SCHOOL 360’S AWARD-WINNING APPROACH TO LEARNING CAN HELP TO TACKLE THE NEET CRISIS

Earlier this year, the headteacher of School 360, Andi Silvain, won Silver for Headteacher of the Year (Primary) at the 2026 Pearson National Teaching Awards, with judges recognising her innovative approach to teaching and how she is helping to shape conversations about the wider education sector and policy.

This award came around the same time as Alan Milburn’s report on the NEET crisis, which found that one million 16-24 year olds are in neither education, training or employment. Since the report, there have been months of discourse about why this phenomenon has happened, with questions around whether the current schooling system actually prepares young people for the world of work. Commentary in the likes of The Guardian has emphasised that building the skills young people need to help meet this crisis should start right from a primary school level.

Supporting primary school students in developing these soft skills is something School 360 has been doing since its inception in 2021, with its play-based, choice-driven teaching and a collaborative teacher-pupil relationship building adaptability, problem-solving and self-direction, alongside academic learning, from an early age.

School 360 has also introduced students to the world of work, offering them opportunities to learn from our Island businesses and the wider Stratford community – undertaking design projects with fashion designer Sophia Webster, discovering how to be an author with publishers Phaidon, engaging in an interactive art project with ABBA Voyage and learning about construction from our own Vastint team.

Our Island ecosystem is built on this type of collaboration and intergenerational learning, demonstrating how developers, businesses, educational institutions and communities can come together to nurture the next generation of talent. Five years on, the school is oversubscribed for the first time, a sign of a shift in how parents and the wider community are coming to value this way of teaching.

Find out more about the school’s work here.