Children in kinship care have been overlooked. Our report explores insights from our 2023 survey to understand how we can improve support for kinship children in England and Wales across education, SEND/ALN, mental health and family relationships.
Educational support for kinship children
The remit of Virtual School Heads has been extended to include a wider group of children in kinship care and will be put on a statutory footing.
Slow progress
Previous status: No progress (December 2023)
On this page
Click on the link below to take you to the section you'd like to read:
What’s happening now?
Following a commitment made in Novermber 2024, the government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill seeks to put on a statutory footing an existing extension of virtual school head (VSH) support to a wider group of kinship children which commenced in September 2024.
Responding to recommendations made by the Education Committee, and other parliamentarians including Munira Wilson MP who tabled relevant amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the government has confirmed it has no plans to extend pupil premium plus eligibility or priority school admissions to all children in kinship care because “there is limited evidence to support such a change and no national data on the number or location of children in informal arrangements”.
However, the government has committed to “exploring the feasibility of collecting this data through the school census to build a stronger evidence base for future policy development.”
What’s happened previously?
The extension of Virtual School Head support in September 2024 came following a commitment made in the National Kinship Care Strategy in December 2023. This extension is twofold and outlined in guidance initially published in March 2024:
- VSHs should adapt their strategic role to champion the educational attendance, attainment and progress of all children in kinship care, regardless of arrangement; and
- supported by s31 grant investment, VSH’s specific responsibilities should extend to providing advice and information on request to special guardians and kinship carers with child arrangements orders, regardless of whether or not the child was previously looked after.
Our verdict
We welcome the extension of the VSH role to support to a wider group of children in kinship care, as well as legislation which puts this on a statutory footing. This should continue to create new opportunities for improved understanding of and support for kinship children in education, and we look forward to continuing our work with the National Association of Virtual School Heads (NAVSH) to ensure this expansion makes a difference for newly-eligible kinship families.
In our 2025 annual survey, just over 1 in 5 (22%) kinship carers said they or a kinship child they care for had ever received advice or support from their local authority virtual school. In 2024, 65% said they did not understand what support was offered to them by the virtual school, and a further 12% said they didn’t know. As such, significant number of kinship families – and particularly those who have only recently become eligible for advice and information on request – may be unaware of and could be missing out on helpful support from the virtual school. This is important as kinship carers are often very positive about virtual school support when they do receive it.
Furthermore, the impact of the VSH extension will be significantly limited by the accompanying lack of tools and funding available to support the virtual school head, particularly given that only currently or previously looked after children are eligible for pupil premium plus and those who have not previously spent time in local authority are absent from statutory data collection on educational outcomes. Despite being recognised on a statutory footing alongside other groups of children supported by the VSH, these differences will make it comparably much harder for virtual schools to identify, reach out, support and evaluate the impact of their work with kinship children.
It is disappointing that the government has confirmed there are no further plans to improve educational support for all children in kinship care. Current support continues to undermine the common needs and experiences across children in all types of kinship care, instead carving them into discrete groups based on the type of arrangement and their journey into kinship care. However, we look forward to supporting work to utilise the school census to build a stronger evidence base for future change, something we have previously called for.
What should happen next?
In the long term, we urge the government to move away from further stepped extensions accompanied by annual grant funding and instead consider the support which kinship children as a whole cohort would most benefit from, recognising our evidence which shows how their educational needs and experiences of trauma, separation and loss are typically very similar to those who enter local authority care, and the gaps in current support which continue to unfairly deny kinship children the support they need and deserve.
The government should harmonise the existing patchwork of support for kinship children and introduce new legislation which guarantees equalised levels of support between children in all forms of kinship care and children looked after in local authority care. This should involve coordinating duties and remits across the triangle of support available through the virtual school, pupil premium plus and the designated teacher, providing a clear, cohesive and comprehensive offer to all kinship families.
In the interim, the unique needs, experiences and strengths of kinship children should be considered in delivery of virtual school head, pupil premium plus, designated teacher and personal education plan support to all of those eligible. Specifically, the Department for Education should explore the feasibility of an automatic opt-out system to avoid the need for eligible families of previously looked after children cared for under a special guardianship or child arrangements order to self-declare their eligibility for pupil premium plus in the autumn school census each year. This would increase the funding provided to schools to support the education of such children and enhance opportunities for kinship children to access appropriate support with SEND.
Priority school admissions should be extended to all children in kinship care, and further and higher education providers should extend relevant support offered to care-experienced students to those with experience of kinship care too. The government’s future Schools White Paper should also consider the elevated prevalence of SEND amongst kinship children similar to those in other social care groups, but their comparable lack of formalised support through education, health and care (EHC) plans.
-
Only 54% of children in kinship care are getting the support they need in education
-
47% of kinship children have a special educational need or disability
-
31% of children in kinship care have diagnosed or suspected social, emotional and mental health needs
Pupil premium plus is special funding for schools in England to promote the education of pupils who are or have been in the care of children’s services.
Find out how your virtual school could support your kinship child, from managing their behaviour to moving schools
Related content
Learn how Kinship shapes policy and advocates for change. Through collaboration with families and policymakers, we work to ensure kinship carers’ voices are heard and supported across England and Wales.
We carry out research and share it with decision-makers and others to call for improvements in law, policy and professional practice. See all of our research and reports.
Learn more about the kinship families in your local area with our constituency figures.