Tag: reading

  • 3 strategies to boost student reading fluency this school year

    3 strategies to boost student reading fluency this school year

    Key points:

    With the new school year now rolling, teachers and school leaders are likely being hit with a hard truth: Many students are not proficient in reading.

    This, of course, presents challenges for students as they struggle to read new texts and apply what they are learning across all subject areas, as well as for educators who are diligently working to support students’ reading fluency and overall academic progress. 

    Understanding the common challenges students face with reading–and knowing which instructional strategies best support their growth–can help educators more effectively get students to where they need to be this school year.

    Understanding the science of learning

    Many districts across the country have invested in evidence-based curricula grounded in the science of reading to strengthen how foundational skills such as decoding and word recognition are taught. However, for many students, especially those receiving Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions, this has not been enough to help them develop the automatic word recognition needed to become fluent, confident readers.

    This is why coupling the science of reading with the science of learning is so important when it comes to reading proficiency. Simply stated, the science of learning is how students learn. It identifies the conditions needed for students to build automaticity and fluency in complex skills, and it includes principles such as interleaving, spacing practice, varying tasks, highlighting contrasts, rehearsal, review, and immediate feedback–all of which are essential for helping students consolidate and generalize their reading skills.

    When these principles are intentionally combined with the science of reading’s structured literacy principles, students are able to both acquire new knowledge and retain, retrieve, and apply it fluently in new contexts.

    Implementing instructional best practices

    The three best practices below not only support the use of the science of learning and the science of reading, but they give educators the data and information needed to help set students up for reading success this school year and beyond. 

    Screen all students. It is important to identify the specific strengths and weaknesses of each student as early as possible so that educators can personalize their instruction accordingly.

    Some students, even those in upper elementary and middle school, may still lack foundational skills, such as decoding and automatic word recognition, which in turn negatively impact fluency and comprehension. Using online screeners that focus on decoding skills, as well as automatic word recognition, can help educators more quickly understand each student’s needs so they can efficiently put targeted interventions in place to help.

    Online screening data also helps educators more effectively communicate with parents, as well as with a student’s intervention team, in a succinct and timely way.

    Provide personalized structured, systematic practice. This type of practice has been shown to help close gaps in students’ foundational skills so they can successfully transfer their decoding and automatic word recognition skills to fluency. The use of technology and online programs can optimize the personalization needed for students while providing valuable insights for teachers.

    Of course, when it comes to personalizing practice, technology should always enhance–not replace–the role of the teacher. Technology can help differentiate the questions and lessons students receive, track students’ progress, and engage students in a non-evaluative learning environment. However, the personal attention and direction given by a teacher is always the most essential aid, especially for struggling readers. 

    Monitor progress on oral reading. Practicing reading aloud is important for developing fluency, although it can be very personal and difficult for many struggling learners. Students may get nervous, embarrassed, or lose their confidence. As such, the importance of a teacher’s responsiveness and ongoing connection while monitoring the progress of a student cannot be overstated.

    When teachers establish the conditions for a safe and trusted environment, where errors can occur without judgment, students are much more motivated to engage and read aloud. To encourage this reading, teachers can interleave passages of different lengths and difficulty levels, or revisit the same text over time to provide students with spaced opportunities for practice and retrieval. By providing immediate and constructive feedback, teachers can also help students self-correct and refine their skills in real time.

    Having a measurable impact

    All students can become strong, proficient readers when they are given the right tools, instruction, and support grounded in both the science of learning and the science of reading. For educators, this includes screening effectively, providing structured and personalized practice, and creating environments where students feel comfortable learning and practicing skills and confident reading aloud.

    By implementing these best practices, which take into account both what students need to learn and how they learn best, educators can and will make a measurable difference in students’ reading growth this school year.

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  • Young men are increasingly lonely and isolated. Could reading more to boys be the answer?

    Young men are increasingly lonely and isolated. Could reading more to boys be the answer?

    by JT Torres, The Hechinger Report
    October 28, 2025

    Young men in America today are feeling lonely and socially isolated. They are not going to college, entering the workplace or going on dates as often as young men did in prior generations.

    In my years teaching literacy, I’ve watched the lines on two graphs move in opposite directions: male loneliness climbs as male reading and writing scores drop. Are these trends correlated, and if so, can reading help address loneliness?

    Diminished friendships, reduced economic opportunities and the substitution of online interactions for face-to-face connections seem to particularly impact young men.

    Some 25 percent of U.S. men aged 15-34 felt lonely “a lot of the previous day,” compared to 18 percent of women in the same age group, a recent Gallup survey found. The same survey found that U.S. men are lonelier than their international counterparts.

    Overlaying this epidemic of loneliness is a literacy crisis that continues to deepen, evidenced by sharp declines in the 2024 NAEP results. Only 35 percent of high school seniors now read at or above proficiency, with reading scores 10 points lower than they were in 1992. The numbers reflect not just skill deficits but broader cultural shifts.

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    In the UK, a country with similar male loneliness rates, just 41 percent of parents with children under five read frequently to them, down from 64 percent in 2012, a 2024 Harper Collins UK survey found. The survey revealed even sharper reading drops for boys: Less than one-third from birth through the age of 2 were read to daily, compared to 44 percent of girls. Meanwhile, the number of American adolescent boys who read for fun has dropped to a historic low.

    Literacy instruction has not kept up with changes in the literacy landscape, and is failing to help students connect, think carefully and resist manipulation. Traditional reading and argument, for instance, have been dramatically replaced by memes and misinformation that spreads faster than anyone can correct it. Public discourse has become inflammatory rather than inquisitive, with half-quotes from podcasters and political pundits lobbed like verbal grenades.

    These two trends have serious social costs, and may reinforce each other. Data show, for example, that as young men fall behind in education, they become increasingly attracted to conspiratorial thinking and political radicalization.

    Combining a lack of critical reading skills and habits with an unsatisfied need to bond, to connect and to belong results in an emotional feedback loop, driving young men into spaces designed to persuade or recruit rather than inform.

    Related: Behind the latest dismal NAEP scores

    Thus, while it is tempting to treat literacy and male loneliness as separate issues, research demonstrating the social benefits of reading to children offers interesting connective tissue. Neuroscience research confirms, for example, that reading aloud activates brain regions associated with both language processing and social bonding. Respondents to an international survey described reading as a method for maintaining social connection.

    Young boys need these benefits at this very moment.

    That is why I strongly believe that one simple way we can and should address these trends is to inspire interest in reading among boys.

