Looked-after children ‘let down’ by the education system, MPs find
Nicole Weinstein
Monday, July 11, 2022
The education select committee is calling on the government to improve the educational outcomes of children in residential care after an inquiry finds a “host of indefensible system failings”.
Data available for looked-after children’s educational outcomes “paints an extremely bleak picture”, according to the committee’s report, Educational poverty: how children in residential care have been let down and what to do about it.
The inquiry found that 37 per cent of looked-after children reached the expected standards in reading, writing and mathematics at Key Stage 2, compared with 65 per cent of non-looked-after children.
And just 7.2 per cent achieved the grade 5 pass threshold in English and mathematics GCSEs, compared to 40.1 per cent of non-looked-after children.
Young people in residential care told the cross-party MPs who are members of the committee, chaired by Robert Halfon MP, of the frequently changing schools, missed education, lack of support for special education needs, and the difficult transition from leaving care to living independently.
The report says: “The state fails to act as a pushy enough corporate parent when it comes to children in care and their education and career outcomes. We must act now.”
The investigation finds that despite the law clearly stating that schools rated good or outstanding by Ofsted should be prioritised for looked-after children, children in care are less likely than their peers to attend the best schools.
As a result, the committee welcomes the new backstop set out in the schools white paper which gives local authorities the power to direct academy trusts to admit looked-after children and calls on the Department for Education to introduce this new power “without delay”.
It is also calling for greater accountability for local authorities who fail to ensure that their looked-after children are receiving full-time, high-quality education, after research by Ofsted found that of a sample of 2,600 children living in children’s homes, nine per cent attended unregulated education provision, such as online schools or in-house tuition, while a further six per cent were not in education, employment or training.
“Local authorities who fail to fulfil this duty should be sanctioned by Ofsted in the form of capping their rating,” the committee said.
Meanwhile, MPs added that they were “highly concerned” that the DfE’s most up-to-date data on characteristics of children in children’s homes is from an ad-hoc 2016 data release now seven years out of date.
“Throughout our inquiry, our scrutiny of the education outcomes of children in residential care was hindered by the poor quality of departmental data. Existing data is simply not good enough, it does not provide the visibility into the education of children in care that we would expect to see for this vulnerable cohort,” the report states.
