Pupils feel less happy at school and are less likely to find what they learn interesting than three years ago, while staff are more likely to report bullying or physical violence.
Edurio’s ‘high-quality and inclusive education 2024’ report, published today, also found that just 32 per cent of students polled were likely to recommend their school to others.
Dame Alison Peacock, chief executive of the Chartered College of Teaching, said: “The decline in respect and trust that the profession is experiencing, alongside the increase in pupil violence reported here, is particularly worrying.
“It has been associated with decreasing mental health and wellbeing among our teachers and leaders and growing teacher shortages in our country and beyond – teacher shortages that we simply cannot afford if we are to thrive as a society.”
The report is based on data from three surveys of staff, pupils and parents, with more than 245,000 respondents in total.
Students less happy
Just 47 per cent of 102,782 students said they felt very or quite happy at school.
This is the first time in the survey’s history that the proportion of happy pupils has dropped below 50 per cent, Edurio said.
About one in one pupils (19 per cent) reported feeling not very or not at all happy.
Drop in pupils finding lessons interesting
Just 28 per cent of 76,534 students said they always or quite often found what they learned at school interesting, while 35 per cent rarely never enjoyed them.
This was down three per cent on last year and 14 per cent since 2020-21, when 42,807 responded to the question.
Nearly one in four staff experience some form of violence
Just 68 per cent of school staff surveyed in 2023-24 felt respected by students, down from 76 per cent in 2021. Edurio called this a “worrying trend” .
Incidents of emotional and physical violence against staff have also risen for the third year in a row, with nearly one in four experiencing some form of violence, the firm reports.
But more than half of staff reported feeling well-supported in lesson preparation, which is above pre-pandemic levels, it said.
And support for marking and assessment has improved over the past three years, with 44 per cent of indicating positive experiences in 2023-2024, Edurio found.
