Tag: reading

  • WEEKEND READING: Three reasons why the TEF will collapse under the weight of OfS  and DfE expectations

    WEEKEND READING: Three reasons why the TEF will collapse under the weight of OfS  and DfE expectations

    Author:
    Professor Paul Ashwin

    Published:

    This blog was kindly authored by Paul Ashwin, Professor of Higher Education, Lancaster University.

    The Office for Students (OfS) and the Department of Education (DfE) have big plans to make the TEF much more consequential. They want future TEF outcomes to determine whether institutions can increase their intake of students and their undergraduate tuition fees in line with inflation, which could mean the difference between survival or merger/closure for many institutions. These plans require that the OfS to show that the TEF provides a credible measure of institutional educational quality, whilst also fulfilling the OfS’s central remit of acting in the interest of students. The OfS consultation on the future approach to quality regulation provides an opportunity to assess the OfS’s latest attempt at such a justification. To say it looks weak is a huge understatement. Rather, unless there is a radical rethink, these proposals will lead to the collapse of the TEF.

    There are three reasons why this collapse would be inevitable.

    Firstly, the TEF provides a broad, if flawed, measure of institutional educational quality. This was fine when the main consequence of a TEF award was the presence or absence of a marketing opportunity for institutions. However, if the TEF has existential consequences for institutions, then a whole series of limitations are suddenly cast in a deeply unflattering spotlight. The most obvious of these is that the TEF uses programme level metrics to make judgements about institutional quality. It is both conceptual and methodological nonsense to attempt to scale-up judgements of quality from the programme to the institutional level in this way, as has been routinely stated in every serious review of the National Student Survey. This didn’t matter too much when the TEF was lacking in teeth, but if it has profound consequences, then why wouldn’t institutions consider legal challenges to this obvious misuse of metrics? This situation is only exacerbated by the OfS’s desire to extend the TEF to all institutions regardless of size. The starkest consequence of this foolhardy venture is that a small provider with insufficient student experience and outcomes data could end up being awarded TEF Gold (and the ability to increase student recruitment and tuition fees in line with inflation) on the basis of a positive student focus group and an institutional statement. How might larger institutions awarded a Bronze TEF react to such obvious unfairness? That the OfS has put itself in this position shows how little it understands the consequences of what it is proposing.

    Second, in relation to the OfS acting in the student interest, things look even worse. As the TEF attempts to judge quality at an institutional level, it does not give any indication of the quality of the particular programme a student will directly experience. As the quality of degree programmes varies across all institutions, students on, for example, a very high quality psychology degree in an institution with TEF Bronze would pay lower tuition fees than students on a demonstrably much lower quality psychology degree in an institution that is awarded TEF Gold. How can this possibly be in the student interest? Things get even worse when we consider the consequences of TEF awards being based on data that will be between four and ten years out of date by the time students graduate. For example, let’s imagine a student who was charged higher tuition fees based on a TEF Gold award, whose institution gets downgraded to a TEF Bronze in the next TEF. Given this lower award would be based on data from the time the student was actually studying at the institution, how, in the name of the student interest, would students not be eligible for a refund for the inflation-linked element of their tuition fee?

    Thirdly, the more consequential that the TEF becomes, the more pressure is put on it as a method of quality assessment. This would have predictable and damaging effects. If TEF panels know that being awarded TEF Bronze could present an existential threat to institutions, then they are likely to be incredibly reluctant to make such an award. It is not clear how the OfS could prevent this without inappropriately and illegitimately intervening in the work of the expert panels.  Also, in the current state of financial crisis, institutional leaders are likely to feel forced to game the TEF. This would make the TEF even less of an effective measure of educational quality and much more of a measure of how effectively institutions can play the system. It is totally predictable that institutions with the greatest resources will be in by far the best position to finance the playing of such games.

    The OfS and DfE seem determined to push ahead with this madness, a madness which incidentally goes completely against the widely lauded recommendations of the TEF Independent Review. Their response to the kinds of issues discussed here appears to be to deny any responsibility by asking, “What’s the alternative?” But there are much more obvious options than using a broad brush mechanism of institutional quality to determine whether an institution can recruit more students and raise its undergraduate tuition fees in line with inflation. For example, it would make more sense and be more transparent to all stakeholders, if these decisions were based on ‘being in good standing’ with the regulator based on a public set of required standards. This would also allow the OfS to take much swifter action against problematic providers than using a TEF-based assessment process. However things develop from here, one thing is certain: if the OfS and DfE cannot find a different way forward, then the TEF will soon collapse under the weight of expectations it cannot possibly meet.

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  • WEEKEND READING The art of reimagining universities: a vision for higher education

    WEEKEND READING The art of reimagining universities: a vision for higher education

    Join HEPI for a webinar on Thursday 11 December 2025 from 10am to 11am to discuss how universities can strengthen the student voice in governance to mark the launch of our upcoming report, Rethinking the Student Voice. Sign up now to hear our speakers explore the key questions.

    This blog was kindly authored by Professor Rathna Ramanathan, Provost, Central Saint Martins; Executive Dean for Global Affairs and Professor of Design and Intercultural Communication, University of the Arts London.

    The structure of our universities is stuck in the past. The recent post-16 education and skills white paper praises our universities as globally excellent institutions but calls for a reorientation towards national priorities and greater efficiency. As academics and creatives functioning as outsiders, we can use this position productively to define future pathways.

    We’re living through multiple crises at once – climate emergency, polarization, AI disruption – yet most universities still organize themselves around departments created decades ago. Institutions talk endlessly about ‘interdisciplinary collaboration’ and ‘preparing students for the future’, yet their actual structures often make both nearly impossible.

    At Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, we have tried something different. We have redesigned the College by rethinking what an art and design college should focus on and how it can work, guided by shared principles that emerged from asking: ‘What does it look like when we work together at our best?’

    The real question

    We ask students to be creative, adaptive, bold. To embrace complexity and imagine different futures. What could our universities achieve if we reorganised ourselves with the same creativity we demand from students?

    The institutions that thrive in the coming decades won’t be those defending traditions most fiercely. They will be those with the courage to redesign themselves for the world emerging, not the one they were built for. That’s uncomfortable. Structural change is difficult and uncertain. Letting go of familiar categories and hierarchies requires trust. Building new collaborative cultures alongside new organisational structures demands sustained effort. This discomfort might be precisely the point. If universities can’t model the adaptive, experimental, principles-led thinking we claim to teach, why should anyone trust us to prepare the next generation for an uncertain future? More bluntly, if we don’t practice what we teach, do we deserve to thrive?

    The problem: structure shapes everything

    For over a century, universities have organised themselves into disciplinary silos. This made sense when knowledge was more stable, and career paths were more predictable. But today’s urgent challenges  don’t heed disciplinary boundaries and require insights from science, policy, economics, ethics, design, and creative practice simultaneously.

    Most universities recognise this. They create joint programmes and support cross-department initiatives. Yet the fundamental architecture remains unchanged: separate budgets, isolated governance structures, academic staff working within disciplinary lanes. It’s like trying to renovate a house by rearranging the furniture while leaving the walls intact.

    For students, this disconnect is glaring. They see interconnected problems everywhere, yet are asked to choose a single discipline and stay within it. They want to learn how to think, not just master a predetermined skill set. Traditional university structures also inadvertently reinforce whose knowledge counts and whose doesn’t, often privileging Western over non-Western perspectives, theory over practice, and individual achievement over collective wisdom. In an era demanding intercultural, community-centred, and future-focused approaches, these inherited biases have become institutional liabilities.

    The experiment: principles before structure

    Central Saint Martins’ transformation began with a fundamental question: ‘What does it look like when we work together at our best?’ From this inquiry emerged five core principles that now guide decision-making at College level: address shared conditions that transcend disciplines; seek common ground through equitable collaboration; treat the whole life of the College as creative material; bring practice to every space; and deepen connections with communities beyond our walls. These aren’t aspirational statements. They’re operational principles that inform the creation of a new structure: ‘Schools of Thought’.

