Promoting and Enhancing the education of young people who have found engaging with education difficult is the cornerstone of what Outreach Education Scotland offer. Pupils within Care Settings may find accessing education difficult for many reasons and in an effort to reengage Care Experienced young people with education Outreach Education Scotland offer a Virtual School allowing learning to continue albeit without the physical environment of attending school.

Very often a break down in education may occur if a young person has endured multiple placements. In our experienced and from direct feedback from young people in care they often see no point in attending a new school, making new friends, starting school work and then being moved to start this process all over again and to be honest we can see their point! Outreach Education Scotland's unique delivery of education allows a sustained learning model for young people regardless of where they reside.

It is vital that we give Care Experienced young people the best possible chance of a positive destination beyond education with latest figures show that school leavers from care settings continue to have lower attainment than other school leavers. In 2017/18 62% of all school leavers had 1 or more qualification at SCQF level 6 or better, whereas only 12% of school leavers who were in care for the full year and 11% who were in care for part of the year had qualifications at this level (Scottish Government, 2019).

Care Experienced children and young people leave school earlier than their non-Care Experienced peers. In 2017/18 44% of children in care for the full year and 40% of those who were in care for part of the year left school in S4 or earlier, compared with just 11% of all school leavers (Scottish Government, 2019).

Care Experienced children are less likely to be in positive destinations nine months after leaving school. Figures from 2017/18 show that 76% of children in care for the full year and 69% of children in care for part of the year, were in positive destinations. This is compared to 93% of all schools leavers (Scottish Government, 2019*)New experimental stats released this year show the achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) levels for aspects of literacy (reading, writing, and listening and talking) and numeracy for an estimated 3,745 children and young people who were looked after in 2017/18. The figures show across all stages, that a lower proportion of Care Experienced children achieved the CfE level relevant to their stage compared with all pupils – especially in writing (Scottish Government, 2019).

The rate of exclusions among Care Experienced children is much higher than in the general school population: 169 cases per 1,000 pupils in care for the full year, compared with 27 per 1,000 in the general school population in 2016/17. The more placement moves a child experiences in a year, the higher their likelihood of exclusion (Scottish Government, 2018).

Care Experienced children are automatically deemed to have additional support needs, unless otherwise assessed. Despite this, around half of Care Experienced children have not been assessed for a coordinated support plan, even though they are entitled in law (Govan Law Centre, 2015)Across all levels of study at university and college, the number of Care Experienced entrants increased from 2,070 in 2016-17 to 2,545 in 2017-18 (SFC, 2019).

However, the figures also show that at all levels, Care Experienced students have lower rates of completing courses compared to all students at university and college. Between Care Experienced students and non-Care Experienced students, there is a difference of 5.3% for retention at university, and the largest gap is in successful completion of full-time further education courses at college where the gap is 15.6% (SFC, 2019).

For more information on bespoke educational packages supporting young people within a care setting please get in touch.

*Statistics compiled by Who Cares Scotland.