Education funding for children in care

I'm over the moon about the increased education funding for children in care. It's not an obvious vote-winner but is absolutely a public good. We proved in Dudley in 2006 onwards – in the pilot scheme – that focused education intervention by teachers known by the children concerned can have a significant, substantial and long-lasting impact.?

And the Creating Chances Trust (one of my proudest achievements is that I was a founder trustee) continued the programme with genuine and measurable success in improved outcomes. ??It's a truism that improving educational outcomes improves life chances – and all the evidence is that whatever else goes wrong in a child's life, and some dreadful things do happen, if you can get the education right, then there will be a long-term positive impact. (This is absolutely not an excuse for not acting on social issues ... just a bald evidence-based statement that education really does work.)

The challenge, of course, is to make sure that the educational interventions are carefully designed and assessed in terms of the educational outcomes that the child achieves. It can't just be about fun, although learning is always easier if it is fun, it must be about a rigorous focus on raising standards, so that primary children enter secondary school better prepared to learn, and what I am no longer allowed to call school leavers (having been professionally linked to work on the raising of the participation age for several years!) go on to post-16 study in sixth form or college with improved GCSEs, raised aspirations and improved ambitions for education and life post-19.

Virtual school head teachers have been doing a great job, and they now need to raise their game to make sure that the new funding does the job that all children in the care system deserve.

So, well done, Edward Timpson, DfE and the Treasury!