    Three schools of thought: foundations, not hierarchies

    Most university ‘schools’ function as management layers above departments with administrative structures for top-down control. At Central Saint Martins, we are inverting this model. Our Schools of Thought establish shared foundations beneath courses and programmes, creating common ground where disciplines naturally converge.

    Each school aims to be transdisciplinary (integrating ways of thinking), not merely multidisciplinary (putting disciplines side-by-side). They’re collective, not just collaborative. The naming strategy – C + S + M = CSM – emphasises the whole over parts. Rather than reinforcing disciplinary boundaries, they create space for working across schools while adapting to changing conditions.


    C School [Culture]     explores culture as a vital form of enquiry and expression, developing thinking and practice across art, performance and curation. It recognises culture in the immediate world around us, understanding it as a sense-making activity.


    S School [Systems]     explores how different forms of designing allow us to understand and intervene in the complex human systems shaping our world through graphic communication, product and industrial design, architecture, business innovation, and creative enterprise.


    M School [Materials]     investigates radical approaches to materials, making, and meaning-making through fashion, textiles, and jewellery to digital interaction, scientific innovation, and multi-species regeneration.

    Why principles matter more than plans

    What makes this transformation different from typical restructuring is its foundation in shared principles rather than predetermined outcomes. The principles emerged from collective reflection on the College’s actual lived experience, examining when authentic collaboration and meaningful impact happen. They aim to capture the heart of the College’s culture rather than imposing an abstract ideal. They create coherence without rigidity, alignment without conformity.

    Schools of Thought are not viewed as resolved but as vehicles for ongoing transformation. They provide low-walled frameworks for continuous evolution, adapting to changing conditions while staying true to core values. As communities and conversations develop, the schools themselves will transform, shaped by the very practices they enable.

    The deeper shift: embedding justice and sustainability

    Traditionally, art and design education has reinforced colonial perspectives, unsustainable production and cultural hierarchies; biases that reproduce invisibly through inherited disciplinary structures. The principle of ‘addressing shared conditions’ makes complicity in global crises unavoidable rather than optional, preventing justice and sustainability from being relegated to elective courses or diversity initiatives.

    ‘Seeking common ground’” creates space for marginalised knowledge systems, while ‘taking the whole life of the College as material’ reveals institutional truths through the lived experiences of our staff and our students rather than stated values alone.

    We can’t truly prepare students for the climate crisis, technological disruption, or polarisation by adding modules to unchanged systems. The structure needs to embody the values and capacities these challenges demand.

    What creativity teaches

    Creative education isn’t primarily about self-expression or beautiful objects. But approached as Central Saint Martins has, creativity becomes a methodology for engaging with uncertainty as traditional certainties collapse.

    ‘Bring practice to every space’ makes thinking-in-formation visible, cultivating comfort with ambiguity and the capacity to learn from failure—all critical for navigating unpredictable futures. “Deepen external connections” recognises that knowledge develops through genuine dialogue with communities beyond institutional walls, not expert pronouncements.

    These approaches value prototyping and iteration over perfect solutions, holding contradictory ideas simultaneously, collaborating across difference, and making abstract possibilities tangible. We want to apply creative principles to institutional transformation, treating the restructuring as an experimental, collaborative, and iterative process rather than a top-down plan.

    Lessons for all higher education

    Although rooted in creative arts, the principles-led approach transfers across sectors. Imperial College London’s recently launched Schools of Convergence Science reflects similar recognition that traditional structures no longer serve contemporary challenges. Structural change requires more than new organisational charts. It requires:

    • Culture shifts embedded in governance: Principles that guide decision-making at every level, ensuring new structures don’t simply replicate old patterns.
    • Foundation-level transformation: Creating common ground where collaboration becomes natural rather than requiring special initiatives.
    • Recognition of complicity: Acknowledging how inherited structures perpetuate problems, then actively working to transform those conditions.
    • Treating institutional structure as material: Applying the same creative, experimental, iterative approaches we teach students.
    • Making the whole life of the institution visible: Valuing informal experience alongside formal roles, practice alongside theory, collective wisdom alongside individual expertise.

    Any university can ask itself: What principles characterise when we work at our best? How could we design structures that enable rather than constrain that work? What would it mean to organise around shared conditions rather than inherited categories?

    As higher education gets increasingly othered in new policies, outsiders can provide the breakthroughs needed by taking a fresh perspective. As ‘The genius of the amateur’ points out, outsiders often succeed because progress is about generating models which we then test, apply and refine. We can’t do this alone at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, we need to do this collectively: to genuinely practice for ourselves what we teach and to create a space which isn’t about silos or othering but where all of us are welcome.

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  • What Football Can Tell Us About How to Teach Reading – The 74

    What Football Can Tell Us About How to Teach Reading – The 74


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    When I go to my son’s football games, I can tell you which team will win — most of the time — just by watching them warm up. It’s not necessarily having the flashiest uniforms or the biggest player; it’s about the discipline, the focus and the precision of their routines.

    A school is no different.

    In my Texas school district, I can walk into a classroom and, in the first five minutes, tell you if effective reading instruction is happening. I don’t need to see the lesson plan or even look at the teacher. I just need to look at the kids. Are they engaged? Are they in a routine? Are they getting the “reps” they need?

    For too long, districts have been losing the game before it starts. They buy a new playbook (i.e., a curriculum) as a “hail Mary,” hoping for a fourth-quarter miracle. Still, they ignore the fundamentals, practice and team culture required for sustainable success.

    Chapel Hill Independent School District is committed to educating all children to compete in an ever-changing world. To that end, we’ve made literacy a nonnegotiable priority across all campuses. We anchor our approach in research-based practices and a culture of continuous learning for both students and staff.

    We’re building for the long run: a literacy dynasty. But our literacy success hasn’t come without putting in the work. We have a relentless focus on the fundamentals and, most importantly, a culture where every player — every teacher and administrator — fits our system.

    Trust the Analytics, Not Your Gut

    In reading instruction, we can’t make assumptions; all instruction has to start with the fundamentals. For decades, instruction was based on gut feelings, like an old-school coach deciding whether to go for it on fourth down or punt based on a hunch. But today, the best coaches trust the analytics, not their gut. They watch the game film.

    Chapel Hill is an analytics district; we do our research. And our game film is the science of reading.

    Many years ago, we started using structured literacy for a small group of students with dyslexia. It worked so well that we asked ourselves: If structured literacy is effective for a small group of students with dyslexia, shouldn’t it be essential for all students?

    We didn’t just adopt a new curriculum; we redesigned our literacy infrastructure — from structured literacy professional development for every teacher to classroom coaching and a robust tiered system of support to ensure no student falls through the cracks.

    That logic is our offensive strategy. It’s why we use tools like the Sold a Story podcast to show our staff why we’ve banned the strategies of a bygone era, like three-cueing. We have to be willing to reprogram the brain to align with what research proves works. But having the right playbook is only half the battle.

    A great playbook is useless without the right team to execute it.

    This is the most crucial part: “First who, then what.” In the NFL draft, teams don’t always draft the most talented player available. They conduct interviews and personality assessments and ultimately draft the player who best fits their system—the cultural fit.

    Tom Brady is arguably the greatest quarterback of all time, but he couldn’t run a read-option offense, which requires a fast, running quarterback. He wouldn’t fit the system, and the team would fail. But put Brady in a play-action offense, sit back and watch the magic happen.

    We operate the same way. When we interview, we’re not just looking for a teacher with excellent credentials and experience; we’re looking for a “Chapel Hill Way” teacher. It’s a specific profile: someone who believes in our philosophy of systematic, explicit, research-based instruction.

    This culture starts with our team captains: our campus principals. We need them to believe in our playbook, not just buy in because the district office said so. We invest in their development so they can champion literacy daily, monitor instruction and ensure every classroom executes our playbook with fidelity. It’s their conviction that turns a curriculum on a shelf into a living, breathing part of our culture.

