Schools are one of the few state institutions that have regular contact with children and families. Teachers and non-teaching staff notice changes in a pupil’s behaviour. They see when a child starts to struggle, when their grades begin to slip, and when they become withdrawn. None of these changes proves that a child is at risk of homelessness but, taken together, they can be an early sign that a family is struggling. Financial hardship and housing insecurity often show themselves long before a family loses its home. Yet we rarely think of the education system as part of our response to homelessness. As the number of children living in temporary accommodation continues to rise, homelessness is still treated largely as a problem for housing departments to solve. However, by the time a family has lost its home, months of instability have often taken their toll on a child’s education, wellbeing and development. Teachers and school leaders cannot be expected to address every social issue which arrives at the school gates. This is not about asking teachers to become housing specialists, nor about expecting schools to predict with certainty which families will lose their homes. It is about recognising that schools often see signs of instability before other services do, and ensuring that those signs are acted upon through an earlier, coordinated response. Connect evidence to decisions At the Education Endowment Foundation, which I helped to establish back in 2011 and later served as deputy chief executive, our aim was to give teachers reliable evidence and help them to make better informed decisions in practice. One lesson from that experience was that evidence is most useful when connected to a specific decision. In homelessness prevention, the relevant questions are not just about which interventions work. They include how agencies can identify risk earlier, how administrative data, professional observations, information shared between services and, crucially, the experiences of children and families themselves can be combined responsibly. It also includes exploring how concerns can be translated into practical help. The same principle should apply to homelessness. Schools need straightforward ways of identifying children who may be at risk of losing their home, together with clear referral routes into existing support. Once a risk has been identified, schools need confidence that raising a concern will lead to an appropriate response rather than simply passing a family from one overstretched service to another. That requires trusted relationships between schools, council housing teams, health services, social care and voluntary organisations, with clear responsibilities and properly resourced routes to support. Education plays its part This is already happening elsewhere. In the United States, education agencies play an important role in homelessness prevention. Their Department of Education was one of the federal agencies involved in the US Interagency Council on Homelessness and its interagency strategic planning. This has included cross-sector coordination intended to improve support for students who are homeless or vulnerably housed. Homelessness prevention in England’s schools does not require an entirely new programme. With the right support, it can be woven into existing structures through training, greater awareness, stronger links with councils and support services, and appropriate arrangements for sharing information. A school may notice changes in attendance or behaviour; a housing team may know that a family is threatened with eviction; and health or social care services may hold other relevant information. Each piece of evidence may be incomplete on its own. Brought together responsibly, it can help professionals understand the wider picture and act before a crisis occurs. Potential and limitations This is not a purely hypothetical opportunity. The Centre for Homelessness Impact is currently evaluating how councils can use information such as council tax debt, housing benefit and social work data to identify residents at risk of homelessness. Work of this kind can help to establish both the potential and the limitations of data-led prevention. This matters because housing and education are deeply connected. Children experiencing housing instability are more likely to struggle academically and experience poor mental health. Equally, good educational outcomes improve future employment prospects and reduce the risk of homelessness later in life. For years, governments of all political colours have promised to shift public services away from crisis management and towards prevention. Yet prevention is often the first casualty when resources are stretched because its successes are invisible. In all of this, professional judgment remains essential. Evidence and data should strengthen that judgment, not replace it. Resources such as the Centre for Homelessness Impact’s evidence tools can help decision-makers examine what has been tested, assess the strength of the evidence and understand what is known about implementation. Schools cannot prevent homelessness alone, and they should not be expected to. But they can be an essential partner in a system that notices instability earlier, joins up information and acts before families reach breaking point