Last year, we launched the Parent Voice Project because I felt there was a gap in the education debate. We talk a lot about parents – what they want, what they should do, how they should engage with schools, and so on – but we don’t spend nearly enough time asking them what they actually think.
Over the course of the year, we surveyed more than 6,000 parents and ran 14 focus groups, publishing three reports on what parents value about education, how well schools work for different families, and how parents experience their relationship with school.
This year, we are doing things slightly differently. Today we are publishing our 2026 Annual Report, based on a new survey of 6,016 parents and 4 further focus groups. We repeated questions from last year, which means that for the first time we can see not just what parents think, but how what they think is changing over time.
Some things haven’t changed much at all. The reservoir of goodwill towards schools and teachers that we uncovered last year remains and parents are still broadly positive about their children’s schools: 66% rate the education their child receives as high quality, compared with 69% last year, and still far higher than reported satisfaction in other public services. However, in some areas there have been some interesting movements.
The biggest change is on attendance. Last year, parents were evenly split on whether they should be allowed to take their children out of school during term-time: 49% thought they should, while 44% thought schools should do everything they could to prevent it. This year, 57% think it should be the parents’ choice, while 37% think schools should try to prevent it.
Our focus groups helped explain some of this. Almost all parents we spoke to thought regular attendance was important, but many made the distinction between children routinely missing school and taking them out for an occasional family holiday. Cost, unsurprisingly, was a key factor here. Several parents told us that the difference in holiday prices was now large enough that they simply factored the fine into the cost.
One father told us: “I know this might be wrong, but I think the best thing to do is lie. We’re going away in October to Florida. I’m off sick for a week, and the kids will be off sick too. But I’m saving £2,000 on a holiday. How can you not?”
This feels very important when so much effort is currently going into improving school attendance. Parents haven’t stopped thinking that attendance is important (91% say it is important that their child attends every day unless they are very ill), but when they are forced to choose between having a holiday or not, they seem increasingly inclined to break the rules.
There is another big change in children’s use of AI. Last year, 36% of parents of secondary-aged children said their child regularly or occasionally used AI to help with homework. This year it is 51%. Among college-aged children, the figure has risen from 40% to 57%. If anything, this is likely to underestimate the size of the increase, as I suspect parents are not always aware of when their children are using AI to complete homework.
There is also a socioeconomic difference. Reported use among children of the most affluent parents has risen from 34% to 48%, compared with an increase from 26% to 31% among the least affluent.
Parents were understandably torn about this. Some thought learning to use AI was becoming an essential skill, while others worried that it simply allowed children to avoid doing the work for themselves. Often the same parent could see both sides of the argument.
These are only two findings from the new report. There is much more on SEND, children’s mental health and on other differences in experience by socioeconomic background.
And there is much more in the survey that isn’t in the report. That is partly why we are launching this Substack today. Rather than trying to put everything we learn into a handful of very long reports, every fortnight we are going to take something interesting from the research and look at it in more detail. Sometimes it will be prompted by what is happening in education policy; sometimes it will simply be something in the data that we think deserves more attention.
Next time, we are going to look at politics: how parents who support different political parties think about education, and what that might tell us as party conference season begins.
I’d also really like to hear about what people reading this want us to look at. With more than 6,000 parents in the survey and focus groups throughout the year, we can explore the experiences of different groups in a level of detail that isn’t normally possible. So, if there is something you think we should be asking of the data, please tell us.
For now, you can read the full 2026 Annual Report here. And if you would like to follow what we find over the coming year, you can subscribe below.
If love to know whether you asked any further questions on homework, particularly attitudes towards homework.