The Children’s Commissioner’s School Census 2025 – What needs to change for schools?

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Beyond the Classroom

This week the Children’s Commissioner (Dame Rachel de Souza) published The Children’s Plan: The School Census 2025. It is the first national survey undertaken by this office to ask every school and college what children really need to thrive.

The report on the findings of this census explains how schools have transformed standards over the past 20 years, but makes clear that too many children are still being left behind. We already know that schools do not just educate, they feed, safeguard, comfort, and support too and The Children’s Plan census confirms this. How schools could/should do this, and what the wider system around them needs to do next is the question posed in the Children’s Plan (and it attempts to answer this also), but our immediate question is…

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What Could The Census Mean for Teachers?

Alongside the results, the report this week comes with a set of recommendations for reform, designed to make sure every child can attend, engage and succeed in education.

The census highlights the weight schools are already carrying, from supporting children with complex needs to filling gaps left by shrinking local services. It also offers a vision of how schools might be better supported in the future, with clearer frameworks, fairer funding, and stronger partnerships.

For a change, it reads as a report that is praising of teachers and the work they are all doing and looks more at how they can be better supported, and how we can better define the role of schools. This is not to say that there will be nothing needed, only that, whilst the statistics from the census are at times quite galling, the message and the proposed solutions are somewhat more heartening.

In this blog, we delve into the report’s findings, from the concerns leaders raise, to the patchy provision across the country, to the recommendations for change, and consider what they mean for those working in classrooms and leading schools today.

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School Concerns and Support Levels

The census shows just how many children are carrying challenges that affect their learning. In the summer term of 2024:

• 1.5 million pupils were receiving free school meals

• 147,000 were living in unsuitable accommodation

• 150,000 had experienced the bereavement of someone close

• 131,000 were on waiting lists for mental health support (although NHS data suggests it was closer to 320,000!)

• 75,000 were young carers

• 31,000 had a parent in prison

The numbers are staggering, or…they would be, had we not all already been aware of the severity of the situation being faced across the sector. They show the breadth of issues schools are dealing with every day, some of which remain invisible in official data, though we are all too familiar with them from the lived reality of teaching. Primary schools tended to know their pupils’ circumstances more clearly than secondaries, but across the system there are large gaps in the information schools receive about the children they teach.

As for support, 95% of primary schools reported significant financial barriers to providing extra support while staff capacity was an issue for 78% of primary schools. Leaders were clear that while schools step in wherever they can, many of the challenges children face cannot be solved in classrooms alone.

Unsurprisingly, mental health, attendance, and SEND progress were top concerns for leaders, while behaviour and attainment were lower down the list.

The message is clear. Schools are carrying more (and wider) responsibility than ever, but without the resources, staff, and joined-up local services, the support they can give children will always be stretched too thin.

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Provision in Schools

The census shows that schools are stepping far beyond their traditional role of teaching, but the picture is patchy. Provision is wide-ranging, yet inconsistent across schools and regions.

When it comes to staffing, just under half of primary schools (42%) reported access to a mental health counsellor, though only 17% had one on site. Most rely on external providers. Similarly, while 65% of primaries had access to an Educational Psychologist, this was usually through external provision (58%) rather than in-house (8%). For speech and language therapy, 63% of schools had access, again mainly externally. School nurses were available to a mere 44% of primaries.

Family liaison or support officers were far more common, with just over half of primary schools employing one. Around a third had dedicated staff for young carers, and one in ten reported support for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

Beyond staffing, schools are also providing resources and services. Nearly all primary schools reported enrichment activities: 95% offered art, drama, and music, while 99% offered sport. Breakfast provision was in place in 88% of schools, with 43% also providing free food for families. Wrap-around childcare was offered by 79% of primaries, and 60% had a nursery on site. Dedicated wellbeing rooms were present in 71% of primaries, while social and emotional wellbeing interventions were reported in 95%.

But the gaps are clear. Only 11% had access to a Family Hub or children’s centre. Fewer than one in five primaries had youth work provision, despite growing calls for community-based support.

