Everyone wants to improve GCSE grades, yet policymakers are preventing progress by failing to pay sufficient attention to the support children need outside the school gates. One area that needs particular attention is the children’s social care system.
Despite the recent independent review of children’s social care and a new government strategy – ‘Stable Homes Built on Love’ – neither the government nor the Labour Party have committed to anything like the level of reform, or funding, needed to improve the system.
That matters for children who rely on social care services. It also matters for educational outcomes – and our ability to boost GCSE grades – more generally.
Children’s social care is a big and growing public service. Around one in four children are referred to it at some point in their lives. That means around 120,000 children taking their GCSEs in England each year will have had some contact with the system.