    Parents, teachers, guardians, siblings and anyone who takes care of children should read to and with them. Longstanding cultural norms reward girls for reading but not boys. Literacy needs to be framed not as a gendered expectation or duty but as a relational ritual.

    Schools need to do more than prepare students for literacy tests; they should create formal spaces to enjoy reading, including book clubs, intergenerational reading groups and classes which show that reading is not a solitary grind but a communal act. The solution I propose is fairly cheap, carries no risk and is backed by evidence: Treat reading as the most important social experience children can have.

    JT Torres is director of the Harte Center for Teaching and Learning at Washington and Lee University.

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story about male reading and loneliness was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

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  • Why one reading expert says ‘just-right’ books are all wrong

    Why one reading expert says ‘just-right’ books are all wrong

    by Jill Barshay, The Hechinger Report
    October 27, 2025

    Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has spent his career evaluating education research and helping teachers figure out what works best in the classroom. A leader of the National Reading Panel, whose 2000 report helped shape what’s now known as the “science of reading,” Shanahan has long influenced literacy instruction in the United States. He also served on the National Institute for Literacy’s advisory board in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

    Shanahan is a scholar whom I regularly consult when I come across a reading study, and so I was eager to interview him about his new book, “Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives.” (Harvard Education Press, September 2025). In it, Shanahan takes aim at one of the most common teaching practices in American classrooms: matching students with “just-right” books. 

    He argues that the approach — where students read different texts depending on their assessed reading level — is holding many children back. Teachers spend too much time testing students and assigning leveled books, he says, instead of helping all students learn how to understand challenging texts.

    “American children are being prevented from doing better in reading by a longstanding commitment to a pedagogical theory that insists students are best taught with books they can already read,” Shanahan writes in his book. “Reading is so often taught in small groups — not so teachers can guide efforts to negotiate difficult books, but to ensure the books are easy enough that not much guidance is needed.”

    Comprehension, he says, doesn’t grow that way.

    The trouble with leveled reading

    Grouping students by ability and assigning easier or harder books — a practice known as leveled reading — remains deeply embedded in U.S. schools. A 2018 Thomas B. Fordham Institute survey found that 62 percent of upper elementary teachers and more than half of middle school teachers teach at students’ reading level rather than at grade level.  

    That may sound sensible, but Shanahan says it’s not helping anyone and is even leading teachers to dispense with reading altogether. “In social studies and science, and these days, even in English classes,” he said in an interview, “teachers either don’t assign any readings or they read the texts to the students.” Struggling readers aren’t being given the chance — or the tools — to tackle complex material on their own.

    Instead, Shanahan believes all students should read grade-level texts together, with teachers providing more support for those who need it.

    Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

    “What I’m recommending is instructional differentiation,” he said in our interview. “Everyone will have the same instructional goal — we’re all going to learn to read the fourth-grade text. I might teach a whole-class lesson and then let some kids move on to independent work while others get more help. Maybe the ones who didn’t get it, read the text again with my support. By the end, more students will have reached the learning goal — and tomorrow the whole class can take on another text.”

    27 different ways

    Shanahan’s approach doesn’t mean throwing kids into the deep end without help. His book outlines a toolbox of strategies for tackling difficult texts, such as looking up unfamiliar vocabulary, rereading confusing passages, or breaking down long sentences. “You can tip over into successful reading 27 different ways,” he said, and he hopes future researchers discover many more. 

    He is skeptical of drilling students on skills like identifying the main idea or making inferences. “We’ve treated test questions as the skill,” he said. “That doesn’t work.”

    There is widespread frustration over the deterioration of American reading achievement, especially among middle schoolers. (Thirty-nine percent of eighth graders cannot reach the lowest of three achievement levels, called “basic,” on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.) But there is little agreement among reading advocates on how to fix the problem. Some argue that what children primarily need is more knowledge to grasp unfamiliar ideas in a new reading passage, but Shanahan argues that background knowledge won’t be sufficient or as powerful as explicit comprehension instruction. Other reading experts agree. Nonie Lesaux, dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education who specializes in literacy in her own academic work, endorsed Shanahan’s argument in an October 2025 online discussion of the new book. 

    Shanahan is most persuasive in pointing out that there isn’t strong experimental evidence to show that reading achievement goes up more when students read a text at their individual level. By contrast, a 2024 analysis found that the most effective schools are those that keep instruction at grade level. Still, Shanahan acknowledges that more research is needed to pinpoint which comprehension strategies work best for which students and in which circumstances.

    Misunderstanding Vygotsky

    Teachers often cite the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development” to justify giving students books that are neither too easy nor too hard. But Shanahan says that’s a misunderstanding of Vygotsky’s work.

    Vygotsky believed teachers should guide students to learn challenging things they cannot yet do on their own, he said.

    He offers an analogy: a mother teaching her child to tie their shoes. At first, she demonstrates while narrating the steps aloud. Then the child does one step, and she finishes the rest. Over time, the mother gradually releases control and the child ties a bow on his own. “Leveled reading,” Shanahan said, “is like saying, ‘Why don’t we just get Velcro?’ This is about real teaching. ‘Boys and girls, you don’t know how to ride this bike yet, but I’m going to make sure you do by the time we’re done.’ ”

    Related: What happens to reading comprehension when students focus on the main idea

    Shanahan’s critique of reading instruction applies mainly from second grade onward, after children learn how to read and are focusing on understanding what they read. In kindergarten and first grade, when children are still learning phonics and how to decode the words on the page, the research evidence against small group instruction with different level texts isn’t as strong, he said. 

    Learning to read first – decoding – is important. Shanahan says there are rare exceptions to teaching all children at grade level. 

    “If a fifth grader still can’t read,” Shanahan said, “I wouldn’t make that child read a fifth-grade text.” That child might need separate instruction from a reading specialist.

    Advanced readers, meanwhile, can be challenged in other ways, Shanahan suggests, through independent reading time, skipping ahead to higher-grade reading classes, or by exploring complex ideas within grade-level texts.

    The role of AI — and parents

    Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to rewrite texts for different difficulty levels. Shanahan is skeptical of that approach. Simpler texts, whether written by humans or generated by AI, don’t teach students to improve their reading ability, he argues.

    Still, he’s intrigued by the idea of using AI to help students “climb the stairs” by instantly modifying a single text to a range of reading levels, say, to third-, fifth- and seventh-grade levels, and having students read them in quick succession. Whether that boosts comprehension is still unknown and needs to be studied.

    AI might be most helpful to teachers, Shanahan suspects, to help point to a sentence or a passage that tends to confuse students or trip them up. The teacher can then address those common difficulties in class. 

    Shanahan worries about what happens outside of school: Kids aren’t reading much at all.

