Known, included and ambitious: promoting the education of care-experienced learners: government response

Estyn has undertaken a thematic review to evaluate how effectively maintained schools, pupil referral units (PRUs) and local authorities promote the education, well-being and aspirations of care-experienced learners aged 3 to 16.

The report contains a series of twelve recommendations for Welsh local authorities, schools and PRU’s, and Welsh Government to strengthen the commitment to supporting care-experienced learners.

The report, 'Known, Included and Ambitious: Promoting the education of care-experienced learners', finds that schools, PRUs and local authorities across Wales show a strong commitment to supporting care-experienced learners and many provide nurturing environments where learners feel safe, valued and understood.

The report finds that care-experienced learners are most likely to thrive where schools, PRUs and local authorities understand their individual circumstances, maintain high expectations and coordinate support effectively. While it identifies many examples of strong practice, it concludes that schools, PRUs and local authorities are generally more successful in describing the support they provide than in demonstrating which approaches improve learners’ educational progress, attainment and longer-term outcomes.

Attendance, wellbeing and behaviour are routinely monitored, but there is less emphasis on evaluating progress, attainment, qualifications and future destinations. The report therefore highlights the need to strengthen the focus on educational outcomes and longer-term success, ensuring that support not only enables learners to engage in education but also helps them make strong progress, achieve well and benefit from improved future opportunities.

The report shows awareness of trauma-informed and attachment-aware practice has increased across schools, PRUs and local authorities. However, it notes that providers were generally better at showing that staff had received training than demonstrating how these approaches had improved learners’ attendance, participation, progress and attainment.

Another significant theme identified in the report is the unequal visibility of different groups of care-experienced learners. Children who are currently looked after are generally well identified and monitored while adopted learners, those living in kinship care or under special guardianship orders and previously looked-after children are often less visible within education systems. This limits opportunities to identify needs early, provide appropriate support and understand outcomes for these groups. The report argues that visibility, continuity, and educational oversight are essential to equitable opportunities and outcomes, while emphasising that identification should be proportionate, disclosure should be voluntary, and personal information should be handled sensitively and confidentially.

The report also highlights the need to protect continuity of Welsh-medium education and Welsh-language support, noting that access to this continuity is not equitable across Wales.

Learners consistently stressed the importance of trusted relationships, being listened to, seeing action taken in response to their views, being involved in decisions affecting them and being treated as individuals rather than being defined by their care experience. The report's central message is that care-experienced learners are most successful when they are known, included and ambitious. The report identifies progress in creating supportive, relationship-based and trauma-informed educational environments.

It proposes a stronger focus on:

• measuring educational progress
• strengthening partnership working
• ensuring equitable access to learning opportunities and enrichment activities, and
• improving visibility of all groups of care-experienced learners in the education system

Recommendations 1 to 5 for Schools and PRUs

Recommendation 1

Evaluate the impact of support on care-experienced learners’ progress, attainment, participation and longer-term outcomes, not just attendance and well-being.

Recommendation 2

Ensure ambitious expectations for care-experienced learners and provide support that promotes their educational progress and participation, as well as their well-being.

Recommendation 3

Improve the quality and use of Personal Education Plans so that they include clear educational targets, meaningful learner participation in planning and review, and regular evaluation of the impact of support on progress and outcomes.

Recommendation 4

Ensure all care-experienced learners have fair access to a full curriculum, enrichment opportunities, qualifications and future education or employment opportunities.

Recommendation 5

Ensure that trauma-informed and attachment-aware approaches are applied consistently and evaluate their impact on learners’ experiences, engagement and outcomes.

Welsh Government response

We will continue to engage with local authorities through the National Delivery Group for care experienced learners to explore the recommendations and consider how they might be taken forward.

Recommendation 4 aligns with Welsh Government's £3 million enrichment funding provided to local authorities via the Local Authority Education Grant (LAEG). The funding supports schools to provide social, cultural, creative and physical activities and experiences beyond formal learning, with a particular focus on encouraging attendance, tackling disengagement, promoting wellbeing and supporting equality of access. The flexibility within the grant enables local authorities and schools to tailor provision to meet the needs of learners facing disadvantage, including care-experienced learners, helping to ensure they can participate fully in enrichment opportunities.

Recommendations 6 to 10 for local authorities

Recommendation 6

Strengthen proportionate arrangements for identifying care-experienced learners where their circumstances are known and relevant information is available, and for monitoring their educational experiences and outcomes.

