In the last two weeks 9 Local Authorities (LAs) have written to me pledging to process all in-year admissions for looked after children within 5 days, or to ensure that all such children are in school within 10 days, or both. I call this the CLA5 commitment. In addition, 3 other LAs have not made the commitment but pointed out that in practice they deal with these admissions within 7 days (2/3 in one case), and 2 Anglican dioceses have committed to encourage the schools they control, and which are their own admission authorities, to meet these timescales.
This is important because literally thousands of these very vulnerable young people are missing out, or have missed out, on months of school at a time. I wrote about some children I knew personally who were in this position, here, and about the general problem here.
If a parent takes a child on holiday in term time the law says they should expect to be fined. We believe their right to an education is being infringed. Yet we turn a blind eye to the fact that many children for whom local authorities assume the role of parents (CLA) seem to thereby lose their right to schooling. Somehow these very vulnerable children are expected to cope, where others who are more secure and perhaps higher achieving, cannot. The Schools Admission Code says CLA children should be the top priority: they go to the front of every queue; schools may admit them even if the school is full or an infant class is already at 30. CLA attract the highest pupil premium funding. But all this is window dressing, because the simple fact is that many of these children are losing out by not being in school.
Writing a blog or two seems a completely inadequate response to this situation. I wrote to the Secretary of State, to Ofsted and to the Shadow Secretary of State, because only the Government could solve the problem completely, but even if it chose to do so the wheels of Government grind slowly, so I decided to ask individual LAs, Church Dioceses, Multi-Academy Trusts and schools to make the CLA5 commitment.
The letters I wrote, and the responses I have received so far, are set out on a blog which can be found at cla5.org
The education community could solve this scandal by welcoming children without delay. I know for a fact that in most circumstances this isn’t hard to do. As a head I never delayed giving a response about the admission of a looked after child and never turned one away. My wife, who ran three schools where I was responsible for only one, did the same. And we are not exceptional. Many, many headteachers have exactly the same approach.
There are particular strains in some areas. Literally dozens of young people are sent to Kent when they are taken into care, and some school leaders here complain that they are asked to shoulder a disproportionate load. It was for this reason that I wrote to Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, asking that schools which are welcoming to CLA should be given credit for this in inspection judgements. Of course, someone should be looking at why this is happening and trying to solve this issue. But whether or not either of these are done, I would ask school leaders to remember that the situation is never the children’s fault, and before they turn up at your gate they have already been through an experience which may well have left them traumatised.
Thank you to Cheshire West and Chester, Devon, Hillingdon, Kensington and Chelsea, Leicestershire, Norfolk, Nottingham City, Reading, Swindon, Warrington and Westminster LAs, as well as the Dioceses of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich (Suffolk) and Exeter. To really help Looked After Children we need every Local Authority, every Diocese, every MAT and every school in the country to make the CLA5 commitment.
If you agree with the aims of this campaign, and would like to help, please consider asking your own LA, Diocese, MAT or school to make the commitment. There are more than 20,000 state schools in the country. It will take me a while to contact them on my own and I would be grateful for some help.
There are further details about all of this, including a sample letter/e-mail on cla5.org
John Cosgrove 