The Five School Factors That Reduce the Chance of Young People Ending Up NEET

NEET is a term that has been around for quite some time.

According to political economist William Davies, writing an article entitled 'Young People Are Different' in the London Review of Books earlier this year,

‘In 1993, the sociologist Howard Williamson coined the term “Status Zero’ to categorise young people who appeared to be going nowhere. The term circulated in Whitehall for a few years before an unnamed Home Office civil servant decided to replace it with the less pejorative-sounding ‘Neet’: Not in Employment, Education or Training.’

Now, in 2026, we have around a million NEETS and they are back in the news this week with Prime Minister Andy Burnham describing the situation as an ‘economic catastrophe and moral failure’.

He went on to say that:

‘Two years of Covid lockdowns, social media that erodes "confidence and sense of belonging", an education system focused on the "university route", job markets with "too few opportunities" and failures of previous governments have all contributed to the Neets crisis.’

The reference to the education system is interesting here and we very much agree that a focus on schools as, first and foremost, being a pipeline to university (and debt) needs to be looked at again.

What he doesn’t mention is the nature of the some of the schools the young people who end up NEET attended (or refused to).

This gap is being addressed by research featured in an online article in The Conversation last April with the headline, ‘The school you go to affects whether you become Neet’.

The article goes on to discuss a new research paper from The Royal Society entitled, ‘The relationship between school characteristics and students becoming “not in education, employment or training”'.

Whereas most research on NEETs had focussed on the individual circumstances of the young people themselves, this new research looked instead more closely at 3000 English secondary schools across a three-year period.

The researchers were able to identify five factors that they felt contributed to reducing the chances of students ending up NEET:

·       Lower suspension rates

·       Higher Progress Eight scores

·       Having their own post-16 provision such as a Vith Form

·       Being a Faith school

·       Being a single-sex school

With regard to factor one, the article points out:

‘Research shows that schools with the lowest suspension rates tend to have a more supportive culture, with clear strategies for keeping students connected rather than pushing them away. High suspension rates, by contrast, may signal an environment where some students feel they don’t belong.’

So, inclusivity and belonging in schools are right at the heart of our NEETs issue.

(It’s timely that our new book with Routledge, No Other: Creating schools where everyone belongs is due out in a few weeks. See here for extracts from each of its 46 voices plus a 20% discount code.)

What is also interesting is the route the researchers suggest is a way forward to help schools with belonging and inclusivity:

‘Our findings suggest that reconsidering zero-tolerance behaviour policies and adopting restorative practices may strengthen students’ sense of belonging and reduce the likelihood of becoming NEET.’

At Independent Thinking we have long held the belief that, when it comes to certain state-sanctioned behaviour policies and their advocates, there is always another way.

It’s why we have been proud to publish books such as Independent Thinking on Restorative Practice by Associate Mark Finnis, The Kindness Principle by Associate Dave Whitaker and, of course, the massive best seller by Paul Dix, When the Adults Change*.

And it’s why we have put our weight behind the on-demand training programme 'Best Behaviour' in partnership with Policy Hubs featuring two schools that have addressed behaviour, attendance, suspensions, belonging, inclusion and more by adopting a relational approach to their work with young people and the wider community**.

Approaching the issue of NEETs upstream and with a relational practice approach seems to make sense in so many ways based on the schools we have visited, written about and championed.

The statistics may tell us something, as the BBC article above highlights.

Of the million or so 16- to 24-year-olds classed as NEET,

‘...around 39% are unemployed while the remaining 61% are economically inactive, meaning they are not seeking work’.

But William Davies encourages us to look beyond the numbers,

‘…beneath the crude statistical classifications there are thousands of unique stories of complex needs, alienation and dashed hopes.’

In world where chaos, threat and uncertainty globally may be matched by what is going on at home, young people need to know that there is at least one place where they can go to be accepted, understood and supported unconditionally

The schools that are getting this right are not only benefitting those young people but also wider society, now and into the future.

Kudos to them. [ITL]

*You can buy these great Independent Thinking Press titles directly from Crown House with 20% discount and free UK post and packing when you use the code 'ITL20' at checkout.

** And you can also access this brand new on-demand video training programme, also with a 20% discount using the same 'ITL20' code, before 31st December 2026.