Children Previously in Care and those living in Kinship Arrangements

In 2018, the remit of the Virtual School was extended to include the statutory duty of offering advice and information for Children Previously in Care with the aim of promoting their educational outcomes.

Since September 2024, the Virtual School also holds a non-statutory duty to promote the education of Children living in in Kinship Care Arrangements.

This definition includes children who have been in the care of a Local Authority and are now the subject of:

An Adoption Order (including those who were adopted from ‘state care’ outside of England or Wales*)

A Special Guardianship Order (SGO)

A Child Arrangement Order (CAO)

*‘State care’ is care provided by a public authority, a religious organisation, or any other organisation whose sole or main purpose is to benefit society.

All children in kinship care, regardless of legal status, will benefit from the Virtual School’s strategic role at a system wide level.

Kinship families with a Special Guardianship or Child Arrangements Order, regardless of whether children were previously looked after, are able to seek advice and information from the Virtual School, enabling them to navigate the education system and in turn help them to promote educational outcomes for their children.

Advice and guidance is dependent on legal status and therefore Virtual Schools cannot provide information and advice to kinship carers who are in an informal arrangement.

Unlike our Children in Care, Virtual Schools do not have corporate parenting responsibilities for this group of children. Consequently, any advice or guidance can only be given with the agreement of the person(s) who have parental responsibility for the child. They, like all parents, are responsible for overseeing their child's progress in education.

For this cohort, Peterborough Virtual School does not collate data on the attendance and attainment of individual children. However, data is analysed at a cohort level to support thematic commonalities.

Peterborough Virtual School only offer advice and guidance to children attending a Peterborough educational setting. This means that children living in the city, but educated in another local authority, will receive support from that local authority. It also means that we offer support to children in Peterborough settings who may live out of the city. We have close links with our neighbouring Virtual Schools and are able to provide contact details if required.

Our offer for Children Previously in Care and those living in Kinship Care Arrangements294KB–pdf

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