Industry News: CoramBAAF comments on latest government statsitics

Government statistics published today (for the period ending 31 March 2015) provide further good news about the educational outcomes for looked after children.   We already know that children in care do better than their peer group on the edge of care, and these figures constitute further evidence of improvements.  It is important that this continues so that looked after children continue to close the gap with the general child population.

The data now also includes ‘Experimental Statistics on children adopted from care, and those leaving care with a Special Guardianship Order (SGO) or Child Arrangement Order (CAO )’ and these show that these groups of children achieve slightly better than looked after children at both key stage 2 and key stage 4, although they still achieve less well than non-looked after children. 
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All of these figures provide evidence of the positive outcomes for children who achieve stability and security in their permanent homes – whatever the legal status - but there is still more that needs to be done to support these families as we know that school and education can provide challenges for children affected by their disrupted early life experiences.  

For this reason Coram BAAF welcomes plans in the schools white paper Education Excellence Everywhere, which proposes extending the role of Virtual School Head to include involvement with adopted children but remain concerned that this provision does not at present include those children leaving care through an SGO or CAO. These children and their permanent families also need this additional support. 

CoramBAAF has also responded to the recent Government consultation on the national funding formula proposals which looks at improving pupil premium funding for all children leaving care through adoption, SGO or CAO. Click here to read the full response. 

Source:
http://corambaaf.org.uk/

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