Hello, Tappsters!
Whoohoo! The summer has begun! Well done, everyone you have made it through academic year 2024-2025 and we’re out the other side!
Teacher Tappers 💚 referrals
Welcome to all our new Teacher Tappers who have found your way here via your friends! We are loving the new referral feature and hearing all the great ways teachers have been sharing their code with their friends!
Altogether, Teacher Tappers have raised more than £1,250 for Education Support, a charity that supports the mental health of those working in education. What a brilliant achievement!
And now, for our best edu-data findings…
1. Football in school
The amazing Lionesses win this weekend have likely inspired millions of girls all over the country – but how much football is getting played in playgrounds?
The good news is that girls are playing more football at school — and the numbers show it. In primary schools, the percentage of teachers who regularly see girls playing football at lunchtime has jumped from 46% in 2022 to 56% in 2025. In secondaries, it’s risen too—from 16% to 23%.
Meanwhile, boys’ lunchtime football remains steady and sky-high, with 83% of primary and 91% of secondary teachers saying it happens most days. So yes, boys still dominate the pitch—but the grass is starting to even out. What’s behind the shift? One big factor is school teams. In primary schools, girls’ football teams have surged from 37% to 51%, nearly catching up to boys’ teams at 53%.
Secondaries still show a gap (91% of schools have a boys’ team, 78% a girls’ one), but it matters: in schools with a girls’ team, lunchtime football is much more common. Girls are twice as likely to play if a team exists. It’s clear that having a team does more than just organise matches — it changes the whole culture of play.
2. The churn of home education
Although parents have always had the option to educate their children at home, the pandemic-era shift to home learning—and the attendance issues that followed—sparked headlines about a rise in home education.
And for a while, that seemed to be true. Between 2023 and 2024, the proportion of teachers who said pupils were leaving to be home educated jumped: up 7 percentage points in primary (from 10% to 17%) and a huge 10 points in secondary (from 25% to 35%). But this year, the trend has slowed.
Numbers have stabilised in primary (still 17%) and dipped slightly in secondary (33%). Yet there’s more to the story.
Home education isn’t a one-way street. Teachers are also reporting that pupils are returning to school after a spell of being educated at home. In 2023–24, this number rose too: from 13% to 16% in primary and 24% to 33% in secondary. And like the exits, those figures have now steadied—sitting at 15% and 33% this year.
What does this mean for schools? One challenge is helping pupils settle back in after time spent being home educated. Teachers often need to plug learning gaps, reintroduce routines, and support social reintegration. As more pupils move in and out of school, this back-and-forth can create extra work—and may need more attention in future. This is one trend we will be keeping an eye on…
3. All change for the year!
As the school year wraps up, the end-of-term admin begins to mount—and for some primary teachers, that includes the big job of packing up and moving classrooms.
A third of primary teachers are switching rooms (not including those without a classroom base or who are leaving the school). However, only 24% are given time during the school day to complete it. The rest? They’re expected to move during the holidays or squeeze it into their own time. Pass the packing tape…
Paint the classroom…
Back in 2019, grey was the colour everyone wanted their classroom when the Teacher Tapp genie turned up with paint and brushes – but this year, choices have changed!
💚 Green was the top choice after white or cream
💙 Blue was the second choice
And grey 🩶 and yellow 💛 are less popular than before.
Holiday homework
Holiday homework is not the “norm” across schools, with only 30% setting their KS4 students work over the summer.
However – that figure jumps to 43% among languages teachers and drops to 27% for science teachers. The same is NOT true for KS3 holiday homework – all subjects are unlikely to set it with just 7% reporting they send their pupils off with summer tasks – and all subjects are broadly similar, with just English slightly more likely (11%).
Over in primary, holiday homework is also not very common, with just 11% setting summer tasks with EYFS and KS1 as unlikely as KS2 to be setting any.
+ Bonus finding – Summer holiday tips
This week, over 3,000 teachers shared their top tips for making the most of the summer holidays—and let’s just say, the Teacher Tapp community knows how to rest like pros. We’ll be sharing more of their brilliant suggestions soon, so keep your eyes peeled for the full blog 👀. But first up: the big one. The number one tip? “Switch off completely.”
Easier said than done, right? But Teacher Tappers were firm: mute the WhatsApp groups, delete the school emails, put the laptop out of sight—and, in one case, “throw your phone in the bin” (joking… mostly). The goal? Forget about school until the week before term starts. In the meantime, it’s all about lie-ins, naps, and guilt-free loafing. Or as one teacher perfectly put it: “Rest is productive.”
Once you’ve recharged, it’s time to refill your joy tank. That could mean quality time with family, sneaky getaways, or days that are deliberately plan-free. One teacher advised “balancing busy fun with doing nothing days”, while another said to “carve out time for personal hobbies, books, or even life admin.” And if you must do school prep, the expert move is to “tackle it all at once—early or late—so it doesn’t hang over your whole break.” The ultimate aim? Walk back into school feeling rested, recharged, and ready—not like the ghost of your summer self.
Daily Reads
Last week there was one standout blog that everyone was clicking…and it was one that Teacher Tappers wrote themselves! That’s right – it was the “Best (and strangest) Teacher Gifts” and a huge 14% of Teacher Tappers read it!
Have you seen a great blog you think would make a great daily read? Let us know by emailing england@teachertapp.co.uk and we will check it out!
