Children’s homes providers forced to challenge schools to secure places, ICHA warns
Fiona Simpson
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Children’s homes providers were forced to “rigorously challenge” schools to secure a return to education for residents throughout lockdown, the Independent Children’s Home Association (ICHA) has said.
Despite children under local authority social care and those with education, health and care (EHC) plans being classed as vulnerable under government guidance and, therefore, entitled to school places throughout lockdown, anecdotal reports from a number of members of the ICHA revealed a number of challenges in securing places for residents even as lockdown measures eased.
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Latest Department for Education figures show that on 18 June 18 per cent of all children with an EHC plan or a social worker attended school.
At the height of lockdown, on 17 April, just five per cent of these children attended school.
In an internal memo sent to ICHA members sharing experiences of providers throughout the lockdown, deputy chief executive of the ICHA Liz Cooper says: “Several respondents reported that some schools have not offered placements unless homes have rigorously challenged them, despite children having EHCPs.”
Some providers had been told children were “safer” at their children’s home than at school, Cooper adds, saying that schools “provide no evidence to substantiate this assessment”.
One provider told the ICHA that “all the schools in his area are academies and refuse to accept looked after children”, the memo, seen by CYP Now, states
However, struggles faced by providers to secure school places for residents were evident before Covid-19 but have been exacerbated by the pandemic, Cooper suggests.
She says: “A few providers talked about ongoing struggles to secure placements for children with a number talking about struggles of six months or more.”
The government announced earlier this month that all schools will reopen fully in September with fines issued for non-attendance.
The memo also calls on the Department for Education to issue specific advice for children’s homes in the event of a second wave of Covid-19.
Cooper says: “A number [of providers] commented that if a second wave were to happen, they would like more specific guidance from the DfE instead of being included with schools and care homes-none of which operate in similar ways to children’s homes.”
Calvin Kipling, spokesman for the National Association of Virtual School Headteachers, said virtual school heads were "very familiar with drift and delay in securing school places for children in care even when there isn’t a pandemic".
"Virtual schools see themselves as the bridge between education and social care helping each profession understand the other, for the benefit of the child," Kipling said.
"I would encourage social workers and residential staff who found themselves with difficulties in securing a school place to alert their virtual school, who i would encourage them to be working closely with in any case."