Supporting care experienced pupils missing school

Lisa:

What happens to a care experienced children or young person’s education when they can’t attend school?

Mark:

So as long as a child or young person is of school age and enrolled or registered at a school, they continue to have a right to an education even if they’re not able to attend school regularly for whatever reasons. So it means they still absolutely have a right to get support if they need it. And if they’re not attending school regularly then that absolutely means they need some extra help so that they can still access and benefit from some of their learning.

So in the first instance the focus should be on trying to understand what barriers that child or young person is facing, like what’s making it difficult for them to be in school more regularly. So support can be targeted towards those things and to try and help them build back up to being in school more often if they’re able to.

But in the meantime if they are unable to be in school for a prolonged period of time or they’re regularly needing to be off school, then the local authority that’s responsible for their learning need to provide some alternative provision, it’s called. So that just means find ways to help them still learn while they’re not able to be in school. That can look differently depending on the circumstances. It can sometimes be things like sending packages of work home to wherever that young person’s living at the time. It might be putting some learning up online. But it’s particularly important for schools and the local authority to think about any barriers that that child or young person might be facing. So for example, if they are living in a residential home, they might not have access at any point to their own private kind of iPad or computer to access learning if it’s been put online. So they should always be trying to think about what ways can we help that young person access and benefit from their learning. But ultimately the goal should be trying to get them back to school in a way that works well for them.