Tackling school drop-out across Europe
14 October 2025
At the European Parliament Conference on 24 September 2025, Newcastle University academics joined colleagues across Europe to discuss solutions for school retention.
The event was attended by 70 practitioners, policy makers and academics. There were an additional 500 guests joining online, including many schoolchildren.
At the event, Newcastle University colleagues, including Professor Liz Todd, Dr Karen Laing, Lucy Tiplady and Dr Alison Whelan discussed findings from the EU Horizon SCIREARLY project.
SCIREARLY is a consortium of nine countries, with 11 partners (led by Deusto Bilbao). Hosted by Malta MEP Peter Agius, project representatives made a call to all schools and communities at the event; asking what they can do to reduce the nearly 10% of youth that leave education prematurely (raising to 70% amongst Roma and 20% amongst migrant communities).
The SCIREARLY project team, including colleagues from Newcastle University.
Understanding issues around school retention
The project, within which Newcastle University is a partner, identified what works in preventing early school leaving. It brought together evidence and understanding from:
- case studies from schools across Europe, including in Newcastle
- interviews with students who succeeded against the odds
- yearlong interventions and co-creation workshops that brought together educators, families and other stakeholders
Results were clear and implementable:
- high-quality early years education with families as partners
- schools involving the whole community
- teaching approaches that recognise students’ emotional needs and cultural backgrounds
- the creation of a toolkit that schools can use
There were many more suggested approaches, but what the project found overall was that relationships are the key to success; relationships between teacher and student, but also between students themselves, and between parents and the school.
Newcastle colleagues working with the community
Professor Liz Todd, Dr Karen Laing, Lucy Tiplady, based in the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University, along with Dr Alison Whelan from Durham University, were partners in the project and spoke at the conference.
Their findings highlight the examples that came from close working with Bridgewater Primary School in Newcastle; a collaboration that Sam Robson, Head Teacher at the School spoke about at the conference; giving a fascinating account of the amazing work that the project has carried out alongside her school.
Liz Todd, OBE, Professor of Educational Inclusion at Newcastle University commented:
From left to right, Professor Liz Todd, Dr Karen Laing and Lucy Tiplady.
It was wonderful to see what could be achieved by working together with other European partners from universities and schools, and quite emotional presenting this in the EU parliament with its massive banner outside proclaiming democracy in action.