Provision also varies by deprivation. In the most deprived schools, 56% had a dedicated mental health counsellor, compared to 33% of the least deprived. Free food provision was more than twice as likely (58% vs 26%), and family liaison roles were far more common (73% vs 36%). Nursery provision was also nearly twice as likely in the most deprived schools (85% vs 43%). Interestingly, wrap-around childcare was more common in more affluent schools (89% vs 53%), highlighting a gap in extended care where families may need it most.

What this shows is that schools are doing an extraordinary amount to meet children’s wider needs, but provision depends heavily on local context, budgets, and external services. Some children benefit from a rich network of support, while others are left with very little.

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What Do Schools Believe They Should Do?

The census asked schools what extra support they would like to provide if money, staffing, or external services were not a barrier. The answers are telling.

In primary schools, more than three quarters of leaders without existing provision said they would like to have:

• a mental health counsellor

• a speech and language therapist

• a family liaison or support officer

• an Educational Psychologist

• an Education Mental Health Practitioner

Many leaders recognise they are already filling gaps left by other services and want to continue doing so, but they are blunt about the cost. As one primary school put it:

“Schools are increasingly having to cover the roles that other services would have previously provided. Whilst schools are capable of providing this support, they do need sufficient funding and financial support from a government level… Without the additional support and funding, other aspects of school life such as academic standards, behaviour and attendance suffer.”

The census gives us something new: the chance to hear directly from schools about what they believe their role should be. And again, the message is clear. They are ready to step up, but they need the resources and recognition to make it sustainable.

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What Needs to Change

In short…a lot.

Disadvantaged pupils still fall behind, persistent absence has soared since the pandemic, and almost a third of children say they do not enjoy school.

Teachers and leaders are stepping up, but they are stretched thin. Funding has dropped from 5.6% of national income in 2010–11 to 4.1% in 2023–24, while demand for SEND and wider support has soared. Schools are worried not only about their own budgets, but also about the collapse of wider services. Without strong external provision, schools cannot do it all.

Brilliant teaching will always be at the heart of education, but for too many children the barriers outside the classroom are holding them back. Reform must focus on breaking those barriers so that teaching can make the difference it should.

The report sets out six recommendations:

1. A national statement of ambition for all children
   A clear commitment that every child has the right to attend, engage, and succeed at school.

2. A new focus on additional needs
   Recognising that most children will need extra support at some point, not only those with formal SEND.

3. Extra help for schools to deliver targeted and specialist support
   Funding, staffing, and training so schools can provide early help, without waiting for crises.

4. A new approach to statutory support through Education, Health and Care Plans
   More consistent and less adversarial, ensuring children and families get timely and fair support.

5. Delivering opportunity locally
   Local boards to coordinate services so schools are not left to fill every gap on their own.

6. The critical role of special schools and alternative provision
   Recognising their importance, but ensuring they are part of a wider inclusive system rather than a last resort.

The call is not for schools to take on even more, but for a joined-up system where schools are backed by strong services, specialist staff, and consistent funding. For children, that means having the right help, in the right place, at the right time.

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What do we think?

The Children’s Plan makes for sobering reading in places. The scale of need among children is vast, and schools are carrying more responsibility than ever before. But it also recognises something teachers and leaders do not hear often enough: that schools have been stepping up, day in and day out, to hold children and communities together.

The recommendations are ambitious. They call for stronger services, fairer funding, better data, and a clearer role for schools within a joined-up system. None of this will be simple, and none of it will happen overnight. But the direction is one most teachers will welcome.

For classroom teachers, it is a recognition that you cannot be expected to do everything. For leaders, it is a call for government to build structures that match the reality of school life, so you are not left patching holes in the system. And for children, it is a promise that their voices are being heard.

If the Children’s Plan is taken seriously, it could be the start of a new phase of reform. One that values great teaching as the foundation, but also ensures no child is left without the support they need to learn, to flourish, and to build their future.

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