    He urges parents to let children read whatever they enjoy — regardless if it’s above or below their level — but to set consistent expectations. “Nagging may not be effective,” he said. “But you can be specific: ‘After dinner Thursday, read the first chapter. When you’re done, we’ll talk about it, and then you can play a computer game or go on your phone.’ ”

    Too often, he says, parents back down when kids resist. “They are the kids. We are the adults,” Shanahan said. “We’re responsible. Let’s step up and do what’s right for them.”

    Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or [email protected].

    This story about reading levels was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

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  • Nevada Funding for Dolly Parton Book Program in Clark County Dries Up – The 74

    Nevada Funding for Dolly Parton Book Program in Clark County Dries Up – The 74


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    Over the past two years, upwards of 18,000 young children in the Las Vegas metro area have received free monthly books in the mail as part of an early literacy program started by country icon Dolly Parton. But that ends this month.

    Storied Inc., the Clark County-based nonprofit partner for Parton’s Imagination Library, last week announced to parents and guardians that its October books would be the last until additional funding for the program is secured. The program, when funded, provides a free, age-appropriate monthly book to children 0 to 5 years old.

    According to Meredith Helmick, executive director of Storied, the nonprofit sought funding from the Nevada State Legislature earlier this year to keep the program going after an initial two-years of state grant funding ended, but they came up empty handed.

    Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager sponsored a bill to appropriate $3.9 million to the United Way of Northern Nevada and the Sierra, which currently runs the Imagination Library for Washoe County residents, to expand the program statewide. The bill was referred to the Assembly Committee on Ways & Means, where it languished until the end of the regular session without a hearing or even a mention, according to the legislature’s website.

    Helmick also hoped the nonprofit program might be able to secure funding through Senate Bill 460, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro’s omnibus education legislation.

    An early version of that bill appropriated $50 million for early childhood literacy readiness programs, but an amendment reduced that to $0 for the fiscal year beginning July 2025 and $12 million for the fiscal year beginning July 2026. Helmick says lawmakers chose to prioritize expansion of preschool seats, a Cannizzaro priority.

    SB460 was heavily negotiated and amended to include many of Gov. Joe Lombardo’s education priorities. Those priorities included setting aside $7 million in grant funding for charter school transportation.

    It appears those other priorities came at the expense of existing innovative programs that were working.

    Helmick says a survey of her families last year found 62% of them had fewer than 20 children’s books in their homes before enrolling their children in the program.

    “This program is such a low cost, high reward program,” she added.

    Helmick is hopeful the program can return to the Las Vegas area. She says Storied is having conversations with large companies and other nonprofits, reaching out to elected officials at all levels of government, and urging their supporters to do the same.

    “We’ve heard rumors of a special session,” she adds. “Can we rewrite SB460 to include the language that it took out? Are there other funds that we could add or tap into that we could fit under? Maybe that’s an avenue.”

    ‘It isn’t just about the books’

    Meredith Helmick and her husband, Kyle, were inspired to start Storied Inc. after attempting to sign up their daughter for Imagination Library only to learn the nationwide program didn’t serve their area.

    Dolly Parton launched Imagination Library in 1995 and the program has since given out more than 250 million free books to children in the United States and four other countries.

    Storied Inc. is one of several partners running the program in Nevada. According to Helmick, the other partners have managed to continue their programs, either in whole or by scaling down the number of kids served.

    The sheer size of Clark County’s population makes that a tougher task for Storied. According to the Imagination Library’s website, nearly 29,000 Nevada children are enrolled, the vast majority through Storied.

    Helmick says that before they even had a chance to market the program or figure out stable funding, an intrepid stranger found the sign up form and shared it on a social media group for parents in Las Vegas.

    “In 48 hours, we had 3,500 kids registered,” she recalls. “It was, like, ‘I guess we’re doing it now.’ But it all worked out beautifully.”

    From there, the program quickly grew just by word of mouth. It was funded from June 2023 to July 2025 by a grant from the state’s Early Childhood Innovative Literacy Program. Participation fluctuates each month as kids are signed up or age out at 5 years old, but Helmick says it stays in the range of 18,000 or 19,000 thousand children spanning most of Clark County.

    (Boulder City residents have a dedicated partner, Reading to Z, which currently serves fewer than 200 kids. Rural Clark County residents who live in Valley Electric Association’s service area can sign up for a program run by the energy cooperative’s charitable foundation.)

    Over the summer, with the funding drying up, Storied stopped accepting new kids into the program.

    “We didn’t want to disappoint families” by starting to send them books only to stop sending them a few months later, said Helmick. “One thing that sets (Imagination Library) apart is these books are sent directly to their home. I am a huge proponent of libraries. I’m there practically every week. But not everybody is able to do that. That is a barrier.”

    Additionally, the books arrive addressed to the child.

    “Getting it in the mail, the label with their name, it gives them ownership of the book,” says Helmick. “It makes a huge difference. I didn’t realize it until I heard it from families.”

    On the inside of each book cover is a note from Imagination Library with tips for parents on conversations they can have with their child about the book, or questions they can ask to boost critical thinking and early reading skills.

    “It isn’t just about the books and the words and the stories you’re reading with your kids,” said Helmick. “It’s sitting together side by side. It’s having conversations with them.”

    Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: [email protected].


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  • WEEKEND READING: Moving home for the start of the academic year

    WEEKEND READING: Moving home for the start of the academic year

    UK universities are under mounting financial pressure. Join HEPI and King’s College London Policy Institute on 11 November 2025 at 1pm for a webinar on how universities balance relatively stable but underfunded income streams against higher-margin but volatile sources. Register now. We look forward to seeing you there.

    This blog was kindly authored by Philip Bakstad, Diversity and Inclusion Manager at Liverpool John Moores University.

    Chris’s mum died soon after his birth and his dad was out of the picture. He was brought up by his Nan, living with her in her council house. Chris’s Nan passed away while Chris was doing his foundation year at Liverpool John Moores University. The council wanted the house back. Still grieving for his Nan, Chris was at risk of becoming homeless and dropping out of university.

    Stories like Chris’ are not uncommon, yet they are at risk of being overlooked as university staff across the country gear up for the return of students each September. More on Chris later…

    The start of the academic year is both an exciting and hectic time for students and staff on university campuses across the country. For care-experienced and estranged students (CEES), this time of year often comes with a unique set of anxieties and challenges, as they not only navigate the usual issues around meeting new friends, understanding timetables and deciding which Freshers events to attend, but also transition into new living set-ups which will often now be their permanent home while studying at their new university.

