The Virtual School Toolkit, launched by the Cambridge Institute of Technology (Intec) last week, provides digital education resources and a tracking system to help councils chart the education of children in care. The toolkit also includes a facility that allows virtual school heads to listen and respond to children's views and share information with other professionals from partner services.
George Pearson, chief executive of Intec, said the toolkit is designed to give virtual schools access to the same degree of support that mainstream schools receive. He said confidentiality was a "maximum priority" and said the toolkit had passed rigorous security testing.
"You need a special set of tools to be a virtual head teacher. Looked-after children often don't have a voice so this technology is vital to them," he said.
Intec is also working on developing resources to help foster carers and workers in children's homes engage with virtual schools. "We are developing training to support foster carers and children's homes because sometimes the people who work with looked-after children aren't equipped with the skills to offer them educational support."
Sue Hains, virtual school head for Cambridgeshire County Council, said she was "confident" the Virtual School Toolkit would contribute to improved outcomes for children. "I need immediate access to detailed, timely and accurate information on all the children in my care - just like any other head teacher," she said. "In the past this presented real problems because of the complex situations affecting so many of the youngsters and their geographical spread. This new system has made a huge difference to me and my team."
The government committed to creating virtual schools for looked-after children in the 2006 green paper Care Matters. The Department for Children, School and Families is currently piloting virtual head projects in 10 local authorities.
Cambridgeshire County Council, one of the local authorities involved in the pilot, asked Intec to develop the Virtual School Toolkit to complement their trial.
- www.intec.ac.uk.