    Talented teams win games. Disciplined, team-first organizations build dynasties.

    Building a dynasty requires sacrifice. When an educator joins our team, whether they’re a rookie or a seasoned veteran, we ask them to let go of the “I’ve always done it this way” mindset. That’s the equivalent of a player prioritizing their personal stats over a team win.

    It’s a team-first mindset. It’s about a willingness to put personal preference aside to build a championship team. For Chapel Hill ISD, our championship is ensuring every child learns to read.

    Our team-first philosophy has translated into measurable results: Across campuses, students are gaining the foundational skills they need, and data shows growth for every subgroup, including students with dyslexia and multilingual learners. We want students to become a product of our expectations, rather than their environment. Our district, which serves a diverse population, including a high percentage of students classified as low socioeconomic status, consistently scores above the state average in third-grade reading.

    At Wise Elementary, our largest campus[MOU1] , 56% of third graders met grade-level standards, and 23% scored above grade level on the 2023-2024 STARR assessment. And we had similar results across the district.

    So to my fellow education leaders: Before you shop for a new playbook, ensure you have the right team culture in place. Define your culture. Draft the right players. Build your team. Coach your captains. And obsess over the fundamentals.

    That’s how you win.


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  • WEEKEND READING: The teacher training placement crisis

    WEEKEND READING: The teacher training placement crisis

    This blog was kindly authored by Juliette Claro, Lecturer in Education St Mary’s University Twickenham.

    Initial Teacher Education (ITE) providers across England are facing an escalating crisis: a growing inability to secure sufficient school placements for trainee teachers. With an average of 20 to 25% of unplaced trainee teachers, September 2025 has been challenging for universities and ITE providers. Despite policy ambitions to strengthen teacher supply, the reality on the ground is that many trainees’ hopes to start their first school placement in September were shattered due to a lack of school placements, especially in the secondary routes. This bottleneck threatens not only the future workforce but also the integrity of teacher training itself.

    A system under strain

    According to the Teacher Labour Market in England Annual Report 2025 by the National Foundation for Educational Research, recruitment into ITE remains persistently below target, with secondary subjects like Physics and Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) facing the most acute shortages. In 2024/25, Physics recruitment reached just 17% of its target, while MFL hovered at 33%. These figures reflect a long-standing trend, exacerbated by declining interest in teaching and competition from other professions.

    But even when trainees are recruited, sometimes through international routes at considerable expense, placing them in schools has become increasingly difficult. The Department for Education’s Initial Teacher Education Thematic Monitoring Visits Overview Report (2025) highlights that many providers struggle to find schools with sufficient mentor capacity and subject expertise. The report reinforced the point that mentoring pre-service teachers in schools often relies on the goodwill of teachers, and when too many providers operate in one local area, competition becomes unsustainable. This is particularly problematic in shortage subjects, where schools may lack qualified specialists to support trainees effectively, for example, in Physics or Languages.      

    Mentoring is a cornerstone of effective teacher training. Yet research in 2024 from the National Institute of Teaching (reveals that mentors are often overstretched, under-recognised, and inadequately supported. Many people report sacrificing their own planning time or juggling mentoring duties alongside full teaching loads. As a result, there may be a rise in reluctance among teachers to take on mentoring roles, especially in high-pressure environments.

    The government offers funding that aims to support mentor training and leadership, including grants for lead mentors, mentors and intensive training. However, these are often paid in arrears and come with complex conditions, making them less accessible to schools already grappling with budget constraints. Moreover, the funding does not always reflect the true cost of releasing staff from teaching duties to support trainees in schools.

    Routes into teaching: a fragmented landscape?

    The diversity of routes into teaching (School Direct, university-led PGCEs, Teach First, apprenticeships was designed to offer flexibility. But for ITE providers, it has created logistical headaches. Each route comes with its own placement requirements, mentor expectation, and funding mechanisms. Coordinating placements across this fragmented landscape is time-consuming and often leads to duplication or competition for limited school capacity.

    As universities continue to battle through their own funding crises, competition for recruitment and placements clash with other local providers and alliances of School- Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT), resulting in a lot of demands but not enough offers for placements.

    The 2024 ITE market reforms, which led to the de-accreditation of 68 providers, further destabilised the system. While many have partnered with accredited institutions to continue offering courses, the disruption has strained relationships between providers and with placement schools, resulting in reducing the overall number of placements available, where too many ITE providers end up saturating the same local areas for school placements.

    The subject specialist shortages

    The shortage of subject specialists is not just a recruitment issue: it is also a placement issue. In their 2025 report and recommendations for recruitment, retention and retraining the Institute of Physics (IoP)  revealed that 58% of GCSE lessons in England are taught by non-Physics specialists.

    When 25% of secondary schools do not have a Physics specialist teacher in-house and 63% of schools struggle to recruit specialist MFL teachers (British Council Language Trends 2025), it is no surprise that priorities for some school leaders is on the teaching of their students and not the mentoring trainee teachers. In many schools, Biology or Chemistry teachers cover Physics content, making it difficult to offer meaningful placements for Physics trainees. The same applies to Modern Foreign Languages, where schools often lack the breadth of language expertise needed to support trainees effectively. As non-core subjects may suffer from reduced curriculum time, finding enough teaching hours to allocate to a trainee teacher can become another challenge for some schools. Finally, as the recruitment crisis becomes more acute in more deprived areas, finding suitable mentors for trainee teachers in these areas become increasingly complex.

    Without subject specialists, trainees may be placed in environments where they cannot observe or practise high-quality teaching in their discipline. This undermines the quality of training and risks having Early Career Teachers feeling ill-prepared for the classroom.

    Teacher workload: the silent barrier

    Teacher workload remains one of the most significant barriers to placement availability. The Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders Wave 3 Report (DfE, 2025) found that 90% of teachers considering leaving the profession cited high workload as a key factor. With rising demands around behaviour management, curriculum delivery and accountability, many teachers simply do not have the bandwidth to mentor trainees. Reduced school funding, less staff and more demands on schoolteachers has meant that it is not uncommon to have weekly meetings between teachers and trainees organised out of school hours, at 8am or at 5pm, after school meetings. This is particularly acute in schools serving disadvantaged communities, where staffing pressures are greatest and the need for high-quality teaching is most urgent. Ironically, these are often the schools where trainees could have the most impact, if only they could be placed there.

    The perfect storm

    As ITE providers navigate the currents and the storms of recruiting and placing trainee teachers into schools, the strain on school funding directly impacts the recruitment of future teachers. If ITE providers cannot provide school placements, teachers and schools cannot recruit. Is it, therefore, time to reconsider and revalue the mentors in schools who are the running engine of the training process whilst on school placement? 

    New for school mentors could include:

    • Streamlining mentor funding to recognise fully and value the time spent by mentors to fulfil their role in supporting with lesson planning, giving feedback to lessons, meeting the trainee weekly and supporting international trainee teachers adapting to new curricula where necessary.
    • Invest in subject specialist development, particularly in Physics and MFL.
    • Reduce teacher workload through policy reform and flexible working arrangements where mentors can co-share the responsibility with colleagues.
    • Clarify and coordinate training routes to ease the burden on providers and schools.
    • Elevate the status of mentoring through formal recognition, qualifications, and career pathways.

    The future of teacher supply depends not just on recruitment, but on the ability to train teachers well. Without sufficient placements and adequate training, we risk building a pipeline that leaks before it flows. It is time for policymakers to recognise the strains on a suffocating system if recruitment targets are to be met.

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  • In Los Angeles, 45 Elementary Schools Beat the Odds in Teaching Kids to Read – The 74

    In Los Angeles, 45 Elementary Schools Beat the Odds in Teaching Kids to Read – The 74

    This article is part of Bright Spots, a series highlighting schools where every child learns to read, no matter their zip code. Explore the Bright Spots map to find out which schools are beating the odds in terms of literacy versus poverty rates.

    This story is part of The 74’s special coverage marking the 65th anniversary of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Read all our stories here.

