Children in care 'twice as likely to fail GCSE Maths or English'
A former foster child from Poole thinks children in the care system are “shockingly overlooked” by schools
A woman from Poole is calling for MORE dedicated members of staff in schools to help children living in care.
A study has found young people referred to social care at any point in their childhood were twice as likely to fail English or maths GCSE than their peers.
Action for Children analysed 1.6 million children's results across England from 2019 to 2021 and found that, on average, more than half (53%) of teenagers in social care did not pass either Maths or English.
Whereas only a quarter of students (24%) without referrals to social care did not achieve a pass grade.
Holly Munford, 22, from Poole was put into foster care in Year 10, having spent the four years prior in social care.
She told us what she, and many more like her, struggle with: “I didn’t have any stability, so I didn't think I was going to be in that school for very long, so I thought, ‘Oh, who cares? Why does it matter? I don't need to take this seriously because I'm not going be here long anyway. I'm going to be shipped off somewhere else now’. I think that was something that I struggled with the most… knowing where my place was.”
The charity, Action for Children said youngsters in need of social care can be "shockingly overlooked when it comes to work done to help improve academic results."
For Holly, she was made to sit her first BTEC exam within a month of being placed into foster care, she said: “You feel very exposed, you’re getting pulled out of lessons to go to meetings and it’s difficult to focus on what you're doing in lessons, especially when you’ve got everything on your plate.”
Even in 2020 and 2021 when exams were cancelled due to the pandemic and grades were based on teacher assessment, the “worrying” attainment gap remained the same.
Now, Action for Children is calling on the Government to commit to investing to roll out family help services across all local authorities in England and to pilot family support workers based in schools to identify those who show early signs of needing support.
Holly also calls for change: “There’s nowhere near enough teachers designated to students in social care. It's so difficult to try and build a relationship with someone when they're not always there,
“The fact that this child has to build a relationship and explain their trauma all over again to new teachers and new social workers gets completely overlooked.”
Joe Lane, the charity's head of policy and research, added: "We fear these young people's life options are more likely to be limited by their poor academic results, as these grades are crucially required by further education and often by employers.
"Yet children referred to social care are shockingly overlooked when it comes to work done to help improve academic results.”