09/10/2026
Every care-experienced child deserves to be known, included and supported to thrive. But are schools consistently recognising and meeting their needs?
A new report on care experienced learners from the Education and Training Inspectorate in Wales (Estyn) highlights excellent examples of schools building trusted relationships, helping children feel safe and included, and maintaining high expectations for their learning and future opportunities.
But it also identifies a significant challenge: support is not consistently reaching adopted children, those living in kinship care or under special guardianship orders, and children who were previously looked after.
Estyn highlights gaps in identifying and monitoring these learners, understanding their individual circumstances and needs, and evaluating whether the support they receive is making a difference. This echoes years of findings from our Adoption Barometer.
Importantly, some of the young people involved with Adoption UK’s Adoption Alliance project and Connected service in North Wales met with Estyn’s Lead Inspector to share their experiences. Their voices helped inform some of the findings and recommendations in the report, demonstrating the importance of listening directly to young people about what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to change.
Estyn also drew on Adoption UK’s Breaking the Barriers research to inform the report. This is an important reminder of why families sharing their experiences through the Barometer matters: it helps build the evidence that shapes understanding, informs practice and drives recommendations for change.
Estyn recommends:
🔷Better, proportionate identification and monitoring of care-experienced learners where circumstances are known and relevant information is available, while respecting privacy and families’ choices about disclosure.
🔷A stronger focus on educational progress, attainment, participation and longer-term outcomes, not just attendance and wellbeing.
🔷Greater consistency and continuity of support, including through transitions and changes in circumstances.
🔷Stronger partnership working across education, children’s services and other agencies.
🔷Ambitious expectations and fair access to the full curriculum, enrichment, qualifications and future opportunities.
🔷Consistent trauma-informed and attachment-aware practice, with its impact evaluated.
There is excellent practice to build on across Wales. The challenge now is to turn that good practice into a consistent experience for every care-experienced child, so that every young person is known, included, understood and given every opportunity to thrive.
👉Read the full Estyn report: https://estyn.gov.wales/improvement-resources/known-included-and-ambitious-promoting-the-education-of-care-experienced-learners/
Executive Summary This report evaluated how effectively maintained schools, pupil referral units (PRUs) and local authorities promoted the education, well-being and aspirations of care-experienced learners aged 3 to 16. It considered the experiences of children who were looked after, adopted from ca...