    A diversity of experience

    The terms ‘care-experienced’ and ‘estranged’ encapsulate a broad range of lived experiences of students who have faced particular challenges related to their family circumstances while growing up. This can include having previously lived in a formal foster care arrangement with a Local Authority; being raised by another family member in kinship care or becoming estranged from their parents after the age of 16.

    Much has been done across the sector over the past two decades to address the under-representation of care-experienced and estranged students in higher education, but there remains a great deal of inconsistency. Young people who meet the formal definition of a ‘Care Leaver’ are eligible for a level of statutory support but this varies by Local Authority. For students who do not meet this legal definition but have experience of care or have faced other family disruption, there remains no national benchmark for what key support should be offered by all institutions across the higher education sector.

    Organisations such as NNECL, the Unite Foundation and the much-missed charity StandAlone have been invaluable partners as universities have developed Access and Participation Plans and specific interventions to not only improve the number of care experienced and estranged students accessing higher education, but also ensure that each care-experienced or estranged student receives a holistic support package, tailored to their individual needs.

    A home for success

    A key element of most institutions’ offer will be the provision of extended tenancies or ‘all year round’ accommodation. This recognises that many care-experienced and estranged students will be making their new accommodation their permanent base once the academic year begins. While this is now broadly accepted as best practice across the sector, many students still face difficulties in providing a guarantor or raising the funds for a deposit to secure the accommodation that will best suit their needs.

    At Liverpool John Moores University, we have long operated a ‘Guarantor Waiver’ scheme as part of our partnership arrangements with our accommodation providers in the city, ensuring that no care-experienced or estranged student should be excluded from accessing accommodation at this key transition point in their lives.  The Unite Foundation, led by students on their scholarship programme, are now campaigning for all universities to provide similar support.

    The following case studies provide some insight into the experiences of care experienced and estranged students and highlight the importance of accommodation as an invaluable support during their degree studies. Some details have been changed to protect anonymity.

    Case study 1 – growing up in kinship care

    Chris had been raised by his grandmother since an early age. During his Foundation Year at LJMU his grandmother sadly passed away and he contacted the Student Advice team for support as he would no longer be able to return home to their council house at the end of the academic year. Chris’ mother had passed away shortly after his birth and he had no contact with his biological father so he was at immediate risk of becoming homeless over the summer period.

    In the first instance, our accommodation partnership meant the university was able to reassure Chris that he would be able to extend his tenancy over the summer. At the same time, LJMU provided academic and wellbeing support to ensure his studies weren’t adversely impacted. 

    Chris’ key worry was having a stable home for the duration of his studies. He was very clear that living in halls worked for him as he had built up good relationships with the staff there. Moving into private accommodation and the logistical issues that posed caused him a great deal of anxiety.

    The university signposted him towards the Unite Foundation Scholarship and his application was a success. Chris lived in a Unite Students property, with his rent and bills covered by the Scholarship, for the duration of his studies at LJMU.

    As he navigated this complex period in his life, knowing that his university accommodation was guaranteed for three years was an anchor for Chris. He graduated with a 2:1 and is currently working in the IT sector.

    Case study 2 – becoming estranged at 18

    Alice became estranged from her mother aged 18, following a breakdown in the relationship between her and her mother’s new partner. She was asked to leave the family home and slept on friends’ sofas before her college became aware of her circumstances. She then moved into a young person’s foyer – a supported living space for young people who would otherwise experience homelessness.

    Alice’s Foyer Support Worker contacted LJMU as she was unable to provide a deposit or guarantor to secure her accommodation and had questions about how to apply for student finance as an independent student. Our partnership agreement enables LJMU to request that partner accommodation providers waive the need for a guarantor for care experienced and estranged students, so the university was able to quickly provide reassurance that the absence of a guarantor and deposit would not be a barrier to Alice booking her chosen accommodation.

    Upon arriving at LJMU, Alice met other estranged students at a social meet-up and chose to live in an LJMU partner hall with three other students for years 2 and 3 of their studies. While their family circumstances were all different, this sense of community and peer support was invaluable to Alice and her flatmates. She is now a high school teacher and keeps support staff at LJMU updated on new developments in her life.

    In conclusion

    There is so much to be excited about at the start of each academic year. Meeting new students and supporting them to step into independence is a privilege for both academic and Professional Service staff at universities across the country. It is an important milestone in every young person’s life but, for care experienced and estranged students, can be an even more pivotal moment of change and uncertainty. While I’ve only touched on the importance of accommodation in providing stability in this blog, it’s worth reflecting on the fact that not every student moving into university accommodation will be doing so with the support (and ‘Bank of’) Mum and Dad and that, for this group of students, we need to continue to go the extra mile to ensure they are able to get in and get on in higher education.

    Further information on LJMU support for care experienced and estranged students: https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/discover/student-support/inclusion/care-leavers

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  • Reading Between the Lines on Compact Responses

    Reading Between the Lines on Compact Responses

    Multiple universities have rejected President Trump’s proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, but they have taken different approaches to turning down the commander in chief. Some have declined pointedly, while others struck a more delicate balancing act.

    To be sure, leaders of the institutions invited to sign the compact have found themselves squeezed by both internal and external forces, under pressure from the federal government to approve the deal and from faculty and other campus constituents to reject it. Both public and private universities have also faced political pressure from state lawmakers, who in some cases urged them to sign and in others have threatened to strip funding if they do.

    Most of the nine universities originally invited to join the compact rejected it on or before the Oct. 20 deadline to provide feedback—well ahead of Nov. 21, the final date for making a decision. Their responses, released to the public, ranged from pointed to demure; in some cases, institutional leaders emphasized their core values in rebutting the proposal, which promised to grant preferential treatment in exchange for freezing tuition, capping international enrollment and suppressing criticism of conservatives, among other demands from the U.S. Department of Education.

    The Road to ‘No’

    Here are links to each institution’s response, in the order in which they were posted publicly:

    Together these statements offer insights into how institutions are responding to an unprecedented demand from the federal government: that they subscribe to President Trump’s culturally conservative vision of higher education in exchange for financial gain.

    Key Themes

    Experts note that while most institutions declined the deal, some statements stood out more than others.

    Brian Rosenberg, president emeritus of Macalester College, highlighted the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s statement as the clearest rejection. Unlike some of the other responses, it doesn’t promise future engagement on the federal government’s concerns and is a clear, resounding no based on MIT’s principles, he said.

    The first to reject the compact, MIT president Sally Kornbluth highlighted areas of agreement, such as an emphasis on merit in hiring, admissions and more, but she also argued that the proposal was “inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.”

