advice and trusted resources to safeguard young people from radicalisation, build resilience to all types of extremism and promote shared values. We have also published the Respectful School Communities: Self-review and Signposting Tool to support schools to develop a whole-school approach which promotes respect and discipline. This can help education settings combat bullying, harassment, and prejudice of any kind, including hate-based bullying.

School-aged children aged 12 years old and over are receiving COVID-19 vaccinations in schools through the School Age Immunisation Service (SAIS) and in community settings. To accelerate COVID-19 vaccinations in schools, the National Health Service has been working to increase the scale and pace of delivery, as well as targeting communications to parents, young people and the public to improve uptake and increase overall confidence in the programme.

On 13 December 2021, NHS England and NHS Improvement wrote to local health systems on offering a second dose to 12 to 15 year olds. This set out preparations for the winter break offer in out of school settings and the spring term offer for readiness from 10 January 2022 in school settings. The letter set out steps to ensure that SAIS providers and NHS systems have sufficient capacity to vaccinate children in school; there are settings outside of school where children can receive their vaccinations if necessary; there are appropriate vaccination opportunities to cater for different vaccination timelines; and the vaccination workforce has received appropriate training. A copy of the letter is attached.

As of 31 January 2022, at-risk children under 12 years old who are prioritised for COVID-19 vaccination are being offered the vaccine in out of school settings.

To ensure that young people consider technical options alongside the academic pathway, the government introduced a provider access law in January 2018. This requires all maintained schools and academies to publish a policy statement setting out opportunities for providers of technical education, including apprenticeships, to access year 8-13 pupils, and to make sure that the statement is followed. Through the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, we are aiming to strengthen the law and create a clear minimum legal requirement for provider encounters.

The government’s careers statutory guidance sets out that all schools and colleges should use the internationally recognised Gatsby Benchmarks to help meet their legal duties and improve their careers provision. In addition to encounters with further and higher education, the Gatsby Benchmarks define other elements of an excellent careers programme, including encounters with employers, experiences of workplaces and personal guidance.

To support this, we are investing £29.6 million to help schools and colleges to improve their careers programmes for young people. This includes £28 million for The Careers and Enterprise Company to deliver support to schools and colleges to implement the Gatsby Benchmarks, including Careers Hubs and Careers Leader training. Young people aged 13 to 18 are able to access ongoing in-depth information, advice and guidance from the National Careers Service via local telephone-based advisers or the National Careers Service website.

Increasing exposure to technical options is vital so that young people can make fully informed choices about their future. New analysis found that uptake of apprenticeships was 16% higher in the schools that provided information on apprenticeships to most or all of their students compared with the schools that provided information to a small minority.

The department will consider the Education Policy Institute methodology discussion paper in due course.

School performance tables are designed specifically to generate meaningful data from which the public and relevant parties can hold schools and colleges to account. The department keeps all its school performance measures under review and welcomes feedback on how we can refine and improve our suite of measures and the way they are used.

Governing boards are expected to carefully consider the level and characteristics of pupils who are leaving the school. They should also deploy maximum challenge to the school and academy trust management teams on any permanent exclusions to ensure it is only used, when necessary, as a last resort. This also includes looking at suspensions, pupils taken off roll and those directed to be educated off site in alternative provision and whether there are any patterns to the reasons or timing of such moves.

The government is clear that off-rolling (the practice of removing a pupil from the school roll without using a permanent exclusion, when the removal is primarily in the best interests of the school, rather than the best interests of the pupil) is unlawful and unacceptable in any form and we continue to work with Ofsted to tackle it. Ofsted already considers records of children taken off roll and their characteristics and strengthened the focus on this in the revised framework in September 2019. Where inspectors find off-rolling, this will always be addressed in the inspection report and, where appropriate, could lead to a school’s leadership being judged inadequate.

The government has recognised British Sign Language (BSL) as a language since 2003. Teaching BSL is not a compulsory part of the national curriculum nor the early years foundation stage learning and development requirements. However, schools and nurseries are free to offer BSL and accredited BSL qualifications as part of their wider curriculum, or as a varied programme of extra-curricular activities, to meet the needs of their pupils and children if they wish. There are currently no plans to add BSL to mainstream curriculum classes for nursery, primary school or secondary school.

The department is aiming to introduce a GCSE in BSL as soon as possible, provided it meets the rigorous requirements that apply to all GCSEs. The department is working closely with subject experts and Ofqual to develop draft subject content and will aim to consult publicly later this year. The department is also engaging with Ofqual to ensure the subject content can be assessed appropriately and will be working with relevant parties to ensure that a wide range of views are reflected.

The existing definition of full-time education does not capture providers which offer only a narrow curriculum even if this teaching takes place throughout all, or most, of the school day.

In 2020, the department’s consultation on regulating independent educational institutions contained a number of related proposals for legislation which would affect independent schools and also some education providers which are neither state-funded nor currently registered with the department as independent schools, although they are attended full-time by children of compulsory school age. This includes some religious education and several other providers.

