Government pledges more school support for adopted children
18 March 2016The government has announced that it will consider changing legislation to extend the support available to adopted children of school age. The schools white paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere published on 17th March sets out the government’s plans for the next five years and includes the following pledge :
“Looked after children and those who have been adopted from care or left care under special guardianship or a child arrangements order will continue to receive pupil premium plus funding, and we propose to increase targeted support for both groups through the Pupil Premium plus, as part of our national funding formula proposals”.
The government also sets out its proposal to improve the effectiveness of pupil premium spending by encouraging schools and Virtual School Heads to adopt evidence-based strategies :
“These changes, coupled with the recent extension of the Pupil Premium and priority school admission, will enable adopted children to retain the educational support they had whilst they were in care and help improve their educational outcomes”.
The Pupil Premium provides extra funding to state-funded schools to help their staff give extra support to disadvantaged pupils including, but not restricted to, those adopted from care.
The Department for Education issued statutory guidance in July 2014 which requires the appointment of a Virtual School Head (VSH) in every local authority and the provision of a Personal Education Plan (PEP) for every child in care – but not for adopted children.
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