    Lisa Corrigan, a communications professor at the University of Arkansas and an expert on rhetoric and political communication, flagged the University of Southern California’s statement as a notable response. She pointed out that while USC highlighted its commitment to promoting civil discourse, as many others did, it also emphasized its “commitment to ROTC and veterans.” (Brown and Arizona were the only other institutions to mention veterans in their responses.)

    “I thought USC really did a strong job in articulating exactly what values they are using to guide their decision-making in rejecting the compact,” Corrigan told Inside Higher Ed.

    Erin Hennessy, vice president at TVP Communications, flagged both the Dartmouth and Penn statements as notable for different reasons. With Dartmouth, Hennessy said she was struck by the brevity of the statement, which clocked in at about 230 words. And for Penn, she pointed out that it was the only university that did not share the rejection letter it sent to Education Secretary Linda McMahon along with its public statement. Every other institution that rejected the deal posted both a statement and the letter.

    (Asked for a copy of its response to the Department of Education, Penn declined to provide it.)

    Experts noted a number of other observations from the collective letters and accompanying statements—including how many presidents emphasized merit, which is mentioned in every response except Dartmouth’s. Altogether the word “merit” appears 15 times in the nine published university responses, and “meritocracy” is cited once.

    Hennessy posited that the focus on that specific word is an attempt to “push back on the perception of certain folks in the MAGA sphere that believe any program, or any consideration of race or class or ethnic background, is diametrically in conflict with the concept of merit.”

    Rosenberg suggested that universities are trying to turn the government’s argument against it. By emphasizing merit, universities are seizing on a “logical inconsistency in the position of the federal government,” he said. While the Trump administration is demanding merit in admissions, hiring and other areas, it also has signaled a willingness to provide preferential treatment on federal research funding based not on merit but a willingness to conform to political priorities.

    Many of the responses also mentioned institutional neutrality policies.

    USC, Virginia, Vanderbilt and WashU all cited the concept, though only USC and Virginia submitted clear rejections; WashU sent a mixed message, and Vanderbilt has committed only to offering feedback on the proposal. Dartmouth, which also has an institutional neutrality policy, did not mention it.

    Both Arizona and Virginia used a similar turn of phrase to reject the compact’s promise of preferential status in exchange for signing, with officials writing, “We seek no special treatment” in connection to advancing their missions.

    One word, however, is notably absent among all the responses: Trump. And only Dartmouth referenced political affiliation in its response to the federal government. President Sian Beilock wrote that she did not believe “the involvement of the government through a compact—whether it is a Republican- or Democratic-led White House—is the right way to focus America’s leading colleges and universities on their teaching and research mission.”

    WashU’s Muddled Messaging

    Though Washington University in St. Louis agreed to provide feedback to the federal government, administrators also appeared to tacitly reject the compact proposal. The university’s initial statement on Monday noted concerns about the compact but stopped short of an outright rejection; Chancellor Andrew Martin wrote that providing feedback does not mean “we have endorsed or signed on” to the proposal.

    But in a Tuesday email to faculty members, Martin wrote he “can confirm that we won’t sign the proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education … or any document that undermines our mission or our core values.” Martin added WashU will provide feedback, emphasizing the importance of “having our voice at the table for these potentially consequential conversations.”

    WashU, however, has been reluctant to publicly call that a rejection.

    Asked by Inside Higher Ed about the authenticity of the email, first published by another news outlet, and whether it amounts to a rejection, a university spokesperson only confirmed it was official.

    Corrigan suggested that both WashU and Vanderbilt are trying to buy time “to see which universities are going to be in the next round, if any.” She added, “They want the opportunity to return to the conversation when there’s more political cover for them to potentially say no.”

    Institutional Silence

    While most universities invited to join the compact responded publicly by the deadline, both the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Kansas have remained silent on the matter.

    Neither has issued publicly shared feedback or other statements about the compact, though University of Texas system board leadership initially responded positively to the invitation to join.

    “For institutions that haven’t responded publicly yet, the questions I would be asking are, is there division between the president and the board on how to move forward on this? Is there division between the president and the faculty on how to move forward on this?” Hennessy said.

    To her, that silence signals that internal negotiations are likely at play, potentially involving debates over strategy, language and other points. She believes nonresponders are more likely to sign the compact and may be “trying to figure out how to make a yes more palatable” to critics.

    Rosenberg suggests there are likely legal concerns being discussed.

    “Like virtually everything else coming out of the government right now, it’s going to face a legal challenge once someone signs, because the limitations on free speech for members of the community are pretty severe,” he said. “Once someone signs, it’s going to end up in the courts.”

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  • Science of Reading Training, Practice Vary, New Research Finds – The 74

    Science of Reading Training, Practice Vary, New Research Finds – The 74


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    North Carolina is one of several states that have passed legislation in recent years to align classroom reading instruction with the research on how children learn to read. But ensuring all students have access to research-backed instruction is a marathon, not a sprint, said education leaders and researchers from across the country on a webinar from the Hunt Institute last Wednesday.

    Though implementation of the state’s reading legislation has been ongoing since 2021, more resources and comprehensive support are needed to ensure teaching practice and reading proficiency are improved, webinar panelists said.

    “The goal should be to transition from the science of reading into the science of teaching reading,” said Paola Pilonieta, professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who was part of a team that studied North Carolina’s implementation of its 2021 Excellent Public Schools Act.

    That legislation mandates instruction to be aligned with “the science of reading,” the research that says learning to read involves “the acquisition of language (phonology, syntax, semantics, morphology, and pragmatics), and skills of phonemic awareness, accurate and efficient work identification (fluency), spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension.”

    The legislature allocated more than $114 million to train pre-K to fifth grade teachers and other educators in the science of reading through a professional development tool called the Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS). More than 44,000 teachers had completed the training as of June 2024.

    Third graders saw a two-point drop, from 49% to 47%, in reading proficiency from the 2023-24 to 2024-25 school year on literacy assessments. It was the first decline in this measure since LETRS training began. First graders’ results on formative assessments held steady at 70% proficiency and second graders saw a small increase, from 65% to 66%.

    “LETRS was the first step in transforming teacher practice and improving student outcomes,” Pilonieta said. “To continue to make growth in reading, teachers need targeted ongoing support in the form of coaching, for example, to ensure effective implementation of evidence-based literacy instruction.”

    Teachers’ feelings on the training

    Pilonieta was part of a team at UNC-Charlotte and the Education Policy Initiative at Carolina (EPIC) at UNC-Chapel Hill that studied teachers’ perception of the LETRS training and districts’ implementation of that training. The team also studied teachers’ knowledge of research-backed literacy practices and how they implemented those practices in small-group settings after the training.

