Thousands more children who are adopted from care will benefit from £20 million in new government funding, the Department for Education has announced.
Schools attended by all pupils adopted from foster homes or residential care will now receive the so-called ‘pupil premium’, funding of £1,900 per pupil to provide special support. Children from such backgrounds do not perform as well at school as children living with the birth families.
Last year, less than 50 per cent of adopted children reached key levels of achievement in reading, writing and Mathematics, compared to 75 per cent of children who had not been adopted.
Previously, only pupils who had been adopted from care since 30 December 2005, under the Adoption and Children Act 2002, had been eligible for the funding. Now the schools attended by all such pupils will receive the cash. The Department for Education claims that 10,000 additional pupils will benefit from the support.
Children’s Minister Edward Timpson said:
“It is vital that these vulnerable children are given the right support they need and the education they deserve to help them get on in life. Extending the pupil premium to all children adopted will mean they get support they need from day one at school, no matter what their starting point in life.”
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I don’t see how anybody can argue with this decision, it has to be right.
Many children who have been adopted or fosterd many could have lived with a grandparent/s and gone on to have a loving secure home and perhaps had a good education with out the Governments stepping in yet again “In a child’s best interest” We are now in the 21st Centry and still the British children in care are being abused in every way where are the records of the abused kids in foster or adoptions where are the facts of kids in care abused sexually, where are all facts and figures of the abuse of kids in care, I will tell you go to the streets of London as I did speak to the homeless ALL from the care system all told by the social workers you were in care because your families did not want you and you never had contact with your families because they did not want you. So yes another £20 million and NO NOT for the children dont be so foolish its for the agencies “In a child’s best interest”
Maggie, the fact that willing grandparents haven’t had enough opportunity to adopt their grandchildren when the parents themselves are incapable is just irrelevant to this argument – we are talking about children already in care.
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Whilst I agree with you that the money needs to be spent wisely and protocols need to be in place to make sure that happens, that does not mean that we shouldn’t try to help these children. To follow that line of argument would mean that to avoid the risk of misuse we would never spend any money on anything !
Hi Luke, there are 1.000s of grandparents fighting for their grandchildren who yes as you say are in care and it is irrelevant it is not irrelevant because if grandparents won the rights then 1.000s of those kids could be released from care with no more money plowed into a corrupt system, as for the educational system are you aware of the social workers known as CLINICLE SOCIAL WORKERS who are paid fortunes to teach education to kids in care boy after my research what a fiddle. and now on top of this they want to give 20 million who are they kidding.