Weekly digest

It's been a week where exam pressure, belonging, and behaviour management have dominated the education conversation, with a couple of nice archival curiosities thrown in for good measure — so let's get into it.

Top of the pile this week is some sobering research out of UCL, timed to land right as GCSE results come out. The researchers compared students across England, Wales and Northern Ireland who missed a grade four or equivalent in maths or English, and found that it's only in England — where resitting is compulsory — that these young people show a meaningful dip in mental wellbeing. If you're heading into a classroom where you'll almost certainly meet pupils on their second or third attempt at these exams, this is worth sitting with: the study suggests the policy itself, not just the failure, may be knocking confidence and pushing some towards giving up altogether.

Sitting closely alongside that is new DfE data on school belonging, which found that girls, disadvantaged pupils, and those with SEND are consistently reporting lower levels of feeling like they belong at school — and that this tracks with weaker GCSE outcomes. It's a useful reminder that attainment gaps aren't purely academic; they're bound up with whether pupils feel they're genuinely part of the place.

On a related note, there's a study getting attention for showing that support and high expectations aren't actually in tension — pupils do best when teachers combine warmth with genuinely pushing them to think hard and learn more, which cuts against any instinct to treat kindness and rigour as a trade-off.

There's also a more provocative piece from assessment expert Alan Smithers, who's calling for a proper investigation into the GCSE gender gap, and controversially insisting that any such inquiry needs to be willing to consider innate differences between girls and boys rather than ruling that out from the start. It's a niche argument, but one that occasionally spills into wider rows about how we talk about attainment gaps.

From the practical end of things, there's a lovely piece on the Becoming a History Teacher blog about consistency in classroom management — the author uses watching parents police their kids' behaviour at a holiday club as a way into the bigger point that pupils calibrate to whatever rules are actually enforced, not whatever's written on the wall. For anyone starting training this autumn, it's a good early nudge that your systems only mean anything if you apply them the same way every single time.

On history content specifically, the National Archives has a blog reflecting on the PASSAGE project's work uncovering histories of enslavement — useful material if you're building out empire or transatlantic slavery units and want primary evidence that complicates a simple narrative. And slightly more niche, there's a piece on medieval silk seal bags from the archives' own collection, a small but charming bit of conservation detective work that could make nice enrichment material for medieval topics.

A few more worth flagging briefly: the Rees Centre's research on care-experienced young people is shaping how the Pupil Premium Plus Post-16 funding works, which matters if you'll be teaching looked-after children even though it's not history-specific; the Historical Association has put out its Autumn 2026 secondary CPD calendar, worth a look though it's mostly promotional; the DfE has announced £800 million in contracts for national SEND teacher development programmes, which could reshape what CPD is available to you down the line; and there's a consultation open on cutting most teachers' pension contributions, which would mean a bit more take-home pay from day one if it goes through.

And finally, the Historical Association also has its usual round of housekeeping this week — a Spring newsletter with conference previews and a farewell from the outgoing president, notes from the AGM, and a free historical anniversaries calendar for 2026 that could be handy for slotting anniversary-based lessons into your planning.

On the lighter, more browsable side, the National Archives has two blog posts on how English archives are marking the 250th anniversary of American independence, Historic England has pieces up on medieval stained glass and on thatched buildings, there's a new academic book out on Japan's rise and its effect on British ideas of world order, and a smaller archives piece traces the history of the acorn symbol used on long-distance trails.

That's everything for this week — good luck with whatever's landing on your desk, and I'll catch you again next time.