Looked After Children
We have a well structured range of services we can provide to help
Young People in Care with learning support.
The challenges in delivering learning support to these young people are:​
​
-
It is recognised generally that looked after children/young people get less outside of school learning support.
​
-
In situations where a child/young person is moved around, they may wait months to get a new school place in their new home, meaning that learning support is often inadequate and costly.
​
-
It is sometimes difficult to get feedback from schools about a young person in care.
​
-
Provision of extra tuition managed by schools means that it is difficult for Virtual School Heads to get effective feedback as to the efficacy of such provision.
​
-
Again, where a child/young person gets ‘moved on’ they will probably lose contact with whatever help they were receiving because it was being paid for by the school which they were attending and, in all likelihood, they have been moved geographically so as to make the continuation of that support no longer possible.
​
-
Continuity and stability of learning support are the most significant factors affecting outcomes for a child or a young looked after person.
​
-
Virtual School Heads often have to allocate budget to schools to spend on provisions for a child/young person in care and, as a consequence, lose direct control over the efficacy of such provision.
​
-
Changes in patterns of behaviour towards learning cannot be easily picked up – yet these can provide signals for some wider issue that requires attention from social services and other key stakeholders in the child/young person welfare.
Ed-Head's Solutions:
-
A learning support ‘passport’ in the form of our online study programme, which the child/young person carries with them always, to inform whoever they may encounter as a newly responsible for their educational support provision (school, foster parent, care home) – as well as Virtual School Heads in local authorities.
​
-
Reports are available to those responsible for the young people to show exactly what progress and levels of engagement of the students.
​
-
Virtual tuition and tutor support so that wherever they are, they are working with the same person who is familiar with their learning issues. This virtual support can be in the form of
-
lessons, where they join with other children/looked after young people like them in ability.
-
Tuition sessions, where they are doing their work in a timetabled/scheduled environment
-
A learning support study programme which makes it easy for Virtual School Heads to monitor progress
-
A learning support vehicle which it is easy to plug into rewards schemes for young people.
-
Flexibility and affordability of learning support judged on a needs’ basis.
-
Ability to provide tailored support for exam preparation as well as general learning support.
-
​
-
Provision of a life-skills programme for transitioning from care to adulthood (e.g. CV writing, opening a bank account, applying for work etc) – this to be in conjunction with businesses both locally and nationally to provide a pathway for young people in care into a worthwhile life with a job and an understanding of how to deal with growing into responsible adulthood.