The education of children in care: a research review
| Pages | 128-143 |
| Date | 15 June 2012 |
| Published date | 15 June 2012 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/17466661211238682 |
| Author | Penelope Welbourne,Caroline Leeson |
| Subject Matter | Education,Health & social care,Sociology |
The education of children in care:
a research review
Penelope Welbourne and Caroline Leeson
Abstract
Purpose – This paper seeks to explore three key aspects of the education of children in care: the
composition of that population of children and the extent to which they differ from the general population
of children due to difficulties most of them have experienced prior to as well as after entering care;issues
relating to the identification of causal relationships and the extent of ‘‘underachievement’’ by children in
care; and any evidence that care may provide more positive opportunities than is often supposed.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper’s approach is an extensive literature review of existing
published research into social policy and practice of caring for looked after children.
Findings – The significant factors that contribute to better achievement for children in care are:
placement stability and support at school but for some children therapeutic help and specialist
assessments are necessary to improve outcomes. Different analyses produce different results and the
scrutiny of children’s trajectories indicates better outcomes than one-off comparisons with children
not in care.
Originality/value – Extensive research has established that children in care achieve less educationally
than their peers not in care, but does not explain why. This paper helps to fill this gap.
Keywords Care, Education, Attainment, Achievement, Looked after children, United Kingdom,
Social care, Children (age groups)
Paper type Literature review
Introduction
The gap between the educational achievement of looked after children, compared with
children not in care, has long been identified as a cause of concern: recent practice
guidance describes this as ‘‘not doing as well at school as their peers’ ’ (NICE, 2010, p. 57).
Researchers also talk about, for example, ‘‘. . . the devastating impact of being in care on
young children’s attainment’’ (Connelly and Chakrabarti, 2008, p. 348). A careful analysis of
the evidence available relating to the attainment of looked after children suggests a more
complex picture. Achievement by looked after children may be greater than has been
suggested (Forrester, 2008; Gaskell, 2010, Harker et al., 2004a; Heath et al., 1994), and
where they have poorer outcomes, the reasons for this appear to include a range of
individual and contextual influences that need to be understood and addressed if children in
care are to have similar opportunities for educational success as their peers, and therefore,
similar lifelong opportunity (Berridge et al., 2008).
Policy context
It is has been known for 25 years that children in care achieve, on average, lower GSCE results
than the average child (Jackson, 1987; Stein and Carey,1986). Only 13 per cent of children in
care obtain 5 GCSEs at Grade A*-C compared with 59 per cent of all children in the same age
group; 37 per cent achieve no GCSEs compared with 2 per cent of all children (DCSF, 2008b).
Other countries have noted similar problems (Egelund and Hestbæk, 2007; Fernandez, 2008;
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VOL. 7 NO. 2 2012, pp. 128-143, QEmerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1746-6660 DOI 10.1108/17466661211238682
Penelope Welbourne is an
Associate Professor of
Social Work and Caroline
Leeson is an Associate
Professor of Early
Childhood Studies,
at the University of
Plymouth, Plymouth, UK.
The authors would like to
acknowledge the support of
Professor Rod Sheaff for his
invaluable comments on an
earlier draft of this paper.
McClung and Gayle, 2010; Weyts, 2004). This is routinely described as under-achievement,
implying that the expected level of attainment should be higher, but the comparison group
against which their attainment might reasonably be measured is seldom specified (Berridge,
2007). The disparity in attainment has been used as evidence of failure of local authority
‘‘corporate parenting’’ (Archer, 1999; Fletcher-Campbell, 1997; Forrester, 2008).
There is better policy support for the education of children in care now than at any previous
time. Care Matters made educational achievement of looked after children a priority for local
authorities (DCSF, 2008a). Local authorities have a duty to promote their educational
achievement; all children in care should have a personal education plan, and specialist
designated teachers have been created to promote their attainment (DCSF, 2008a, c, 2009c;
Children and Young Persons Act 2008; DfES, 2007; Hayden, 2005; Children Act 2004).
Virtual school heads have a co-ordinating and facilitating role with additional resources of
£500 available for each child in care (DCSF, 2008c, 2009d).
The Department for Education (DfE) in England is monitoring progress for all children looked
after continuously for 12 months or more. They are expected to progress two curriculum
levels in English and maths between each Key Stage from the age of seven, and one level at
Key Stage 1. This will be monitored using information from the National Pupil Database
(DfE, 2011b). Targets have been set:
B20 per cent to achieve 5 A*-C GCSE grades;
B55 per cent to reach level 4 at Key Stage 2 in mathematics; and
B60 per cent to reach level 4 at Key Stage 2 in English (DCSF, 2008a).
This tracking offers the possibility of building a more comprehensive picture of the impact of
care on the education of children in care, although only for children who stay in care at least a
year (DCSF, 2009b).
Research context
Berridge (2007) prefers the term ‘‘low achievement’’ to ‘‘under achievement’ ’ for children in
care, since the academic potential of the children concerned is not easily established. Such
information is often unavailable or very difficult to measure at the point when a child enters
care. The unexamined belief that the care system is largely to blame for children’seducational
difficulties is an obstacle to improving matters (Hannon et al., 2010; Stein, 2008). There is little
hard evidence about how decisions about educational provision have been made in the past
(Davey and Pithouse, 2008) and difficulty identifying ‘‘what affects what’’ (Hare and Bullock,
2006, p. 26), so planning how to improve matters presents a policy challenge. As Brodie and
Norris (2009, p. 1) comment, ‘‘There is a serious lack of evidence aboutthe complex learning
and behavioural needs of many looked-after young people and the ways in which they do or
do not benefit from recent policy and other initiatives.’’ In this paper, we use the terms
‘‘children in care’’ and ‘‘young people in care’’ to refer to those who are in care by reason of a
court order, and those who are in care by agreementwith their parents or carers.
Gaps in existing knowledge are all too apparent, including why children in some areas do
better than others. National cohort data often appear incomplete (Jacklin et al., 2006).
Retrospective studies are particularly vulnerable to poor data gathering and recording
because older records have less reliable data in many areas (O’Sullivan and Westerman,
2007). Attainment to the ‘‘baseline’’ standard (5 A*-C GCSEs) varies widely between local
authority areas from 0-39 per cent of young people in care, and variation in the proportion of
care leavers in education, employment or training is even more varied, between 0 and
100 per cent (DCSF, 2008a, p. 35). Some variation in attainment to the ‘‘baseline’ ’ standard
may reflect contextual local variables, some may reflect recording practices, but the extent
of variation suggests that there may be something to learn by exploring the differences in
outcome between areas (Wade et al., 2010).
Absence of key data is an obstacle to interpretation of the data we do have. Data about the
low attainment of children in care (such as GSCE passes) does not on its own establish
causal links between level of achievement and being in care. We have evidence about
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