Schools receive £2530 per year Pupil Premium Plus funding for all children who have previously been in care and are now on a Special Guardianship Order, Adoption Order or a Child Arrangement Order. The funding is not a personal budget for the child and can be used by the school in any way they choose to support the education of care experienced children.
We encourage schools to use evidence based approaches when planning interventions to support children looked after. The Education Endowment Fund website has a large amount of evidence based interventions that schools can use to ensure appropriate use of funding. Using pupil premium | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)
Schools may wish to work with parents / guardians to jointly plan for the education of children previously looked after using Primary and Secondary PCLA education templates and use of Pupil Premium Plus funding can be discussed.
PAC-UK provide a list of areas that could be explored when supporting Children Previously Looked After:
1. Provide nurture and relationships through:
• A nurture breakfast club which allows children to settle into the school day
• Providing meet and greets for children at the start of the day
• A nurture room and group.
• Training and supporting staff to provide key attachment relationships with
regular 1:1 ‘attachment time’ built into children’s timetables
2. Scaffold children’s social skills and peer relationships, for example through:
• Social skills groups or Circle of Friends interventions
• Lunchtime clubs with opportunities to practice social skills
• Training midday supervisors to provide structured play at break times
• Friendship groups
• Facilitating friendships e.g. through a buddy scheme or peer mentoring
initiative
3. Support emotional literacy and emotion regulation through:
• Emotional literacy and emotion regulation groups, including anger
management
• Appointing and training an Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA)
• Providing calm boxes and staff to spend 1:1 time helping children to regulate
themselves
• Providing calm zones in classrooms and centrally within the school
• Providing alternatives to detention and isolation which focus on understanding
and repairing what went wrong
• Therapeutic services (e.g. play, art, music, drama therapy) for individuals or
groups of children; please note that therapists and counsellors who provide
‘adoption support’ must be registered with Ofsted as Adoption Support
Agencies or commissioned by the local authority or a registered Adoption
Support Agency
4. Support children to cope with transitions and change by:
• Providing additional structure during break and lunchtimes
• Providing safe spaces for children to come to throughout the school day
• Appointing a transition worker to support children through the Year 6 to Year 7
transition
• Identifying a group of staff who can provide cover for absence, reducing the
need for external supply staff
• Spending time preparing children for change in advance e.g. using social
stories or visual timetables
• Liaising closely with parents and guardians who can help their children
prepare for and cope with change
5. Develop children’s executive functioning skills through:
• Training staff in understanding and supporting executive functioning skill
development in the classroom and on the playground
• Providing individual and group sessions which focus on scaffolding the skills
needed
• Providing coaching for children who struggle to plan and organize e.g. check ins to ensure they have books and equipment, have recorded the homework
etc.
6. Address barriers to information sharing and joint working by:
• Developing policies and procedures which ensure that key information about
children’s needs is shared with all key staff coming into contact with them
• Identifying a named member of staff who liaises with the parents or guardians
and facilitates regular meetings to discuss the child’s need and progress