    They asked about these experiences through a survey completed by 4,035 teachers across the state from spring 2023 to winter 2024, and 51 hour-long focus groups with 113 participants.

    Requiring training on top of an already stressful job can be a heavy lift, Pilonieta said. LETRS training looked different across districts, the research team found. Some teachers received stipends to complete the training or were compensated with time off, and some were not. Some had opportunities to collaborate with fellow educators during the training; some did not.

    “These differences in support influenced whether teachers felt supported during the training, overwhelmed, or ignored,” Pilonieta said.

    Teachers did perceive the content of the LETRS training to be helpful in some ways and had concerns in others, according to survey respondents.

    Teachers holding various roles found the content valuable in learning about how the brain works, phonics, and comprehension.

    They cited issues, however, with the training’s applicability to varied roles, limited differentiation based on teachers’ background knowledge and experience, redundancy, and a general limited amount of time to engage with the training’s content.

    Varied support from administrators, coaches

    When asking teachers about how implementation worked at their schools, the researchers found that support from administrators and instructional coaches varied widely.

    Teachers reported that classroom visits from administrators with a focus on science of reading occurred infrequently. The main support administrators provided, according to the research, was planning time.

    “Many teachers felt that higher levels of support from coaches would be valuable to help them implement these reading practices,” Pilonieta said.

    Teachers did report shifts in their teaching practice after the training and felt those tweaks had positive outcomes on students.

    The team found other conditions impacted teachers’ implementation: schools’ use of curriculum that aligned to the concepts covered in the training, access to materials and resources, and having sufficient planning time.

    Some improvement in knowledge and practice

    Teachers performed well on assessments after completing the training, but had lower scores on a survey given later by the research team. Pilonieta said this suggests an issue with knowledge retention.

    Teachers scored between 95% to 98% across in the LETRS post-training assessment. But in the research team’s survey, scores ranged from 48% to 78%.

    Teachers with a reading license scored higher on all knowledge areas addressed in LETRS than teachers who did not.

    When the team analyzed teachers’ recorded small-group reading lessons, 73% were considered high-quality. They found consistent use of explicit instruction, which is a key component of the science of reading, as well as evidence-backed strategies related to phonemic awareness and phonics. They found limited implementation of practices on vocabulary and comprehension.

    Among the low-quality lessons, more than half were for students reading below grade level. Some “problematic practices” persisted in 17% of analyzed lessons.

    What’s next?

    The research team formed several recommendations on how to improve reading instruction and reading proficiency.

    They said ongoing professional development through education preparation programs and teacher leaders can help teachers translate knowledge to instructional change. Funding is also needed for instructional coaches to help teachers make that jump.

    Guides differentiated by grade levels would help different teachers with different needs when it comes to implementing evidence-backed strategies. And the state should incentivize teachers to pursue specialized credentials in reading instruction, the researchers said.

    Moving forward, the legislation might need more clarity on mechanisms for sustaining the implementation of the science of reading. The research team suggests a structured evaluation framework that tracks implementation, student impact, and resource distribution to inform the state’s future literacy initiatives.

    This article first appeared on EdNC and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.


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  • WEEKEND READING: Building the transatlantic cyber bridge: what ‘Careers-First’ really means for the future workforce

    WEEKEND READING: Building the transatlantic cyber bridge: what ‘Careers-First’ really means for the future workforce

    This blog was kindly authored by Professor Paul Marshall, Vice-President (Global Campus) and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Careers & Enterprise), University of East London.

    As the UK Government prepares its long-awaited White Paper on the future of higher education, it is timely to reflect on the purpose and impact of our universities. At their best, they are not simply sites of knowledge creation – they are instruments of national capability. Few challenges illustrate that more vividly than cybersecurity.

    When I joined a panel at the CyberBay Cybersecurity Conference in Tampa earlier this month, Dr Richard Munassi, Managing Director of Tampa Bay Wave, opened with a warning that set the tone for the discussion:

    We are in a cyber war – a war waged by well-financed, state-backed criminal organisations so sophisticated that they have their own HR divisions.

    He was right. Earlier this year, Jaguar Land Rover was forced to suspend production after a ransomware attack that rippled across its global supply chain. The UK Government’s intervention – with a support package approaching £1.5 billion – made clear that cybersecurity is not an IT issue; it is economic infrastructure.

    As the sector awaits the Government’s vision for the future, one truth already stands out: higher education must not only prepare individuals for work –  it must prepare the nation for risk.

    At the University of East London (UEL), that challenge sits at the heart of our institutional strategy, Vision 2028, which seeks to transform lives through education, innovation, and enterprise. The strategy’s organising principle – Careers-First – redefines employability as capability.

    Rather than positioning careers as an outcome of study, it embeds professional practice, enterprise, and resilience into every degree and partnership. The test for every programme is simple: does it equip our students to adapt, contribute, and lead in industries defined by constant change?

    Nowhere is this approach more tangible than in cybersecurity. Our BSc Cyber Security & Networks, MSc Information Security & Digital Forensics, and Cyber Security Technical Professional Degree Apprenticeship all combine rigorous academic study with live, industry-based application. 

    Students work directly with BT, IBM, Fujitsu, and Ford, tackling real-time challenges in threat analysis, data forensics, and network defence. By the time they graduate, they are not simply work-ready — they are work-proven, having contributed to the resilience of the very sectors they will soon join.

    The results speak for themselves:

    • With Siemens UK, students tested firmware vulnerabilities in industrial systems, informing Siemens’ internal training programmes.
    • With Barclays Eagle Labs, they created a fraud-analysis dashboard now in pilot testing.
    • With NHS Digital, they developed a ransomware-simulation tool to train hospital teams in incident response.

    Each collaboration demonstrates a single idea: learning is most powerful when it changes the world beyond the classroom.

    UEL’s Institute for Connected Communities (ICC), led by Professor Julia Davidson OBE, anchors this model in research excellence and policy leadership. The ICC brings together computing, criminology, psychology, and social science to examine the human, technical, and organisational dimensions of online safety.

    Its research informs the UK Council for Internet Safety, Ofcom, UNICEF, and multiple international governments. Through projects such as Global Kids Online, ICC research directly shapes teaching, ensuring that our graduates understand not only how to secure systems, but why digital trust matters to society.

    As policymakers consider the future role of universities in the forthcoming White Paper, the ICC already provides a working example of how academic research translates into practical and regulatory impact.

