Page 8 - Who is losing learning IPPR Briefing & Podcast March 2025

Briefing Document:

"Who is Losing Learning? Solutions" Report

Source: Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)

Date: March 2025.

Executive Summary:

This briefing document summarizes the key themes and recommendations from the IPPR's
follow-up report, "Who is Losing Learning? Solutions." Building upon their previous report, this

document outlines a "crisis of lost learning" in English schools, disproportionately affecting
disadvantaged students. It argues that a narrow, siloed approach to inclusion, focusing on
specialist support at crisis points, is failing many children. The report champions a vision of
"whole school inclusion" where all staff support the learning, wellbeing, and safety needs of all

children so they can belong, achieve, and thrive. The report proposes ten key
recommendations centered around redefining and measuring inclusion, ensuring equitable
school populations, reforming accountability measures, increasing funding for early
intervention and universal support, developing inclusive leadership, addressing teacher

recruitment and retention in underserved schools, fostering community collaboration,
integrating services for children and families, and improving oversight of pupil movements.

Main Themes and Important Ideas/Facts:

1. The Crisis of Lost Learning and the Need for a Broader Definition of
Inclusion:

•The report reiterates the "crisis of lost learning" identified in the previous IPPR report,
highlighting its disproportionate impact on children living in poverty, with identified special
educational needs (SEN), known to children’s social care, and those experiencing structural
racism.

•It criticizes the current education system for often treating challenges like behaviour,
attendance, and SEN support as separate issues, leading to a "costly siloed approach focused
on specialist support for children who reach a certain legal threshold.“

•The report argues for a "far broader definition of inclusion" that goes beyond SEN and

disability, recognizing that a growing number of children "don’t feel like they belong at school
and who struggle to engage, leading to absence and exclusion.“

•Quote: "Too often, inclusion is defined narrowly, with schools often seeing it as a separate
objective, something that is done ‘over there’, perhaps by the SENCo, or a teaching assistant,

and by special and alternative provision schools. But ‘inclusion’ is about more than just special
educational needs and disability.“

•The report proposes a definition of "whole school inclusion": "all staff supporting the
learning, wellbeing and safety needs of all children, so that they belong, achieve and
thrive."