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Young carers twice as likely to be suspended

Young carers aged 11 to 16 are more than twice as likely to be persistently absent, twice as likely to be suspended from school, and less likely to achieve a Grade 5 in English and maths GCSE.
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A report published by the charity MYTIME Young Carers – entitled Overlooked and Overburdened – examines data collected from more than 10,500 young people who attend schools involved with its support programme.

The report uses the legal definition of a young carer as “a person under the age of 18 who provides care for another person”. It estimates that there could be as many as 900,000 pupils at schools in England (10%) with some kind of caring duty at home.

The study’s findings reveal that 46% of the young people involved are persistently absent from secondary school compared to 23% of their peers. Persistent absence of young carers in year 7 stood at 33% and rises to 53% for those in year 11.

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