Across the FE sector, colleges routinely confront twin pressures: sustaining high learner attendance and retention, and maintaining a motivated, stable workforce. Yet most interventions act reactively, rather than identifying early warning signs. We focus on attendance rates after students stop turning up. We track retention after learners have already disengaged. We address staff wellbeing once burnout has taken hold. This approach, which is baked into the way the system currently operates, could be holding back performance and progress.
This is why ImpactEd Group is launching the Further Education and Sixth Form Commission on Engagement: the first national study exploring how engagement can serve as a lead indicator of outcomes across our sector. This is not an arm’s length, observational research project. It’s about supporting a fundamental shift in how we understand and respond to the dual challenges of learner and staff engagement facing every college.
The evidence base on engagement in education has been growing significantly in recent years, with ImpactEd Group publishing our own research from over 100,000 school-aged pupils in May 2024. This study revealed that more than one in four students disengage during their first year of secondary school, with engagement levels never fully recovering thereafter. Measures of enjoyment, trust, agency, and safety decline sharply in early secondary school too, particularly for girls and disadvantaged pupils.
And perhaps the most significant insight for colleges to pay attention to was the finding that learners in the top quartile of engagement are ten percentage points less likely to be persistently absent than those in the bottom quartile. So not only is engagement data affording schools a much richer picture of the dynamics of their cohorts, but it is also supporting them to focus precious time and resources in the right places, before a lack of engagement turns into poorer outcomes.
The same kind of engagement insights can be valuable for staff too. In ImpactEd’s school research project, analysis of staff surveys showed the predictive ability of engagement in relation to staff retention. Those who showed poorer levels of buy in to organisational strategy and leadership were less likely to still be at the school later in the academic year.
The FE sector will see a lot of parallels in this research, but in post-16 settings, where learners arrive already carrying years of positive and negative educational experience, understanding these engagement patterns could be even more vital. This is reflected in the growing evidence base from FE itself, where attendance data is signalling a rising engagement challenge across colleges, one that mirrors, and in some cases exceeds, the trends seen in schools. This is where the commission comes in.
Commission’s mission
By bringing together experienced FE leaders alongside researchers, practitioners and policy experts, we’re creating space to translate these learnings from schools into tools shaped specifically for colleges and sixth forms.
The commission will shape research design, bring together front-line practitioners and analyse national findings to consider how proactive approaches to engagement can move us from reactive management to front foot improvement strategies. Colleges participating in the research will take part in a learner and workforce census, which will enable us to build a national picture of college engagement and produce local and national benchmarks.
With attendance and retention challenges compounded by funding constraints and workforce instability, the time to do this work together is now. Every learner who disengages and leaves represents not just lost potential, but lost funding and a failure of our fundamental mission. Every member of staff who burns out and departs represents institutional knowledge lost and recruitment costs incurred.
The FE sector has always been pragmatic and focused on what works. This commission embodies that spirit – building evidence, testing assumptions and translating findings into tools that leaders need.
By participating, colleges won’t just contribute to national understanding, they’ll gain insights that help them act earlier, target support more effectively and create environments where learners and staff can thrive.
ImpactEd Group are providing a subsidy for participating FE and Sixth Form Colleges and we encourage you to reach out to take part: rajbir.hazelwood@impactedgroup.uk
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