A reluctance to admit and support vulnerable pupils means some schools and multi-academy trusts have become "no go areas" for young people being brought up in the care system, a new study warns.
While government policy has long stipulated that children in care should be the top priority for school admissions, schools and multi-academy trusts are increasingly finding ways to delay their entry or use punitive sanction policies to quickly exclude them. This is negatively impacting on their time in school and their educational outcomes, which are significantly below national averages.
Professors Neil Harrison and David Hall from the University of Exeter and Judy Sebba from the University of Oxford drew on focus group discussions with 26 Virtual School Heads – senior leaders in local authorities with statutory responsibility for supporting the education of children in care through advocacy and engagement with local schools.
Professor Harrison said: "Our research shows the chances for young people in care are strongly tied to the educational and governmental ecosystem where they live. Although Virtual School Heads did mention individual schools and trusts who were supportive of children in care, they reported a widespread reluctance to admit these pupils. Some talked about having issues with 'one or two' schools, but for others this resistance was universal in their area.
"Virtual School Heads understood the pressures on school funding and the need to showcase good examination results, but were also frustrated that schools were not more empathetic towards young people experiencing profound challenges in their lives.
"Even where a young person was eventually admitted, Virtual School Heads often felt they were being set up to fail by inflexible school policies and an unwillingness to meet their social, emotional or mental health needs."
Virtual School Heads explained that negotiating with schools about admissions was a major task and caused uncertainty that could undermine the young person's engagement with learning. While legal powers exist to require schools to admit children in care, the procedures are lengthy and lead to the young person being 'deschooled' for weeks or months.
Virtual School Heads said the refusal from schools to admit children in care increases the likelihood they have to be educated further away from their home, eroding their time for study, straining their social networks and increasing Local Authority costs. It also increases the demand for specialist provision, which is already under extreme pressure, with wide variations in quality and value-for-money.
Researchers also analysed existing local data to understand why absence rates for children in care are nearly three times higher in some Local Authorities than others. They found clear links between school absence, school moves, exclusions, SEND support and being housed outside the Local Authority.
Professor Harrison said, "These young people's education is also being affected by systemic failures around SEND support and the limited availability of high-quality specialist provision. The result is an example of an 'exclusionary architecture' that continues to undermine longstanding government efforts to improve educational outcomes for children in care."
"We argue that schools and multi-academy trusts are reluctant to admit children in care because of the high-stakes nature of the examination and school inspection systems in England. These young people are often positioned as risky or time-consuming, undermining national policies that foreground ideas of inclusion and equity."
"This has been exacerbated by the academisation process, which has given schools more autonomy over their admissions and behaviour policies. Some schools have used these freedoms to take a more relational or empathetic approach, but others have used them to pick-and-choose which young people they want to educate. This is particularly problematic in those cases where inflexible admission and behaviour policies are shared across a whole multi-academy trust."
The recommendations of the study include making it harder for schools to resist admitting children in care, simplifying SEND regulations, and increasing the availability and quality of specialist provision.
Professor Harrison said: "With the new Ofsted inspection framework now in place, including significantly more emphasis on support and learning for vulnerable young people, it will be interesting to see what appetite exists to challenge the practices we have identified."
