New EPI and Renaissance Report

This report forms the first in a series of reports by the Education Policy Institute and Renaissance over the coming year. These findings provide new evidence of the impact of the pandemic on pupils’ school attainment.

This new analysis uses Renaissance’s Star Reading and Star Maths Assessments to create the largest sample size available in the country.

Later reports will provide further detailed estimates of learning loss and recovery, including regional breakdowns, with the aim of enhancing understanding of the impacts on pupils over recent years so that future support can be targeted where it is most needed.

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You can download the report here.

This report is the first in a series from Renaissance and the Education Policy Institute (EPI). It uses Renaissance’s Star Assessments for reading and maths to create the largest sample size available in the country.

This first report shows that the pandemic is still having an adverse effect on pupils’ learning:

- Mathematics outcomes for primary-aged pupils remain below pre-pandemic levels – amounting to just under 1.5 months’ worth of learning by the end of the autumn term. Outcomes for younger year groups are even further behind pre-pandemic norms.
- More positively, average outcomes in reading have largely been recovered in primary schools, consistent with results from national assessments last summer.
- The gap in reading outcomes between primaries with the highest levels of socioeconomic disadvantage and those with the lowest is still around 6 per cent wider than at the start of the pandemic. This suggests that pupils in disadvantaged areas have suffered bigger adverse learning effects than those in more affluent areas.

More reports

Focus Skills

Available exclusively from Renaissance, Focus Skills™ are—simply put—the building blocks of student learning. Based on extensive research into how learning progresses in reading and mathematics from Reception to Year 11, Focus Skills provide a roadmap for closing learning gaps as you move every student toward greater mastery.

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What Kids Are Reading 2023

Available exclusively from Renaissance, the ‘What Kids Are Reading Report 2023‘ features Renaissance Star Reading and Accelerated Reader data from over 6,000 schools and more than 1,000,000 students.