This should include educational progress alongside attendance, participation, destinations and exclusion rates.

Recommendation 7

Ensure that corporate parenting arrangements use this evidence to scrutinise educational progress, attainment, participation and destinations, alongside attendance, well-being and placement stability, and to hold services to account for improving outcomes.

Recommendation 8

Strengthen the quality assurance of Personal Education Plans so that they are consistently used as effective tools for educational planning, review and evaluation.

Recommendation 9

Strengthen joint working between education, children's services and partner agencies to maintain educational continuity during placement moves, school changes and other periods of instability, including access to Welsh-medium education, where appropriate.

Recommendation 10

Evaluate the impact of support, interventions and trauma-informed approaches on learners’ educational experiences and outcomes and use the findings to inform improvement planning.

Welsh Government response

We will continue to engage with local authorities through the National Delivery Group for care experienced learners to help them support schools and PRU’s to explore the recommendations and consider how they might be taken forward.

The Personal Education Plan (PEP) guidance, published on 9th July 2026 and developed in collaboration with local authorities’ and care experienced learners, will help schools and settings progress recommendation 8 to improve the quality and consistency of PEPs.

All children in Wales, regardless of their circumstances or healthcare needs, have a right to a full education. Local authorities are responsible for providing education for all children who for whatever reason cannot attend school, including those who are in hospital.

We welcome the report's recognition that awareness of trauma-informed practice has increased across Wales, while recognising that consistency of practice and evaluation of impact remain areas for improvement. On 27 March 2026, the Welsh Government announced an investment of £550,000 per year over the next three years (2026 to 2027 and 2028 to 2029) to support trauma-informed practice in schools. The funding is being channelled through Dysgu to develop a bilingual, all-Wales offer that will support schools to embed trauma-informed practice more consistently.

Recommendation 11 and 12 for the Welsh Government

Recommendation 11

Clarify national expectations and provide guidance on proportionate approaches for identifying, monitoring and coordinating support for wider groups of care-experienced learners, while respecting learners’ and families’ choices about disclosure and confidentiality.

Recommendation 12

Review whether existing national guidance, funding and accountability arrangements support consistent, equitable and outcome-focused provision for all care-experienced learners.

Welsh Government response

We welcome the report findings and accept these recommendations. As corporate parents, we remain committed to ensuring that care-experienced children and young people are not only known and included but are also supported to be ambitious and successful in education and beyond.

Care experienced children are a diverse group and are more likely to have experienced trauma in their lives, including abuse, neglect or loss. This can affect executive functioning, emotional regulation, relationships and behaviour, which can impact on educational outcomes.

The Pupil Development Grant for Children Looked After (PDG CLA) is intended to support all care experienced learners. As part of the broader PDG review, we will explore how the PDG CLA can most effectively enable consistent and equitable support for all care experienced learners that improves educational outcomes. This will include a review of the accountability measures and PDG CLA guidance to ensure they effectively support grant implementation and monitoring.

We recognise the potential barriers around identifying and supporting all care experienced learners set out in the report. We are committed to helping more care experienced learners receive the support they are eligible for whilst respecting families’ decisions on whether they want to disclose this information to schools. We will work with the sector to understand best practice in this area to provide guidance on identifying, monitoring and coordinating support for wider groups of care-experienced learners. This will include consideration of how to help families understand the extra support that their children are entitled to if they are care experienced, including additional funding.

We worked with local authorities and third sector partners to co-produce a suite of guidance documents intended to help local authorities and schools better understand and respond to the needs of care experienced learners and promote effective practice, including the Personal Education Plan (PEP) guidance. This was published in July, therefore it is too soon to see the impacts of the guidance on this cohort of learners. We will keep the guidance and its impact under review and will update the guidance if required. 

We facilitate a National Delivery Group (NDG) for care-experienced learners, bringing together local authorities, Welsh Government policy officials, and third-sector organisations, including Estyn and Adoption UK. The purpose of the NDG is to share effective practice across the sector, inform policy and practice through current research and policy developments, and support the delivery of a Welsh approach to improving the educational outcomes of care-experienced children and young people. We will engage with NDG members on the recommendations identified in this report to support their implementation and progression.

The full report can be accessed on Estyn’s website, and was published on 06 October 2026.