The Islington Plan for Looked After Children and ... - Islington Council

5.4.2 Summary of outcomes
Attendance
a. The Virtual School has improved systems to support the school
attendance of all children and young people in the care of Islington,
resulting in over three quarters of all children looked after having
attendance levels of 95% or greater. Primary school aged children looked
after have better attendance rates than their non-looked after peers.
b. Attendance has improved by 13% over five years which is higher than our
statistical neighbours and better than other inner London Councils.
c. Of the 51 children looked after where there were high concerns about
attendance, only eleven were persistently absent (i.e. with less than 80%
attendance) and eighteen young people had 100% attendance for the
entire 2009/10 school year.
d. The persistent absence figure was 6.7%, this represents an increase of
one young person from the previous year.
e. Two new internet based frontier web sites have been launched by the
Virtual School. Both sites offer resources, advice and information and
guidance for children looked after, foster carers and Designated Teachers
that is relevant to the key stages. The sites will assist the Council to
improve links and communication between the Virtual School and foster
carers particularly those who live outside of London and who have not
been able to access training from the Virtual School. It will also support
and increase participation and engagement by children looked after by
giving them the opportunity to provide feedback about the site and its
resources.
f. The Virtual School was chosen to lead a one year Peer Mentoring pilot
scheme commissioned by the London Mayoral Office. The project
provided individualised support and on going training to mentors, who are
care leavers, to enable them to raise the aspirations and educational
attainment of younger children looked after. The project worked with 8
children looked after and recruited 6 Islington care leavers to become
mentors. The mentees were overwhelmingly positive abut the project.
Attainment
g. Young people in year 11 achieved their best ever result for 1 or more A* -
G grade GCSEs, with 93% of the cohort achieving this. This year also
shows the best ever results of pupils achieving at least 5 A* - G grade
GCSEs at the end of Key Stage 4.
h. There have been consistent levels of improvement in the educational
outcomes of children looked after at Key stages 2 and 4. Young people in
Key Stage 2 have exceeded the national children looked after average for
all subjects (based on 2008/09 figures).
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