Pears Foundation

Pears Foundation funds organisations working with young people across a range of fields, from child and adolescent mental health, to education, to Holocaust education and special educational needs and disabilities. We were hearing from across all of our networks about the increasing challenges that online conspiracy, misinformation and disinformation were presenting, particularly in the way they play out in schools.

We wanted to understand the issues better so we brought together an expert-led commission to carry out research and come up with practical recommendations to support schools.

The Commission into Countering Online Conspiracy in Schools is co-chaired by Sir Trevor Pears and Sir Mufti Hamid Patel, CEO of Star Academies, with a secretariat provided by public policy research agency Public First. There are fourteen expert commissioners from education, academia and the legal, charity and voluntary sectors, supported by an advisory board of Pears partners from across our grant-making programmes.

The Commission’s work is underpinned by four foundational ideas:

1. There is a need to act now to better understand how conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation have been manifesting online.
2. There is particular need to focus on the impact on young people in schools.
3. We should speak to the three groups of people with a real stake in the debate: young people, school staff and parents.
4. The research should be grounded in evidence to ensure that our findings contribute to moving forward the debate and possible solutions.

Public First carried out extensive polling and focus group work with school staff, pupils and parents and the Commission released its initial report and recommendations at the start of 2025, which can be read here.

We found that school staff and teachers need more support, resources and training to tackle online misinformation with confidence.  This includes clearer guidance from government, better training, and opportunities for critical thinking and media literacy to be embedded across the curriculum. Students must be supported to understand what makes a reliable source and be discerning as to where they get information.  This should all start in primary education, when young people are first accessing social media and trust in adults is still relatively high.

The Commission will continue its work for at least another two years to advocate for the implementation of the commissioners’ recommendations, raise the profile of issues around online conspiracy, misinformation and disinformation in schools, and continue to carry out research. You can follow its progress on LinkedIn.

Teacher training

The Commission found that teachers were identified by both parents and young people as adults who should deal with issues surrounding conspiracy theories in school. Both school staff and parents felt that the most important approach was in encouraging students to think critically about the sources and evidence. However, an absence of clear guidance or best practice has led to a lack of clarity about which approaches and techniques were most impactful.

In line with three of the Commission’s recommendations, Pears Foundation is funding two national programmes, led by the National Institute of Teaching and UCL Institute of Education, which will provide teachers and school leaders across England with new training and resources to protect pupils and strengthen critical thinking in the digital age.

At the heart of this work is the launch of a new Centre for Digital Information Literacy in Schools, a national initiative led by the National Institute of Teaching. The Centre will embed critical thinking, psychological insight and media literacy across teacher development, from trainee teachers and classroom practitioners to school leaders and governors. The Centre’s work will include national training for teachers, leadership qualifications and school governance, alongside new online learning modules, practical classroom resources and public engagement through podcasts and media campaigns.

Pears Foundation is also funding a new programme at the UCL Institute of Education where experts in citizenship education will lead a new programme focused on providing teachers the skills and resources they need to tackle conspiracy theories and online misinformation.

The project will support both primary and secondary teachers through piloted professional development, a national training rollout and the creation of classroom materials designed to help pupils think critically and resist harmful narratives online.