“Looked after children” is the legislative term for children and young people in public care introduced in the 1989 Children Act and includes children who are subject to supervision and live with family members as well as looked after and accommodated children who live with foster carers or in residential schools or care homes. (Scottish Executive 2007) The Children (Scotland) Act 1995 adopted the term ‘looked after’, taking a lead from the earlier Children Act 1989 in England and Wales, because the expression ‘in care’ had become pejorative and stigmatising. (Connelly, Seibelt and Furnivall 2008) These children have a right to expect to achieve the same educational outcomes the Government want for every child -to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they will need if they are to succeed in life, learning and work, now and in the future. (Scottish Executive 2004 to date) (Department For Children, Schools And Families 2010)
To allow LAC to achieve these outcomes successfully, local authorities as corporate parents (meaning the formal and local partnerships needed between all local authority departments and services, and associated agencies, who are responsible for working together to meet the needs of looked after children and young people) should demonstrate the strongest commitment to helping every child to achieve the highest educational standards he or she possibly can. (Scottish Executive 2007)
Looked after children and young people face many barriers to their success in education. We take these children into care to improve their life chances, though some do well, despite the difficulties faced in other aspects of their lives, the educational achievement of looked after children as a group remains unacceptably low. (Department For Children, Schools And Families 2010) (Scottish Executive 2007)(Connelly and Chakrabarti 2008) (Department For Children, Schools And Families 2009)(Coulling 2000)
Table 1 shows both information about the expected levels for most children at different school stages and also a comparison between the assessed levels for looked after children and non-looked after children nationally in 2003. This information has only been made available publicly once and is no longer collected as a result of the developments associated with Curriculum for Excellence. The table shows clearly the overall low achievement of looked after pupils compared with their non-looked after peers.
Table 1: National Assessment Data 2003 (Scottish Government 2004)
School stage
Level attained
English Reading
English Reading
English Writing
English Writing
Maths
Maths
Not LAC
LAC
Not LAC
LAC
Not LAC
LAC
P2
A or above
52%
29%
42%
20%
76%
57%
P3
A or above
88%
74%
85%
69%
95%
89%
P4
B or above
81%
56%
75%
50%
79%
52%
P5
B or above
92%
73%
88%
64%
92%
73%
P6
C or above
86%
59%
75%
40%
80%
46%
P7
D or above
73%
34%
60%
20%
69%
24%
However, as stated by the Scottish Government, this information is not complete. It only contains information from two thirds of local authority areas. Lack of complete data on Looked after Children is an issue spoken about frequently in articles and reports. (Jacklin, Robinson, and Torrance 2006)
However, it is believed that the overall trends, which show a widening of the attainment gap between children who are and are not looked after, with each school stage, are accurate.
The Social Exclusion Unit’s report A Better Education for Children in Care (2003) identified five key reasons why looked after children underachieve in education:
their lives are characterised by instability;