The consultation included proposals to consider how to expand on the categories of full-time institutions that will be regulated in the same way that independent schools are currently regulated, and to change the definition of independent schools in primary legislation to incorporate such institutions. Taking forward the proposals would bring a range of currently unregistered institutions under the independent education regulatory regime and help ensure requirements are consistent for all providers that children of compulsory school age attend full-time during the school day, which prevents them securing an education elsewhere.

The government remains committed to changing the law on the registration of independent educational providers.

Publication of the response to the consultation on regulating independent educational institutions is expected in early 2022.

The department has provided CO2 monitors to state-funded nurseries, schools and further education colleges, backed by £25 million in government funding. Over 99% of eligible maintained schools, further education colleges, and the majority of nurseries have now received a CO2 monitor with over 300,000 now delivered. Final deliveries will be made before the end of term. Feedback suggests that the monitors are acting as a helpful tool to manage ventilation, sitting alongside the other protective measures in place to manage transmission, such as regular testing, vaccinations and increased hygiene.

While CO₂ measurements are a useful proxy for ventilation, they do not give direct information about infection risk. For these reasons, the values given in guidance should not be seen as absolute safe versus unsafe thresholds, but as a broad guide to the quality of ventilation in a space. This approach is recommended by both the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in their guidance. As stated in our guidance, it is the responsibility of schools, colleges and nurseries to decide on the use of poorly ventilated rooms in accordance with their own risk assessment procedures and obligations under health and safety law. 1,500 parts per million (ppm) is well below the workplace exposure limit set by HSE, set at 5,000ppm (averaged over the course of 8 hours).

If used properly, air cleaning units can help reduce airborne contaminants in a poorly ventilated space while remedial work is undertaken to permanently improve ventilation. It is important to note that air cleaning units cannot improve ventilation, and they should never be used as a reason to reduce ventilation or not to remediate poor ventilation in a space.

The department is providing additional, exceptional funding for air cleaning units for poorly ventilated spaces in special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) providers, including SEND units in mainstream schools, where quick fixes to improve ventilation are not possible. These institutions are being prioritised given the higher-than-average number of vulnerable pupils in attendance. The purchase of 1,000 air cleaning units reflects our assessment of need in the sector based on recent feedback from SEND and AP providers.

Institutions which are not eligible for a department funded unit have access to an online ‘marketplace’, which provides a route to purchasing air cleaning units of a suitable specification and competitive price. We expect that in most classrooms existing ventilation will be sufficient.

Maintaining adequate ventilation ultimately remains the responsibility of individual schools, colleges and nurseries. It is for institutions to decide on the use of affected rooms in accordance with their risk assessment procedures and obligations under health and safety law.

The case for additional support for institutions to maintain good ventilation will be kept under review as the programme continues and schools, colleges and nurseries use the monitors to further assess their ventilation needs.

We want all schools in the country to have access to fast internet. We are committed to continued investment, ensuring that every school has access to modern internet connectivity in the classroom, benefiting thousands more children and teachers.

Most schools in the UK are in urban or suburban areas which already have access to fast full fibre broadband, so this government investment is focused on mostly rural or hard-to-reach areas, to ensure they don’t miss out on next-generation speeds.

Recognising the importance of broadband infrastructure in education, we are working with industry and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to accelerate the full-fibre internet connectivity rollout to all schools in England. Children in more than 1,000 schools are now enjoying next generation internet speeds thanks to government investment, with around a further 2,000 to be connected by 2025. Further information on this rollout can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/200-million-rollout-of-full-fibre-broadband-begins.

The government remains committed to investing £5 billion to bring gigabit coverage to the hardest to reach areas and will continue to work with suppliers to accelerate this investment. This takes into account industry capacity to bid for, and deliver, contracts to build in uncommercial areas alongside their commercial plans. GigaHubs is one of the programmes DCMS is using to deliver the government ambition of gigabit capabilities across the UK by 2030. As part of Project Gigabit, GigaHubs will use up to £110 million to connect public buildings such as rural schools, doctors’ surgeries, and libraries to gigabit broadband. This will help GPs provide remote video consultations and allow whole classes of school children to be online, at once, with no interruptions.

Ensuring good connectivity to the building is just the first step. The actual internet speed experienced is also affected by the technology and Wi-Fi arrangements in place within institutions. We have published a suite of resources to help steer schools, colleges and other providers through the key questions and issues to consider when implementing technology infrastructure, including broadband and local infrastructure issues. To ensure investment made in fast broadband carries through into a high-quality experience in the classroom, we have also set up the ‘connect the classroom’ pilot programme, which is investing up to £30 million to upgrade Wi-Fi for over 1,000 schools.

Letting fresh air into indoor spaces can help remove air that contains virus particles and prevent the spread of COVID-19. Good ventilation has also been associated with a range of benefits, including improved health, better concentration and lower rates of absence from schools and work. Measuring CO2 levels in indoor spaces is an effective way of identifying poor ventilation in multi-occupant spaces, such as classrooms.

The department has started to provide CO2 monitors to state-funded education settings, including early years, schools and further education providers, backed by £25 million in government funding. We expect that, in most cases, the monitors will confirm that existing ventilation is sufficient.

