Every year, our Bright Spots research programme works with local authorities across the country to understand the experience of their children in care and care leavers and explore ways in which their experiences can be improved. In one of our surveys a child reported:
“I hate that when the register comes up on the screen and others in the class can see that I am CLA [child looked after]. It winds me up even though everyone knows. I don’t like to be different”.
This alerted the local authority who cared for the child about how they felt about the school register. With this knowledge, their virtual school could contact schools to ask them to stop this practice.