    When The 74 started looking for schools that were doing a good job teaching kids to read, we began with the data. We crunched the numbers for nearly 42,000 schools across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. and identified 2,158 that were beating the odds by significantly outperforming what would be expected given their student demographics. 

    Seeing all that data was interesting. But they were just numbers in a spreadsheet until we decided to map out the results. And that geographic analysis revealed some surprising findings. 

    For example, we found that, based on our metrics, two of the three highest-performing schools in California happened to be less than 5 miles apart from each other in Los Angeles. 

    The PUC Milagro Charter School came out No. 1 in the state of California. With 91% of its students in poverty, our calculations projected it would have a third grade reading rate of 27%. Instead, 92% of its students scored proficient or above. Despite serving a high-poverty student population, the school’s literacy scores were practically off the charts.  

    PUC Milagro is a charter school, and charters tended to do well in our rankings. Nationally, they made up 7% of all schools in our sample but 11% of those that we identified as exceptional. 

    But some district schools are also beating the odds. Just miles away from PUC Milagro is our No. 3-rated school in California, Hoover Street Elementary. It is a traditional public school run by the Los Angeles Unified School District. With 92% of its students qualifying for free- or reduced-price lunch, our calculations suggest that only 23% of its third graders would likely be proficient in reading. Instead, its actual score was 78%. 

    For this project, we used data from 2024, and Hoover Street didn’t do quite as well in 2025. (Milagro continued to perform admirably.)

    Still, as Linda Jacobson reported last month, the district as a whole has been making impressive gains in reading and math over the last few years. In 2025, it reported its highest-ever performance on California’s state test. Moreover, those gains were broadly shared across the district’s most challenging, high-poverty schools. 

    Our data showed that the district as a whole slightly overperformed expectations, based purely on the economic challenges of its students. We also found that, while Los Angeles is a large, high-poverty school district, it had a disproportionately large share of what we identified as the state’s “bright spot” schools. L.A. accounted for 8% of all California schools in our sample but 16% of those that are the most exceptional. 

    All told, we found 45 L.A. district schools that were beating the odds and helping low-income students read proficiently. Some of these were selective magnet schools, but many were not. 

    INTERACTIVE

    Map of Los Angeles Area Bright Spots

    

    Some of the schools on the map may not meet most people’s definition of a good school, let alone a great one. For example, at Stanford Avenue Elementary, 47% of its third graders scored proficient in reading in 2024. That may not sound like very many, but 97% of its students are low-income, and yet it still managed to outperform the rest of the state by 4 percentage points. (It did even a bit better in 2025.)
    

    Schools like Stanford Avenue Elementary don’t have the highest scores in California. On the surface, they don’t look like they’re doing anything special. But that’s why it’s important for analyses like ours to consider a school’s demographics. High-poverty elementary schools that are doing a good job of helping their students learn to read deserve to be celebrated for their results.
    

                    
    
                                    
    

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  • Fla. Board Says Syllabi, Reading Lists Must Be Posted Publicly

    Fla. Board Says Syllabi, Reading Lists Must Be Posted Publicly

    Already, the University of Florida requires professors to post their syllabi online—but only three days prior to the start of class.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Liudmila Chernetska, Davizro and DenisTangneyJr/iStock/Getty Images

    Faculty at all Florida public universities must now make syllabi, as well as a list of required or recommended textbooks and instructional materials for each class, available online and searchable for students and the general public for five years.

    The new policy is part of an amendment to the Florida Board of Governors’ regulation on “Textbook and Instructional Materials Affordability and Transparency,” and it passed unanimously without discussion at a board meeting Thursday. On the agenda item description, board officials cited improved transparency as the impetus for the rule, which is meant to help students “make informed decisions as they select courses.” But some faculty members say it’s designed to chill academic freedom and allow the public to police what professors teach in the classroom.

    “Many of my colleagues and I believe that this is yet another overreach by political appointees to let Florida’s faculty know that they are being watched for potentially teaching any content that the far right finds problematic,” said John White, a professor of English education and literacy at the University of North Florida. He said officials at his institution told faculty members they must upload their syllabi for 2026 spring semester classes to Simple Syllabus, an online syllabi hosting platform, by December.

    “Florida’s universities are being run in an Orwellian manner, and working as a faculty member in Florida is increasingly like living in the world of Fahrenheit 451,” he said.

    According to the approved amendment, professors must post the syllabi “as early as is feasible” but no fewer than 45 days prior to the start of class. Public syllabi must include “course curriculum, required and recommended textbooks and instructional materials, goals and student expectations of the course, and how student performance will be measured and evaluated, including the grading scale.” Individualized courses like independent study and theses are exempt from the rule.

    The Florida Board of Governors did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s questions about the amended policy, including a question about when it will start being enforced.

    Concerns About Faculty Safety

    It’s not a unique policy, even in Florida. Since 2013, the University of Florida has required professors to post their syllabi online—but only three days prior to the start of class, and they have to remain publicly available for just three semesters. Now, all Florida public universities, including the University of Florida, must follow the new rules. A UF spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed the university is waiting for the Board of Governors to share guidance about when the new policy will be enforced.

    “Even before the rule, most faculty members have been posting anyway to advertise their course. Faculty members in fact prefer to post in advance and certainly have nothing against posting,” said Meera Sitharam, a professor in the department of computer and information science and engineering, and president of the University of Florida’s 2,150-member United Faculty of Florida union. The faculty she spoke with primarily took issue with the new 45-day deadline, which is “quite early for a posting containing all the details” of a syllabus, she said. They are also concerned that they will no longer be able to make changes to reading lists midsemester.

    “A good-quality discussion class would permit the instructor to assign new reading as the course proceeds. This would now be disallowed,” Sitharam said. “The effect of this is likely to be that an overlong reading list is posted by the faculty member just to make sure that they don’t miss anything they might want to assign. And much of the reading list may never be assigned.”

    Texas similarly requires all faculty at public institutions to make a version of their syllabus public. Indiana implemented a law in July requiring public institutions to publish all course syllabi on their websites, and this fall, the University System of Georgia introduced a new policy requiring faculty to post syllabi and curriculum vitae on institution websites.

    Some faculty members in those states have seen firsthand the risks of posting syllabi online; several professors have been harassed and doxed over course content in their online syllabi. Florida faculty are concerned the same thing could happen to them; several faculty members believe that the board passed the rule with the intent of siccing the general public on professors who teach about topics that conservative politicians don’t like.

    “The sole purpose is to subcontract out the oversight of all of our courses, so that if there’s some independent entity or individual that wants to look at the College of Education at Florida State, and they spend two months doing a deep dive into all of the classes, then they’ll come up with: ‘Here at Florida State we found these five classes that don’t meet [our standards],’” said William Trapani, communications and multimedia studies professor at Florida Atlantic University. “Why else would you have that capacity to make this data bank and make it publicly accessible for five years?”

    Stan Kaye, a professor emeritus of design and technology at the University of Florida, sees concerns about the policy as overblown. “I cannot see why making syllabi public at a public institution is a problem for anyone—I would think that promoting your work and subject is generally a good thing,” he said. “If you are afraid you are teaching something illegal or that lacks academic integrity and you want to keep it secret, that should be a problem.”

    Faculty safety is the primary concern for James Beasley, an associate professor of English and president of the faculty association at North Florida.

    “The most important issue related to this requirement is the safety of our faculty, both online and in person. The concern is that faculty will be exposed to external trolls of course content and that the publication of course locations will expose faculty to location disclosures,” Beasley said in an email. While it is typical for syllabi to include course meeting times and locations, the new board policy does not require that information to be posted online.

    Trapani also said that because of the five-year syllabus retention period, faculty are worried they could be retroactively harassed for teaching about something the public finds unfavorable from a class several years ago. White has similar concerns.

    “I’m teaching a course that utilizes neo-Marxist theory to critique the idea of meritocracy—will the Board of Governors or members of the public falsely claim I’m teaching communism or that I’m teaching students to hate their country? If a history professor or a social studies education professor is discussing redlining or Jim Crow laws, will they later be critiqued for teaching students about institutionalized racism or sexism?” White said.