    The White Paper will also need to consider how global collaboration strengthens national capability. UEL’s Global Campus model demonstrates how this can work in practice — connecting students and employers across India, Greece, Egypt, and the United States to create shared pathways for study, innovation, and employment.

    Our developing partnership with Tampa Bay Wave, framed within the UK–Florida Memorandum of Understanding (2023), offers one illustration. We are building both virtual and physical experiences that will enable UEL students to engage with Florida’s growing cybersecurity and fintech ecosystem through mentoring, live projects, and placements, while providing a London base for US start-ups entering the UK market.

    A genuine transatlantic bridge is being constructed –  designed for movement in both directions, connecting students, researchers, and entrepreneurs to co-create secure-by-design technologies and governance frameworks. It is the Careers-First model, scaled globally.

    The next phase of cybersecurity will occur where AI, data, and physical systems converge. Attacks will target intelligent infrastructure –  transport grids, hospitals and manufacturing. UEL is already embedding these challenges into its curriculum, guided by ICC research. Students design adversarial-AI tests, examine supply-chain vulnerabilities, and develop frameworks for organisational resilience.

    This approach recognises that technology evolves faster than any static syllabus. Students are therefore treated as co-creators, working alongside academics and employers to design the solutions industry will need next.

    As the UK Government prepares its White Paper, one principle should underpin the national conversation: universities are not peripheral to resilience –  they are central to it. They educate the workforce, generate the research, and sustain the partnerships that keep the nation secure.

    UEL’s Careers-First model, aligned to Vision 2028, embodies that principle. It fuses employability, enterprise, and global engagement into one coherent system of capability. Our collaboration with Tampa Bay Wave is a single, tangible expression of this –  connecting East London’s lecture theatres to innovation ecosystems across the Atlantic.

    In a global cyber war, the question is not whether universities should respond, but how fast they can. At UEL, that response is already underway –  this is what Careers-First looks like.

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  • How We Outperformed National Reading Scores – And Kept Students at Grade Level – The 74

    How We Outperformed National Reading Scores – And Kept Students at Grade Level – The 74


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    As reading scores remain a top concern for schools nationwide, many districts are experimenting with ability-based grouping in the early grades. The idea is to group students in multiple grade levels by their current reading level — not their grade level. A classroom could have seven kindergartners, 10 first graders, and three second graders grouped together for reading because they all read at the same level.

    While this may work for some schools, in our district, Rockwood School District in Missouri, we’ve chosen a different path. We keep students together in their class during whole-class instruction — regardless of ability level — and provide support or enrichment by creating flexible groups based on instructional needs within their grade level.

    We’re building skilled, confident readers not by separating them, but by growing them together.

    Children, like adults, learn and grow in diverse groups. In a Rockwood classroom, every student contributes to the shared learning environment — and every student benefits from being part of it.

    Our approach starts with whole-class instruction. All students, including English multilingual learners and those working toward grade-level benchmarks, participate in daily, grade-level phonics and comprehension lessons. We believe these shared experiences are foundational — not just for building literacy, but for fostering community and academic confidence.

    After our explicit, whole-group lessons, students move into flexible, needs-based small groups informed by real-time data and observations. Some students receive reteaching, while others take on enrichment activities. During these blocks, differentiation is fluid: A student may need decoding help one day and vocabulary enrichment the next. No one is locked into a static tier. Every day is a new opportunity.

    Students also engage in daily independent and partner reading. In addition, reading specialists provide targeted, research-based interventions for striving readers who need additional instruction.

    We build movement into our instruction, as well — not as a brain break, but as a learning tool. We use gestures for phonemes, tapping for spelling and jumping to count syllables. These are “brain boosts,” helping young learners stay focused and engaged.

    We challenge all students, regardless of skill level. During phonics and word work, advanced readers work with more complex texts and tasks. Emerging readers receive the time and scaffolded support they need — such as visual cues and pre-teaching or exposing students to a concept or skill before it’s formally taught during a whole-class lesson. That can help them fully participate in every class. A student might not yet be able to decode or encode every word, but they are exposed to the grade-level standards and are challenged to meet the high expectations we have for all students.

    During shared and interactive reading lessons, all students are able to practice fluency and build their comprehension skills and vocabulary knowledge. Through these shared experiences, every child experiences success.

    There’s a common misconception that mixed-ability classrooms hold back high achievers or overwhelm striving readers. But in practice, engagement depends more on how we teach rather than who is in the room. With well-paced, multimodal lessons grounded in grade-level content, every learner finds an entry point.

    You’ll see joy, movement, and mutual respect in our classrooms — because when we treat students as capable, they rise. And when we give them the right tools, not labels, they use them.

    While ability grouping may seem like a practical solution, research suggests it can have a lasting downside. A Northwestern University study of nearly 12,000 students found that those placed in the lowest kindergarten reading groups rarely caught up to their peers. For example, when you group a third grader with first graders, when does the older child get caught up? Even if he learns and progresses with his ability group, he’s still two grade levels behind his third-grade peers.

    This study echoes what researchers refer to as the Matthew Effect in reading: The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. Lower-track students are exposed to less complex vocabulary and fewer comprehension strategies. Once placed on that path, it’s hard to catch up. Once a student is assigned a label, it’s difficult to change it — for both the student and educators.

    In Rockwood, we’re confident in what we’re doing. We have effective, evidence-based curricula for Tier I phonics and comprehension, and every student receives the same whole-class instruction as every other student in their grade. Then, students receive intervention or enrichment as needed.

    At the end of the 2024–25 school year, our data affirmed what we see every day. Our kindergarteners outperformed national proficiency averages in every skill group — in some cases by more than 17 percentage points, according to our Reading Horizons data. Our first and second graders outpaced national averages across nearly every domain. We don’t claim to have solved the literacy crisis — or know that our model will work for every district, school, classroom or student — but we’re building readers before gaps emerge.

    We’ve learned that when every student receives strong Tier I instruction, no one gets left behind. The key isn’t separating kids by ability. It’s designing instruction that’s universally strong and strategically supported.

    We recognize that every community faces distinct challenges. If you’re a district leader weighing the trade-offs of ability grouping, consider this: When you pull students out of the room during critical learning moments, the rich vocabulary, the shared texts and the academic conversation, you are not closing the learning gap, but creating a bigger one. Those critical moments build more than skills; they build readers.

    In Rockwood, our data confirms what we see every day: students growing not only in skills, but also in confidence, stamina and joy. We’re proving that inclusive, grade-level-first instruction can work — and work well — for all learners.


