Reading fluency should be central to improving white working-class outcomes

Reading fluency should be central to improving white working-class outcomes By FFT Education Paul Charman, managing director at FFT, has written for Schools Week on why reading fluency needs to be at the heart of efforts to improve outcomes for white working-class pupils. Responding to the Independent Inquiry into White Working-Class Educational Outcomes, Paul argues that one of the inquiry’s recommendations … Read More

FFT attendance analysis featured in TES

FFT attendance analysis featured in TES By FFT Education FFT Education Datalab’s analysis of pupil absence has been covered by TES. The analysis highlights that 2025/26 could be the first academic year since the pandemic in which there has been no meaningful reduction in absence. The analysis, written by Datalab statistician Katie Benyon, drew on data from around 10,000 schools using … Read More

How Meridian Trust uses Aspire Pupil Tracking to see progress across 39 schools

How Meridian Trust uses Aspire Pupil Tracking to see progress across 39 schools By FFT Education Meridian Trust is a multi-academy trust of 39 schools, spanning all-through, primary, secondary and special settings, all of which use FFT Aspire in some form. The trust has used FFT since Aspire launched, and relied on FFT dashboards before that. Here’s how it uses Aspire … Read More

Fischer Family Trust calls for reading fluency to be a national priority for white working-class pupils

Fischer Family Trust calls for reading fluency to be a national priority for white working-class pupils By FFT Education The publication of the Independent Inquiry into White Working-Class Educational Outcomes is a vital step in tackling one of the most persistent challenges in education policy – importantly though, it also points to a practical priority for action: reading fluency. At the … Read More

Pupil absence during the heatwave

Pupil absence during the heatwave By Natasha Plaister and Katie Beynon, FFT Education Datalab Unless you’ve been living in a (lovely, cool) cave, you’re unlikely to have missed the fact that there was a heatwave last week. Temperatures peaked at 37C and schools around the country closed their doors, with some reports suggesting as many as 1,200 schools were closed at the height of … Read More

The links between disadvantage and the achievement grade in school inspection

The links between disadvantage and the achievement grade in school inspection By Dave Thomson, FFT Education Datalab Ofsted introduced its new inspection framework in November last year. Since then, the relationship between the achievement grade and disadvantage has been subject to scrutiny. In response, Ofsted published some analysis showing the relationship between the achievement grade and the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. This showed that … Read More

Halving the disadvantage gap

Halving the disadvantage gap By Katie Beynon, FFT Education Datalab One of the big announcements in the schools White Paper released earlier this year was an ambition to halve the disadvantage gap at Key Stage 4. This would be achieved, it said, by grades increasing across the board, with bigger increases for disadvantaged than the non-disadvantaged pupils. And would happen by the … Read More

How Linton Heights Junior School closed the gap between reading and understanding

How Linton Heights Junior School closed the gap between reading and understanding By FFT Education Linton Heights Junior School had a group of children who could read fluently but weren’t showing the same skills in comprehension. Assessment data made the gap clear: pupils were reading the words without always making sense of them. The school turned to FFT Reciprocal Reading to … Read More

How Hartland International School is building strong reading across 114 nationalities

How Hartland International School is building strong reading across 114 nationalities By FFT Education Hartland International School is a British international school in Dubai’s Sobha Hartland community, with pupils from 114 nationalities and an eight-form entry in Key Stage 1. Many children are learning to read in English alongside a home language, which is why the school wanted a structured, evidence-based … Read More

Curriculum and Assessment Review and Government Response

Curriculum and Assessment Review and Government Response By FFT Education Last week’s publication of the Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR), led by Professor Becky Francis, and the Government’s accompanying response represents a significant step towards a curriculum that works for pupils of all backgrounds. Most importantly, we are pleased to see such a strong focus on early literacy – and in … Read More