    Ultimately, Trapani believes the amended syllabi policy is an attempt to insulate the Board of Governors from public criticism.

    “Florida will make a lot more sense to outsiders if its policymaking is viewed through a lens of fear,” he said. “They’ve deputized an army of outsiders to pore through records older than most students’ time at the university—all so that they cannot be accused of missing something … It’s just another way in which faculty employment conditions and physical safety are made more precarious by the endless barrage of false claims about our teaching practices.”

    Josh Moody contributed to this report.

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  • WEEKEND READING: The future of languages in a multilingual Britain

    WEEKEND READING: The future of languages in a multilingual Britain

    This blog was kindly authored by John Claughton, Co-Founder of The World of Languages and Languages of the World and former Chief Master of King Edward’s School, Birmingham.

    The other day, there was a big crowd packed into the Attlee Room in Portcullis House to celebrate the European Day of Languages – it was a comfort that no one had deemed it necessary to wear a sombrero or lederhosen. It was a co-production by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Languages and the All Party Parliamentary Group for Europe. The French and EU Ambassadors to London were the guests of honour, and the meeting was chaired by that rara avis, Darren Paffey, an MP who had been a languages academic. And he even has a wife who teaches languages. Is there, after all, a candle of hope for us all?

    The event was, like Gaul, divided into three parts. The first part was the noble land of diplomacy, with emphasis on the need for mutual understanding, co-operation and mobility in pursuit of global prosperity and harmony. At least everyone agreed that it was time for Erasmus to return – the programme, not the author of In Praise of Folly.

    Part Two was less to do with the noble sentiments of the Republic of Plato than the sewers of Romulus. It was about the grim facts of language learning presented by Megan Bowler, the harbinger of darkness, who wrote the HEPI report on the ‘language crisis’:

    • only 3% of A-level entries are in languages, and a mighty slug of those would come from independent schools;
    • undergraduate enrolments in languages are down by 20% in five years;
    • language teacher recruitment is less than half of what it needs to be;
    • there would still be language teacher shortages if every languages graduate went into teaching.
    • 28 out of 38 post-1992 universities have closed their language departments:
    • it is now quite common for Oxbridge colleges to get fewer than 10 applicants each for languages. That’s less than Classics, by Jove.

    Nor did the recent announcement about the end of IB funding bring any cheer: after all, every IB pupil has to study a language between the ages of 16 to 18.

    After the cold wind of reality had blown through the room, Vicky Gough, the Schools Adviser at the British Council, and Bernardette Holmes, the Director of the National College for Language Education (NCLE), talked of the tracks across this bleak terrain which might lead to better days. The HEPI report itself makes ten recommendations, and there are clearly things that universities can do to make languages more appealing – ‘Bring back Erasmus,’ they cry. However, the future of languages in university cannot lie in the hands of universities. The landscape can only be changed by a fundamental rethink about the teaching of languages at the very beginning of this journey. And that rethink has to reflect the fundamental change that has taken place in the pupils who now sit in our classes. Here are some ‘facts’ which show that fundamental change:

    • 20% of primary school pupils are categorised as EAL, i.e. English is not their first language;
    • this figure materially understates the percentage of pupils who are multilingual in our schools: for example, I know that over 50% of the pupils in the school where I was head were bilingual, even though none of them were categorised as EAL.
    • in many areas of many of our cities, there are primary schools where 90% of pupils are classed as EAL pupils.
    • there are many, many schools in London, or Birmingham, or Leicester, or Bradford where 30, or 40, or even 50 languages are spoken.
    • the schools with the greatest linguistic diversity are very often the schools in the most disadvantaged areas, areas where language uptake is at its lowest.

    And yet, little or no attention, or regard or honour is given to these languages, or to the pupils that speak them. Instead, in 96% of primary schools, it is French or Spanish which is taught, often by primary school teachers who don’t even have a GCSE in the subject. It may be no surprise that too few pupils arrive keen to study a language at GCSE when their language experience has been limited and, to their already multilingual minds, irrelevant.

    So, if there is to be progress, if there is to be a halt in the decline in languages and in the regard for languages, the answer may not lie in doing a bit better what we have always done, but in doing something different. If primary school pupils were taught not French and Spanish, but about languages, their own languages, as well as English and ‘modern foreign languages’ – and even Latin – the following things might happen:

    • pupils might see that languages are relevant, interesting, valuable, even fun;
    • pupils might learn more about themselves and each other, engendering mutual understanding and respect;
    • pupils might feel that they belong in school, and feel that there is not so great a gap between their life at home and their life at school;
    • parents might feel that what was going on at school had some regard for their history and their culture;
    • pupils might be more inclined to study languages, whether their own family/heritage language, and this could be a massive asset for their futures, in human and economic terms;
    • and, as these young people grow up, they might become the kind of adults who can build an integrated, cohesive, respectful and diverse society, and thus silence the voices of division in our political debate.
    • and this approach would demolish the hierarchy of languages which has so beset us for so long.

    Thus, it would place languages at the heart of our society. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? By strange chance, I have been working with some colleagues for several years to create a programme that does just that, but I’ve reached my word limit.

    But wait, dear reader. As a special dispensation, I have been granted more words in a HEPI blog. O frabjous day. So, I’d better be quick. It’s called WoLLoW, World of Languages, Languages of the World, a brilliant palindromic acronym with an Egyptian faience hippopotamus as a logo – just look at all those Greek words – in honour of the Hippopotamus Song by Flanders and Swan. So, if that’s its wondrous name, what does it do? Well, here are some examples:

    • a WoLLoW lesson can encourage boys and girls to talk about their own language, their own family, their own history.
    • it can explore why and how English is the most mongrel of all languages, a dog’s breakfast of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, Norman French, and polysyllabic Graeco-Latin inventions.
    • it can prove that the pupils can learn the Greek alphabet more quickly than their teachers, and thereby discover why physics isn’t spelt fisiks and dinosaurs have such preposterous names.
    • it can ask why Tuesday is Tuesday here and lots of different things everywhere else – and a WoLLoW lesson might even ask why there are seven days in a week.
    • in a WoLLoW lesson pupils can learn braille and/or sign-language, or even create their own language.

    This looks quite good fun, and it turns out that it is. Another word limit looms, but I can say that it not only cheers up pupils but it also has an impact on those who teach it. The last of my words must go to a pupil at my old school, a Malaysian Muslim, who, whilst in Year 11, taught WoLLoW in a local, Birmingham primary school:

    Working on these lessons, from the very first session, has not only given the children we have taught the opportunity to have their languages and cultures represented in class discussions, but has also allowed me to reconnect with my language and feel more confident in reclaiming it as a part of who I am. I am someone who, like, I suspect, a lot of the children we have taught, has felt disconnected from his language for a long time, and has been given the chance to once again put it front and centre and find their sense of self within it again.

    The rest is silence.

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  • WEEKEND READING: A thousand days of silence: reclaiming education through localisation for Afghan women

    WEEKEND READING: A thousand days of silence: reclaiming education through localisation for Afghan women

    This blog was kindly authored by Naimat Zafary, PhD student at The University of Sussex and a former Afghan Chevening Scholar.

    As I mark my fifth year in UK higher education, a journey that began with a Chevening Scholarship and an MA at the Institute of Development Studies before leading to my PhD in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex, a single, recurring image encapsulates a profound contrast.

    From my study window on campus, I watch the vibrant flow of students: a tide of ambition pouring into and out of lecture halls. In a silent, personal ritual, I often count them. Invariably, I find more young women than men, a sight that swells me with pride to be part of an institution that offers equal and abundant opportunities to female students.

    Yet, this everyday scene instantly transports me to my home of Afghanistan, where this picture is hauntingly absent. For nearly three years – around 1,050 days – the Taliban has barred Afghan girls and women from their fundamental right to higher education. Their university campuses, once symbols of hope, are now forbidden ground.