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  • WEEKEND READING: University Collaboration – the case for admissions and professional registration  

    WEEKEND READING: University Collaboration – the case for admissions and professional registration  

    This HEPI guest blog was kindly written by James Seymour, who runs an education consultancy focusing on marketing, student recruitment, admissions and reputation and Julie Kelly who runs a higher education consultancy specialising in registry and governance challenges. Julie and James have worked for a range of universities at Director level in recent years.  

    The Challenge  

    All through August and September, many admissions and faculty/course teams have been working hard to get thousands of new students over the line and onto the next stage of their lives. It is more than just their UCAS application, interview, selection and firm acceptance or journey through Clearing – they have to actually enrol and succeed too.  

    Many of these students are training to be nurses, teachers, paramedics, social workers and doctors amongst many other allied health professional and education courses. They all need to go through essential and important Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Body (PSRB) requirements and additional compliance checks, from passports, to Disclosure and Barring Service questionnaires, to health questionnaires and more. Many are mature students who must demonstrate GCSE or equivalent competency at Grade C/4 or above. They are less likely to have support navigating this process as they are less likely to be in full-time education.  

    Most of these applicants have already been interviewed, attended selection days or Multiple Mini Interviews – MMIs (like selection speed dating) involving lots of competency stations.  

    These health students also must apply for their Student Finance loans in good time to trigger the all-important £5K+ NHS learning support fund – essential to enable them to succeed and even get to their clinical placements via bus, train or car.  

    It’s a very onerous process for applicants, their supporters, and the academic, admissions, and compliance teams, who must arrange and record all of this.  

    Clearly, getting all this information recorded and verified is important, but does it have to be so admin-heavy and time-consuming? Are we putting up barriers and disincentives deterring students from starting their studies?  

    At present, we have an inconsistent mess, often involving email and incessant chasing.  

    There has to be a better way  

    Over the last 10 years we have been involved in a number of process improvement/student journey projects at a number of UK universities.  In our experience it takes at least five times longer to admit a Nurse compared to a Business, Law or English student, and at least twice as long compared to a creative arts student who submits their portfolio for interview and review. Data from The Student Loans Company indicates that at least 25% of all new students only apply for their loans on or after results day in August – presenting real risk of delays in getting their money in time for enrolment.  

    Typically, only 85-90% of Nurses and other key NHS-backed students who have a confirmed UCAS place in August actually enrol in September. Another 3-5% have left before January.  

    This is not all about motivation or resilience – part of the issue is linked to getting these students over the line with all the additional hoops they have to jump through.  

    Another issue is around wasted resource across the sector and a poor student experience.  A student typically applies to their five UCAS choices, and many universities undertake the additional PSRB checks during the admission process.  A student is therefore having to supply their information to multiple institutions, which then need to be processed for students who may never actually enrol.  Surely it is better for students to supply this information once during the initial application stage? 

    Postgraduate Teachers including PGCE and Teach First students have to navigate a gov.uk application process (rather than UCAS) which feels like completing your tax return. A daunting and clunky first step to train in one of the most important careers any of us will ever do. They also only get three choices for courses that start in early September – only 2-3 weeks after many final year degree results are confirmed, putting undue pressure both on students, schools and institutions alike. 

    It’s clear that in the context of improving efficiency, eventual enrolment and reducing stress for all, a more collaborative approach across UK HE and professional training would be a real win. The same issues apply for onboarding, applications and selection for degree and higher apprenticeships.  

    The NHS workforce plan signals a clear need to train more Nurses and other key NHS staff and we know that teacher recruitment targets have been missed again this year.  

    Solutions and Future Projects 

    In the context of collaboration between universities, NHS, UKVI, UCAS and DfE we propose some key, essential ways to improve the process and increase the pipeline of future health and education professionals.  

    1. Create a safe, secure one-stop shop for PSRB checks, uploads and compliance so that students do it once and can be shared with all their university choices and options. There are a number of Ed Tech companies as well as UCAS, providing portals for applicants and the Gov.uk system is already improving each year.  
    1. As well as the process, revisit the timeline for applications and compliance for NHS and other PSRB courses – if this is all checked and ready by April-May and directly linked up to Student Finance Applications and/or NHS bursary support – far more students would be able to enrol, train and be ready to learn.  This would require proper process mapping and joined up thinking across different government departments, UCAS and universities themselves.  
    1. The HE sector and NHS should collectively review the factors, groups and critical incidents affecting non-enrolment and first year drop out – nationally and across all PSRB courses – and work at pace to ‘fix the leaks’ accordingly. At present these data sets are not shared or acted upon across the UK but only via individual universities, trusts and occasionally at conferences and sector meetings.  
    1. UCAS and exam boards need to urgently bring forward automatic sharing of GCSE results via the ABL system so that universities and applicants can be assured of level 2 qualifications.  
    1. Look at alternatives to the ‘doom loop’ of GCSE Maths and English retakes and essential requirement for entry to NHS and other professional courses. There are already alternative qualifications including Functional Skills and these need to be amplified, so more students are able to get over the line and start training.  
    1. Universities should work together not against each other. Each university or training provider spends many tens of thousands each year on recruitment campaigns.  For Nursing degrees alone, we estimate this to be at least £1M per year; pooling just 10% of this figure to ensure a consistent brand and overarching campaign would widen the pool of applicants rather than pit universities against each other.  
    1. Review the application process for Postgraduate Teacher Training – consider whether it should be given back to UCAS or another tech platform to improve visibility, choice, applicant journey and eventual enrolment figures.  Clearly only three choices is not enough with some providers being more efficient than others in responding to applicants and dealing with application volumes. The resulting bottlenecks impact on applicant confidence in the system. The early September start date for PG teaching courses also needs a review.  Apart from the application time pressure, these students are also starting before the campus (and school?) is truly ready for the start of term.  Why not start with the rest of their peers at the end of September and also introduce a January start point as an option? 
    1. Make funding more consistent and long term – at present universities are only paid to train students based on first year intake each year, leading to short term decisions, volatility and competition. The LLE due in 2027 is unlikely to lead to flexibility in PSRB course transfer. Giving universities and health trusts a 3-4 year funding model would iron out that volatility, encourage new entrants and provide certainty to invest in facilities, staff and support to train those students.  

    Conclusion and next steps  

    As the HE sector looks back on admission and enrolment for the 2025/26 academic year and prepares for 2026/27 entry we feel that something must change to enhance the admission process for PSRB courses, all of which are critical to the future of the UK.  

    The practical steps and ideas included within the article are all deliverable but need joined-up thinking across different parts of the process. We propose establishing a working group or task force to address quick wins and consider a roadmap for addressing longer-term solutions. 

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