Children in Care: Special Educational Needs

(asked on 24th November 2025) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many looked after children in a foster placement with a relative or friend have (a) special educational needs support and (b) an education, health and care plan.


Answered by
Josh MacAlister Portrait
Josh MacAlister
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This question was answered on 2nd December 2025

The department does not hold information on special educational need (SEN) status for children looked after (CLA) who are in a foster placement with a relative or friend, or on SEN primary type of need for CLA who are in a foster placement with a relative or friend.

Table 1 (attached) gives counts of the primary type of need for state-funded school pupils with SEN who were previously looked after (PLA) and subject to a special guardianship order or a child arrangements order. This information is from the January 2025 school census collection.

Table 2 (attached) gives the number and proportion of state-funded pupils who were PLA and subject to a special guardianship order or a child arrangements order who had an education, health and care plan or SEN Support as of January 2025.

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