    Beyond internationalisation

    The start of the academic year is a time of new beginnings for UK universities. There is a mood of anticipation, proudly announcing numbers of new starters and, on my own diverse campus, a commitment to internationalisation. Students arrive from across the world, a myriad of stories behind each of them. For some, a struggle, for others, lifelong dreams of individuals and families.

    If we are lucky, we will share some of these experiences and perspectives with the people around us. We will define our possibilities differently as a result. This focus on global reach is commendable and a deep privilege. We are – we become – international.

    But I ask myself a sharper question too. What of those who do not, cannot travel? How do we consider the community which includes the missing, the trapped?

    So, as I look across campus, I see these faces too. Will institutions that are committed and measured in part in relation to the sustainable development goals –  every one of which is behind – take a step to localise, to go to those who cannot come to them?

    British higher education has a long history of outreach. Many of its now great universities began as an effort to take learning and opportunity to provinces where it was absent, or to include within its potential those who, at one time, were told education was not for them.

    That widening participation agenda is now under strain at home and abroad. If you measure the outcomes only of those blessed with an environment and the support to succeed, you implant a bias away from risk. If you effectively close off the means of access, the hopeful will turn away. Participation can narrow as well as widen. In some cases, participation can stall completely –  those desperate to continue their dreams, whose voices are screaming to be heard, and who are simply waiting for a chance?

    Who will answer the call?

    In the worst of times, those who step forward, demonstrate they care and –  despite their own challenges – stand against this injustice are living the most profound values of education.

    Here again, I look out at my campus at The University of Sussex with pride, and I believe there are lessons for others too.

    It begins with leadership and with kind-hearted teams, but also a desire to turn feeling into action. In this case, despite headwinds of practical barriers, the university has undertaken a pilot and has awarded online distance learning master’s degree scholarships for a small group of talented Afghan women and girls.

    The inspiration for this initiative was born out of a stark contrast. As female Afghan Chevening scholars walked across the Sussex graduation stage with pride, in Afghanistan, not a single woman could enter a university, let alone a graduation ceremony. I longed for those with the potential of taking action to hear the voices of Afghan women and somehow open a door, even for just a few.

    Developing an outreach programme in such a sensitive context isn’t easy. Universities have their own urgent challenges close to home, and the many demands they face don’t pause while they innovate in global education.  But principled leaders took the challenge of the absence of women in higher education a world away to their own core, and recognised that this too was their business. 

    Finding a possible solution took time: more than two years of proposals; assessing the situation; back-and-forth communication; and ensuring we were always working in line with advice on ensuring the safety of participating students. It was modest, but it matters beyond words.

    The logic was beautifully simple and necessary: if Afghan women are banned from stepping into the higher education arena, then higher education must step into their own room. This is a practice the Western world embraced during the pandemic; we simply need to apply it now to find a light in the darkness.

    An undefeated hope

    The proof of this need was instantaneous. In early July 2025, the University of Sussex’s announcement went live. Within the first 48 hours, more than eight hundred women and women sent an inquiry and applied for the scholarships.

    That response sent a clear, undeniable message of a thirst and love for education, of persistent talent, eligibility, and an undefeated hope for the future. And now it begins. The five talented women awarded these scholarships have started on the first of these courses with an unwavering commitment.

    One of the awardees described her gratitude this way:

    As an Afghan woman achieving this milestone under such challenging circumstances has been both difficult and deeply meaningful. I am committed to making the most of this opportunity and to using the knowledge and skills I gain to contribute toward strengthening and supporting our fragile communities.

    These students are proof that Afghan women are not defeated even in this brutal hour. They may have to learn behind legal bars for now, but they believe in a better future, they are determined to serve their community and contribute to wider society — given the chance, they will change their lives and the lives of those around them.

    Deeds not words

    To my colleagues and friends in UK higher education, I humbly say this. Our institutions are built on the foundational motto of “leaving no one behind” – no one, not even the women whose doors are bolted but whose spirits still crave learning.

    I profoundly hope the UKhigher education community will look closely at the successful case of the University of Sussex, draw on the experience of this pilot and follow its lead. One programme could become many. A single voice could become a chorus.

    Afghan girls and women are navigating one of the most catastrophic times in their history. The education of women is core to the UN Sustainable Development Goals for good reason. Those who step up now, who provide a lifeline through education in this moment of darkness, will not only be remembered – they will be helping to shape the very future of Afghanistan. As the suffragists once chanted in this country, this is a time for Deeds Not Words.

    I ask each of you not to write off hope.  A dear friend shared a poem with me, which is much loved across this country. It was written by the great War poet Siegfried Sassoon at a time of despair, but it continues to move people because it defiantly imagines a time of release and redemption.

    Everyone suddenly burst out singing;

    And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom…

    My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away … O, but Everyone

    Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

    There are times a university keeps hope alive, where a pilot programme is a flame visible across the world. It is the promise of a better future through the empowerment of those who wish desperately to build it.

    A good deed can be multiplied. If Afghan women students cannot come to us, let us join together as a band of scholars and go to them.

    If any university colleagues would be interested in understanding more about the Sussex pilot to offer online postgraduate access to Afghan women, please contact [email protected].

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  • WEEKEND READING: Axing IB funding in the state sector harms our ambitions for higher-level education and training

    WEEKEND READING: Axing IB funding in the state sector harms our ambitions for higher-level education and training

    This blog was kindly authored by Richard Markham, Chief Executive Officer of the IB Schools and Colleges Association (IBSCA).

    At International Baccalaureate (IB) schools and colleges, we have always been ambitious for our students. We know what they can achieve and support them to reach their goals. Through its broad curriculum – including Maths, English, a humanities, science, arts and language subject – the IB Diploma Programme (DP) provides stretch and challenge, developing a thirst for lifelong learning in our 16 to 19-year-olds. And, through extended essays, theory of knowledge and service in the community, it produces confident, well-rounded citizens who thrive in life and work. Year after year, we join our students and their families in celebrating their outstanding destinations at top universities and apprenticeships.

    That is why it is deeply disappointing that the Government is axing the financial uplift for schools and colleges delivering the IB DP in the state sector, as soon as the next academic year.

    Disappointing, but also surprising. By axing the large programme uplift – the top-up funding awarded to schools and colleges to reflect the additional teaching time required to deliver the IB DP – the Government risks tripping over its own hurdles. The post-16 white paper sets “objectives” for the 16-19 sector, with the first being that it “delivers world-leading provision that breaks down the barriers to opportunity”. The imminent final report of the Curriculum and Assessment Review will set out its recommendations to ensure that “every child” has “access to a broad range of subjects”.  

    On this front, it is vital that we keep the IB alive in the state sector. Far more extensive than A Levels, T Levels and now V Levels, the IB proves that creativity is not the preserve of the arts, nor logic the preserve of science. Both belong together in world-class education. It is a rigorous, aspirational study programme, offering all the advantages of a private school education, accessible to families who couldn’t dream of affording tuition. We should be expanding opportunities to an IB education, not shutting them down.

    The second objective set for further education is that it supports the Government’s “ambition for two-thirds of young people to participate in higher-level learning” after they leave school. IB DP students in the UK are three times more likely to enrol in a top-20 higher education institution. Deep thinkers, broad skill sets – they excel at university-level study. DP students are 40% more likely to achieve a first-class or upper second-class honours degree. If the Government does not find a way through, the higher education sector will be poorer for it.

    Moreover, UCAS data from the 2021/24 cycles gives us an indication of just how well the IB DP supports progression into courses that closely align with the UK’s Industrial Strategy priority sectors. The greatest proportion of DP students (4,900) accepted university offers in courses related to the life sciences sector, driven by medicine, dentistry and nursing. This was closely followed by professional and business services – with 3,365accepted offers for subjects like economics, law, management and politics – and upwards of 1,000 accepted offers in crucial science and engineering courses.

