Figures from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England for 2024–2025 show that school attendance has not yet returned to pre-2019 levels. Teachers report that pupils most likely to have lower attendance are often those who need additional support with learning.

These children are not yet formally assessed, but teachers see reduced focus, slower progress, and a sense of fatigue or frustration in lessons. The 2025 School Report from Pearson highlights that many pupils and teachers alike feel they are “not ready” for the next step in the learning journey. Despite numerous interventions and new strategies over the years, the gap remains stubbornly consistent.

What Teachers Are Seeing in the Classroom

In mainstream classrooms, teachers manage a diverse range of needs every day. These may include:

• Sensitivity to light or sound, leading to fatigue and the need to “reset”

• Lower self-regulation, resulting in frustration and restlessness

• Difficulty hearing the fine detail in consonant sounds, making it hard to follow instructions

• Low vocabulary or comprehension from limited language exposure or being new to English

• Reduced concentration due to hunger, discomfort, or other internal or external distractions

• Dreaminess or drowsiness that makes learning feel heavy-going

• Hypervigilance, with attention pulled toward environmental changes

• Emerging speech and language, or eye movement control difficulties

These are not diagnoses — they are professional observations from the classroom floor.

Why Inclusion Matters for Every Child

Inclusion benefits the whole class. When a child has access to the right support — whether from a teaching assistant, specialist teacher, or tailored learning strategies — the classroom atmosphere changes. Pupils feel safer, more supported, and more able to focus on learning.

The challenge is the 'bottleneck'. Support usually requires an assessment, but waiting lists are long. While families navigate this issue, teachers are often left balancing compassion and resilience, whilst delivering the curriculum.

What Rhythm Can Offer

Rhythm-based learning meets children exactly where they are. It doesn’t require them to “catch up” before they can participate. Instead, it offers a consistent, natural structure that supports:

• Emotional self-regulation

• Processing of consonant sounds (phonemic awareness)

• Reduced restlessness and increased calm focus

• Greater engagement with reading, listening, and class discussion

• Improved reading fluency and comprehension

These gains can be measured with standardised reading assessments, and for non-decoders, quick phonemic awareness checks such as elision, blending, and sound matching (for example, via the CToPP2 assessment battery).

Over my 20 years of teaching using rhythm, children have also reported improvements in spelling, handwriting, and writing fluency after rhythm-based work — even when these weren’t our primary goals.

A Practical Step for Leaders

For educational leaders managing long assessment queues, rhythm can act as a containment strategy — keeping children engaged, supported, and progressing, while they wait for formal assessment and interventions.

If you’d like to see exactly how this works, join my Thursday webinar where I share how to achieve measurable results in just ten minutes a week over ten weeks.

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