Where any issues are identified, in most cases we expect this to be resolved by opening windows and doors, or in some cases minor estate repairs may be needed. Day to day maintenance and minor repairs, including those to improve ventilation, should typically be funded from school revenue budgets. Schools also receive an annual Devolved Formula Capital Allocation to spend on small capital projects or capital purchases. For more substantial capital works, schools and those responsible for school buildings have access to funding to improve the condition of buildings through different routes depending on their size and type.

The case for additional support for settings to maintain good ventilation will be kept under review as the programme continues and schools and other settings use the monitors to further assess their ventilation needs.

It is important that teaching is an inclusive profession. Schools, and their leadership teams, should reflect their communities and their pupils.

Whilst the department knows that, in certain areas, the teaching profession is becoming more diverse, there is further to go to both attract and retain diverse, talented teachers and to support them as they enter the profession and develop their career and leadership journeys.

The ‘Teaching – Every Lesson Shapes A Life’ recruitment campaign is targeted at audiences of students and recent graduates and potential career changers, regardless of background, and we take every effort to ensure that our advertising is fully reflective of this across the full range of marketing materials we use.

In October, Apply for Teacher Training, the department’s new application service for initial teacher training (ITT) in England, was rolled out nationally. Apply has been designed to be as user-friendly as possible and has been extensively tested with a diverse range of potential applicants, to ensure it helps remove barriers to teachers applying for ITT courses. Apply will also allow us to collect more data and insight into candidate behaviour and the behaviour of providers of teacher training. This will mean we have a greater idea of where barriers may occur and allow us to develop and deliver policy interventions where they are most needed.

Alongside a focus on recruitment, it is important we retain people from diverse backgrounds. This will be supported by our work to ensure that all new entrants to teacher training have the best possible start to the early stage of their career.

The department has also developed programmes to support the school workforce, including the Early Career Framework reforms for those at the beginning of their careers and National Professional Qualifications, which are now freely available to all teachers in state-funded schools and 16-19 organisations.

The department understands that creating a culture of flexible working can promote equality of opportunity and diversity in the teaching workforce. We have taken action to expand and promote flexible working practices in schools, including through publishing a suite of supportive resources including guidance and case studies: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/flexible-working-resources-for-teachers-and-schools. We have also appointed eight flexible working ambassador schools to champion flexible working culture and share best practice at a local level: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/flexible-working-ambassador-schools. Alongside this, we are offering free training for head teachers in how to implement effective flexible working arrangements, and how to develop strategic approaches to flexible working.

Mental health and wellbeing are a priority for the government. Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, we have prioritised keeping schools open above all else because they are vital for young people’s wellbeing, as well as their education.

We are investing £3 billion to boost learning, including £950 million in additional funding for schools which they can use to support pupils’ mental health and wellbeing.

In May, as part of Mental Health Awareness Week, we announced more than £17 million of mental health funding to improve mental health and wellbeing support in schools and colleges. This includes £7 million additional funding for local authorities to deliver the Wellbeing for Education Recovery programme. This builds on our £8 million Wellbeing for Education Return programme in 2020/21, which provided free expert training, support and resources for staff dealing with children and young people experiencing additional pressures from the last year. Wellbeing for Education Return has been used by more than 90% of councils since its launch last summer: https://www.minded.org.uk/Catalogue/Index?HierarchyId=0_48943_49165&programmeId=48943.

Up to 7,800 schools and colleges in England will be offered funding worth £9.5 million to train a senior mental health lead from their staff in the next academic year, which is part of the government’s commitment to offering this training to all state schools and colleges by 2025.

Training will provide senior leads with the knowledge and skills to develop or introduce a whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing in their setting. It will encourage staff to develop their own understanding of issues affecting their pupils, giving young people a voice in how their school or college addresses wellbeing and working with parents and monitoring pupils where appropriate.

This support for practice in schools is in addition to the £79 million boost to children and young people’s mental health support we announced in March, which will include increasing the number of Mental Health Support Teams. The support teams - which provide early intervention on mental health and emotional wellbeing issues in schools and colleges - will grow from the 59 set up by last March to around 400 by April 2023, supporting nearly 3 million children.

The department has brought together all its sources of advice for schools and colleges into a single site, which includes signposting to external sources of mental health and wellbeing support: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mental-health-and-wellbeing-support-in-schools-and-colleges#mental-health-and-wellbeing-resources.

In May, we published the first ever Education Staff Wellbeing Charter: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter. The charter sets out the actions that government and other organisations, including Ofsted, will take to improve wellbeing of staff in schools and colleges.

Since June 2020, we have funded peer-support and one-to-one telephone supervision from experts, which has supported over 300 school leaders. This June, we launched an invitation to tender seeking a contractor to provide peer support and one-to-one counselling to least 2,000 school leaders, starting in the autumn 2021.

We know flexible working opportunities can promote staff wellbeing and have appointed the training provider ‘Timewise’ to train school leaders to implement flexible working practices in schools.