    Evidently, this is a financial decision, not one taken in the best interests of our education and skills system. To dress it up in any other way does our educators a disservice. The large programme uplift given to IB DP schools is worth just £2.5 million a year. That is 0.0025 per cent of the Department for Education’s £100 billion annual budget. A drop in the ocean, and yet the programme delivers true value for money.

    On Wednesday, MPs across the House united to fight for the future of the IB in Westminster Hall, calling for an urgent reversal of these cuts to provide certainty for school and college leaders, current and prospective IB students and their families, universities and employers. MPs questioned the very basis for the Department’s decision: “how can the Government can claim to want more students, particularly more girls, on STEM pathways while cutting funding for a qualification that demonstrably helps to achieve exactly that?”

    Let us not forget, it was a Labour Government under Prime Minister Tony Blair that pledged an IB school in every local authority, but subsequent Prime Ministers have recognised the value and championed a baccalaureate-style education system. Support for the IB cuts across party lines and nation’s borders – reflecting the shared values of its global community of alumni, prospective students, parents, teachers, and policymakers who see its potential to raise ambition and foster international understanding. That cross-party appeal is no accident: many MPs, former IB teachers and alumni, know first-hand what the programme can do. They recognise its power to develop deeper thinkers, broader skill sets and more adaptable young people – qualities our economy and universities urgently need right now.

    Find out more about the ‘Save the IB’ via the IBSCA website: www.ibsca.org.uk/save-the-ib-with-ibsca

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  • WEEKEND READING: The Renters’ Rights Act: How will students’ tenancies change and when?

    WEEKEND READING: The Renters’ Rights Act: How will students’ tenancies change and when?

    This blog was kindly authored by Martin Blakey, the former Chief Executive of the student housing charity Unipol and a member of the British Property Federation’s Student Accommodation Committee.

    On Wednesday, 22 October 2025, the Renters’ Rights Bill passed through its final stage in a thinly occupied Commons chamber, and obtained Royal Assent on 28 October. HEPI has taken a close interest in how the Act’s changes would affect students, and a number of previous blogs that have charted the Bill’s progress are listed at the end of this one.

    The Bill has a long history, first appearing under the previous Conservative government under the title the Renters’ Reform Bill in May 2023 and then being resubmitted, after some redrafting, by the new Labour Government only 10 weeks into power in September 2024. Even under a Labour Government with a large majority, it has taken 13 months to progress the Bill through all of its stages, and that parliamentary process has had to deal with over 450 amendments in the last year.

    This is a substantial Act, and its various provisions will be phased in over a period of time. The Act contains many enabling powers, allowing Ministers to implement more detailed proposals on aspects of policy as further consultations take place. The right to redress (the ombudsman proposals), the landlord database and the Decent Homes Standard are, or will be, consulted on and detailed regulation will appear over the next year.

    Even in the final stages of the Bill, the Government did not give any timetable for implementation. Still, it is reasonable to conclude that tenure reform, which is not subject to much secondary regulation, will be implemented first. All the Government now has to decide is how long it should allow to raise the awareness of landlords and tenants about these significant impending changes, and how long it should give to those running private sector housing to make the necessary legal adjustments for existing and future tenancies.

    Because the mechanics of the Act are now known, it is possible, for the first time, to say what will happen to student tenants and make a reasonable and educated guess at the timescale involved.

    Timescale

    It is now clear that today’s student tenants (studying across 2025/26) and new tenants signing up for the 2026/27 academic year will see their tenure status change.

    As Matthew Pennycook said on 8 September 2025:

    …we will introduce the new tenancy for the private rented sector system in one stage. On this date the new tenancy system will apply to all private tenancies – existing tenancies will convert to the new system, and any new tenancies signed on or after this date will also be governed by the new rules. Existing fixed terms will be converted to periodic tenancies…

    So, all tenancies will change on a given date and the familiar fixed-term assured tenancy (AST) which has been used by virtually all students renting from the private sector will be replaced by the new assured tenancy. The fixed term within those ASTs will cease to exist, and rent payment periods in excess of four weeks’ rent will be unenforceable.

    Depending on who you listen to, this change is likely to come into effect between April and June 2026 and so it will affect today’s student tenants.

    There are a lot of questions about how these changes will come about, and it is now possible to provide a roadmap of how this will all work.

    There are no ‘interim’ stages. So landlords signing students up in the past and now, and up to the implementation date of tenure change under the Act, will continue to use fixed-term ASTs because that is the current system.

    Landlords and tenants on current contracts or signing up for the future would best see their agreement as entering into a general contract for a residential tenancy. That tenancy will have its precise status determined, in respect of these changes, at the point when a tenant actually takes possession and can move in (which is when the tenancy is actually granted).

    So, let’s go through a variety of scenarios and see what is going to happen.

    Students currently living in off-street shared houses – a house multiple occupancy (HMO)

    These students will currently be on a joint or individual AST, almost always, with a fixed period stipulated in that agreement. On the date of the Act’s tenure implementation this will become an assured tenancy, and that means that the fixed-term nature of the agreement falls away.

    The Government accepted that, in order to maintain the lettings cycle of student shared houses in line with the academic year, landlords would be able to seek repossession of their property by using a new ground for possession 4a. This allows landlords to give tenants notice of their intention to seek repossession on a given date between June and September.

    Following implementation, landlords will have to notify tenants within the first 30 days of their intention to use ground 4a. After this transitional provision, landlords will have to notify tenants of their intention to use ground 4a at the time of signing the contract.

    Under ground 4a landlords can give tenants 4 months’ notice to leave and can enforce that through the courts.

    Some legal experts have pointed out that if implementation is between April and June, then, as many fixed-terms expire in June or July, there would not be sufficient time under ground 4a to give 4 months’ notice. So, in theory, tenants could simply choose to stay in the property and give 2 months’ notice whenever they wanted to move out. This is the case, and for the first few months of operation, landlords may find that they cannot take advantage of ground 4a –  leaving them exposed if they have let the property to a new set of tenants without having a property with vacant possession to let. Whether a court would hold a landlord responsible for any financial claim or compensation sought by incoming tenants who would have to find alternative accommodation is unlikely, particularly if the landlord had tried to mitigate any loss by, say, finding and offering alternative accommodation.

    But landlords have other things they can do to bring their tenancies to an end over the implementation period. Until the date when ASTs become assured tenancies, the landlord can still give notice using the current ‘no fault’ eviction procedure under Section 21 (S21), giving a minimum two-month notice period. A S21 notice can be given at any time after the first 4 months of the AST, so most landlords will issue a S21 notice to their resident students while the tenancy is still an AST, giving them, in most cases, a right of repossession at the end of their AST fixed term. The Renters’ Rights Act does not revoke a valid S21 notice. Only after tenure change has been implemented is it no longer possible to issue a valid S21 notice.

    So long as the landlord gives notice under S21 on an existing AST before the introduction of assured tenancies, they will be able (as they are at present) to assume that tenants leave and new tenants will arrive as normal.

    It is just worth noting that serving a notice of intention to seek repossession does not mean a tenant can be removed from the property, and only a Court can evict a tenant. This is the case now, but generally, very few students fail to leave at the end of their tenancy, so it is important not to predict problems where these have not occurred in the past.

    Students currently living in smaller off-street houses

    This is the same as stipulated above for a shared house in respect of serving a valid S21 notice, but here, once the Act has been implemented, ground 4a cannot be used because its use is restricted to only off-street HMOs. So once tenure reform has taken place and the time period for issuing S21 notices has expired, tenants in this kind of property can remain as long as they wish until they give 2 months’ notice to leave. Landlords letting these smaller houses and flats may well find that they are housing non-students.

    Several attempts were made during the discussion of the Bill to extend ground 4a to all properties occupied by students, but the Government firmly rejected that approach.

    Baroness Taylor of Stevenage made the Government’s position clear on 15 October 2025:

    The Government recognise that the new tenancy system will have an impact on the way the student market operates. While we believe the ground covers the majority of the market, there is no one-size-fits-all solution that covers all circumstances. We think it is reasonable that the ground will apply to full-time students in larger house-share situations. Removing this restriction could lead to students who need more security of tenure – such as single parents living with their children or postgraduate couples living together who have put down roots in the area – being evicted more regularly.

