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'More versatile toolbox' needed to close growing looked after attainment gap

Looked-after children GCSEs and A Levels Narrowing the Gap Poverty Closing the gap Coronavirus Vulnerable children Covid recovery
We cannot rely solely on the National Tutoring Programme to close the widening attainment gap between looked after children and their peers post-pandemic, an analysis has warned.

Looked after students are now more than two grades behind their peers in the wake of the pandemic – and the gap is widening.

Between 2014 and 2019 the attainment gap between children in the social care system and their non-looked after peers had closed but this good work has now been undone.

An analysis from the Education Policy Institute (Hunt, 2023) has warned of growing numbers of young people entering the care system and a growing attainment gap due to Covid-19.

Furthermore, it highlights the overlap between children living in care and those living in poverty and warns that we cannot rely solely on the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) when it comes to Covid recovery – a “more versatile toolbox is needed”.

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