Back to school: Reduced timetable school weeks

As the schools head back for the Autumn term we are exploring the different educational settings and setups that are often encountered by Children Looked After.

Through this series of articles, we hope to address some of the questions that you might have about how your foster child might access their ongoing education.

In this article, we are looking into ‘reduced timetable school weeks’. For those not familiar with this kind of setup, this is an option that is sometimes offered to children who find the everyday routine of school overwhelming. For children in foster care, there could be a number of reasons that impact how they manage in a school environment. For example, many children who have suffered from neglect may have had an unsettled school experience, maybe they would often be late if they turned up to school at all on certain days. Other children might have been the primary caregivers in their homes resulting in them staying at home from school to look after siblings or in some cases their parents.

When Children Looked After join their foster family there is a lot of change happening and choices are often out of their hands. Whilst it is a legal requirement for children to attend school reasonable allowances need to be made for children as they deal with change. For children who have had an unsettled education experience, it would be very difficult in most cases to move them into a full-time educational setting. In these cases, arrangements can be made between the child’s social worker and the child’s school to explore options to make the transition from little to no school, to regular school attendance. Often the conclusion here is to arrange reduced school weeks, whether this is a shorter 3-day week, half days or attendance every other day, a plan will be created that best suits the child’s needs.

This plan needs to be adhered to by the foster carers to ensure that the child starts to receive regular education and can start to develop a routine and an understanding of their school environment that allows them to feel comfortable and safe.

Over time, and depending on the child’s needs, this school week could be extended to begin working towards full-time attendance.