    So the Government expects that some property previously occupied by students is likely to remain occupied, and this stock will therefore leave the student market and enter the general rental market.

    Students living in off-street housing after implementation

    These students will have assured tenancy status and will fall fully under the provisions of the new Act. With the exception of ground 4a in shared student houses, they will be able to stay as long as they wish in the property until they give notice and will be able to give 2 months’ notice, at any stage of the year, to leave the property.

    Currently, they will be signed up using ASTs but after implementation, most of those tenure conditions will be replaced by the provisions of the new Act.

    Students currently living in Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA)

    The Government decided that private PBSA that had signed up to the government-approved codes of practice (The ANUK/Unipol Code) should be removed from the effects of the Act by changing ‘specified educational institutions’ to ‘specified institutions’ under provisions to be found in the 1988 Housing Act. This technical change means that PBSA providers will become specified institutions (as most educational institutions already are) and their tenancies will be common law tenancies, and this means that fixed-term tenancies can continue in those properties.

    But existing contracts in private sector PBSA will go through a ‘transitional period’ because only tenancies granted after specified status has been granted will be common law tenancies.

    As the Government explained:

    To apply the exemption retrospectively would carry significant risk, as it would turn one of these existing PBSA tenancies into what is known as a ‘common law’ tenancy: that is, a tenancy almost entirely regulated by what is in the tenancy agreement. This could cause unintended consequences, such as those PBSA tenancies containing significantly fewer rights for tenants than the assured shorthold tenancies they will have signed… We do not consider it to be the right approach, therefore, to simply exempt pre-existing PBSA tenancies from assured tenancy status.

    So existing AST tenancies in PBSA will fall under the assured tenancy status. After specified status has been granted (which will be from the date of tenure implementation) then future tenancies will be common law tenancies.

    The Government made some special concessions to minimise these ‘transitional effects’. This means the property will not have to be an HMO to use ground 4a repossession, and the July to September time frame 4a will not apply.

    PBSA providers will still be able to use S21 notices (as detailed previously) before implementation, and after that they will be able to use new ground 4a on all PBSA properties. This is likely to be useful because tenancies ending in September (mainly relating to studios) will allow sufficient time to give those tenants 4 months’ notice under the new Act.

    There will still be a moment of anxiety if a student who is not issued with a S21 notice decides simply to stay, although they could be given 4 months’ notice under new ground 4a at any stage after implementation. This risk is, however, much lower for PBSA where it is likely, if any inconvenience occurred for incoming tenants because of a ‘stayer’, that alternative accommodation may be available to be provided within the same building or in a nearby building, so the risk to the provider will be mitigated.

    Students signing up to live in Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) in the future

    At present, students will continue to be signed up on ASTs because that is the current system.

    As mentioned previously, any new tenancy will have its status determined by when a tenant ‘takes possession’ and can move in (which is when the tenancy is actually granted). If the moving-in date occurs after the PBSA manager / supplier has specified status, then tenants will have a common law tenancy. This common law tenancy means that the terms of the letting are those outlined in the tenancy agreement between the tenant and the landlord, and these will fall outside of the tenure provisions of the Act, which applies primarily to assured tenancies. A common law tenancy allows for fixed-term tenancies where repossession can be granted on the contractual terms outlined in the tenancy agreement, and rent payment periods will be as detailed in the tenancy.

    Although tenants in PBSA will have fewer rights under the Act than other tenants, membership of the Approved Code will ensure deposit protection continues and that tenants can give 4 weeks’ notice if they fail to get their required grades and no longer need their accommodation, if they stop studying and leave the institution, or they withdraw because of illness. The Code complaints system has also been tightened and improved. So tenants renting from PBSA will still see an improvement in tenure flexibility.

    Most tenancies in PBSA for 2026/27 are likely to be common law tenancies because they will come into effect after specified status has been granted.

    Conclusion

    So long as implementation takes place around April to June 2026, the annual summer 2026 changeover should be relatively smooth. The use of S21 notices by landlords is likely to be widespread and should ensure most tenancies can be brought to an end. In the unlikely event that implementation is earlier than April, then the 4 months’ notice under new ground 4a can also be used.

    The danger area relates to off-street non-HMOs and how many of those students, or ex-students, will choose to stay, reducing that supply of housing to future students. The prediction is that, over a couple of letting cycles, much of this type of housing will join the mainstream housing rental stock and move outside of the timing of the academic cycle. Educational institutions and students’ unions would be wise to try to monitor that shift and any loss of this accommodation to determine its effect on admissions.

    One interesting provision, regarding the use of ground 4a is that, for future signings, it will not apply if students signed their contracts 6 months before they can move in. It will be interesting to see whether this has any impact on ‘early letting’ in the off-street market and whether this impacts current PBSA practices.

    What can educational institutions and their students’ unions do to assist in the smooth implementation of the Act?

    Anything to do with tenure is necessarily complex, but every effort should be made to explain to students what this change will mean for them. What information exists suggests that student awareness of the Act is very low, with StuRents reporting that 69% of students said they had never heard of the Renters Rights Bill, and only 15% saying they understood how it could affect them. A recent study by Unipol also reported that 62% of students had not heard of the Bill.

    There will be real and immediate advantages for student renters who will be on assured tenancies, such as the ability to give two months’ notice and, perhaps the biggest gain of all for hard-up students, only needing to pay rent four weeks in advance. In the longer term, they will also have minimum standards set under the Decent Homes Standard and will have a right of redress through an ombudsman.

    Of course, some may temper these immediate advantages by predicting that the Act will see a reduction in student housing supply resulting in rent rises, an increase in the use of guarantors with rising deposit levels (to counter-act the risk of shorter rent payment periods) and that most shared student houses (HMOs) already fall under licencing which should already ensure that the property is safe and being kept in good order.

    The reality is that no one knows how the Act will affect the market and students specifically. With that in mind, it will be important for institutions to try to monitor how the Act affects their students in their local property market.

    In PBSA, the Act will have less effect, but this also comes at a time of rapid change in that market, with issues such as a slow-down in development; the challenges of keeping ageing stock up to standard; the growth of commuter students; greater regulation post-Grenfell with the Building Safety Regulator; and problems associated with higher rent levels and affordability.

    These market and legislative changes will mean that both housing suppliers and students are likely to see a significant transformation of student housing over the next couple of years. It is important that advice about housing rights and supply reflects those changes and assumptions that ‘things will continue as before’ are set aside.

    Previous HEPI publications dealing with this issue are:

    Renters (Reform) Bill and the impact on higher education 24 May 2023 by Rose Stephenson https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2023/05/24/renters-reform-bill-and-the-impact-on-higher-education/

    How the Renters (Reform) Bill can deliver for all tenants – including students 13 November 2023 by Calum MacInnes https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2023/11/13/how-the-renters-reform-bill-can-deliver-for-all-tenants-including-students/

    Students and the Renters (Reform) Bill: the government has listened but it needs to listen some more parts I and II run across 29 and 30 January 2024 by Martin Blakey https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/01/29/students-and-the-renters-reform-bill-the-government-has-listened-but-it-needs-to-listen-some-more-part-i/ and https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/01/30/students-and-the-renters-reform-bill-the-government-has-listened-but-it-needs-to-listen-some-more-part-ii/

    The Renters Reform Bill: after the fall – Where should student housing go from here? 19 June 2024 by Martin Blakey https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/06/19/the-renters-reform-bill-after-the-fall-where-should-student-housing-go-from-here

    Renters’ Rights Bill and Student Accommodation: The Final Stretch? 9 October 2024 by Martin Blakey https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/10/09/renters-rights-act-and-student-accommodation-the-final-stretch/

    Renters’ Rights Bill Update – into the Lords 2 February 2025 by Martin Blakey https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/02/03/renters-rights-bill-update-into-the-lords/

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