An alternative approach to helping looked-after children gain good grades
John Freeman
Monday, October 4, 2010
When middle-class children fall behind at school, the parental response is often special tutoring. In London, tutoring for secondary school admission is a substantial industry, and in Birmingham almost all children being put in for grammar school tests are tutored. I'm not judging this, by the way, I was tutored (fruitlessly) for my French O-level; and we paid for extra music lessons whenever needed.
But when I became a corporate parent responsible for the education of looked-after children, my immediate response was to help them in the same way as sharp-elbowed parents helped their own children. So I was delighted when we were asked to pilot a home tutoring scheme funded by a high-street bank. Not surprisingly, it worked - the evidence of improved outcomes was clear. Our model was particularly effective; we employed teachers who already knew and worked with the children concerned. But it cost a lot of money and we were not exactly surprised that when the credit crunch arrived the bank's funding dried up.
However, my colleague Peter Cox was instrumental in setting up Creating Chances, an independent charitable trust that now works across the Black Country to improve educational outcomes for looked-after children. It has funding from various grants, from fundraising events and from charitable giving. But it still works, and it still costs a lot of money.
I have noticed that the banks and bankers are still not exactly on their uppers, and bank bonuses have increased again. So, I am starting the Tenth of a Percent for Learning campaign, which will call for all bank bonuses to be top-sliced to be held in trust for the most vulnerable children in our society. An annual 0.1 per cent of £40bn won't even be noticed by the bankers, but £40m would make a huge difference to the 60,000 or so children and young people in the care system. And it would be a living example of the big society. How about it Vince, George and Dave?
John Freeman is a former director of children's services and now a freelance consultant
