Children in Care: Education

(asked on 23rd September 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the number of children in care who have participated in education (a) at school and (b) online since March 2020.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 30th September 2020

The government is committed to ensuring that looked-after and previously looked-after children are supported to succeed in education. Being at an early years setting, school or college is vital to prevent vulnerable children from falling behind in their education, and as a protective factor from harm. Educational settings remained open to vulnerable children, including children in care, during the lockdown period. We expect educational providers, local authorities, social workers and other professionals to continue to work together to support families and pupils, including those in vulnerable groups, to return to schools, colleges and early years settings.

During lockdown, we prioritised vulnerable children and young people’s attendance. This included raising vulnerable children and young people’s attendance from around 5% in early April to over 25% by the end of June through consistent communications, guidance and local-level support, including working with schools and Virtual School Heads to encourage attendance. The department is continuing to publish data on attendance, including the attendance of vulnerable children, on a regular basis and the latest figures are available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.

Where a pupil is unable to attend school because they are complying with clinical or public health advice, we expect schools to be able to immediately offer them access to remote education. Schools should monitor engagement with this activity. We have also invested over £100 million to support remote education and have delivered over 220,000 laptops and tablets to children who would not otherwise have access. In the summer term, we provided over 50,000 4G wireless routers to local authorities and academy trusts for care leavers, children with a social worker at secondary school, and disadvantaged children in year 10 who did not have internet connections to support remote education. We are now supplementing this support by making an initial 150,000 additional devices available in the event face-to-face schooling is disrupted as a result of local COVID-19 restrictions.

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