This statistical release provides a range of outcome measures at national and level authority level for children in need (CIN), including children looked after (CLA) by local authorities in England.
You can explore the full and interactive data set here.
Headline figures for children social care:
The latest figures relate to the reporting year ending 31 March 2021:
- Pupils in all social care groups were over twice as likely to have a special educational need (SEN) than the overall pupil population. For all children in need (CIN), almost half had a special educational need compared to 16% of the overall pupil population.
- Over half of all CIN were eligible for free school meals. This compares to 21% of the overall pupil population.
- Children in the social care groups perform less well than their peers across all key stage 4 measures (with the overall pupil average attainment 8 score being 50.9). Children with SEN have been recorded to have lower average attainment compared to the overall population. As such, the higher prevalence of SEN amongst looked after children (CLA) and children in need in part explains the difference in attainment compared to the overall pupil population.
- As is the case for the overall pupil population, for most of the key social care groups, Asian or Asian British pupils (including Chinese children) have the highest average Attainment 8 scores. The exception to this is CLA for at least 12 months, where Black, African, Caribbean or Black British have the highest average score.
- The percentage of persistent absentees for CLA for at least 12 months was 12% in the Autumn 2020 term, which was lower than the percentage for the overall pupil population (13%). However, as with overall absence, this percentage was higher for the other key social care groups.
- One in 10 pupils in 2020/21 have been a child in need in the last 6 years
Free school meal eligibility
The proportion of children in need eligible for free school meals has seen the biggest increase during the pandemic than at any time over the last five years.
The trend also applies to children with no involvement with children’s social care, latest Department for Education figures show.
Data on the outcomes of children in need, including children looked after by local authorities, shows that 55.5 per cent of children in need were eligible for free school meals in the year to 31 March 2021.
Among pupils with a children in need order this increases to 56.8 per cent and jumps to 75.2 per cent among children with a child protection plan in place.
In the year to 31 March 2020, 49.8 per cent of children in need were eligible for free school meals compared with 50.8 per cent of those with a children in need order and 68.8 per cent of those with a child protection plan.
“Although free school meal eligibility was increasing prior to the pandemic, the rise seen between 2019/20 and 2020/21 was higher than each of the year-on-year increases seen in the previous two years,” the DfE report states.
It also notes that children involved with children’s social services are more than twice as likely to have a special educational need (SEN) than the overall pupil population.
They are nearly three times as likely to have an education, health and care plan than the overall pupil population and nearly twice as likely to have SEN support.
Data for children who had been in care for at least 12 months saw the highest proportion of children with a special educational need compared with children on a child protection plan which had the lowest across all children involved with children’s social care.
“The percentage of pupils with special educational needs across the key social care groups has generally remained stable over the five years covered in this data,” the report adds.
It comes following the publication of government’s long-awaited green paper on support for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) which pledges to improve inclusivity in both mainstream and special education for children with SEND.
