Knowledge & Resource Hub

When I became Children’s Commissioner, one of my first actions was to carry out The Big Ask survey. I wanted to understand, as we were emerging from the shadow of the pandemic, what children wanted for their futures, and what worries were holding them back. It was clear from the responses to that survey, as […]

The Department for Education (DfE) has today published the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan (hereafter the Plan). The Plan sets out how DfE intends to deliver ‘a single national system that delivers consistently for every child and young person with SEND and in alternative provision’. The review of the […]

To support the Education Select Committee’s inquiry into children’s absence from school, This report summarises the key findings from my attendance audit.

This paper, the first in a series of research reports, makes clear the urgent need to protect children from the harms of online pornography. It is my duty as Children’s Commissioner to champion young people’s views and voices, and to ensure that all children enjoy the freedom to grow up safely and happily, both online […]

I want every child in care to have access to a stable home environment that is able to meet their needs and give them the love and care they need to thrive in every aspect of their life. They should be in familial environments that can provide them with care until they are at least […]

In undertaking my Independent Family Review, I’ve heard from families of all kinds about why family is so important. I wanted to understand why this what, and what we as policy makers could do in response. The importance – and power – of family life is no different for children in the care system, but […]

In April 2021 I launched The Big Ask as a national consultation exercise with children across England. I asked them about their lives, their priorities, their worries and their hopes for the future, and children wrote back. The Big Ask was live for 6 weeks and in that time, over 550,000 children completed the survey, […]

Foreword by Dame Rachel de Souza Family is central to all of our lives, particularly children, for whom family is the prism through which the world is experienced. That is why I was excited to be asked to undertake the Independent Family Review and am so pleased to be publishing Part 2. At its core […]

Over the course of this year, I have been relentless in my focus on making sure that everyone understands what children need to thrive, to be happy and healthy. A huge part of that has been investigating children’s attendance at school. I have prioritised attendance because school is where children have told me, overwhelmingly, they […]

‘The fact that some adults don’t believe in children’s rights, and we have those rights, so we need the Government to speak about rights for kids so that we have a life of some sort of freedom. And that we have respect for adults so adults should have at least some respect for kids around […]

In The Big Ask, the largest survey of its kind in the world, over 500,000 children told me how much they love school.[i] They love learning. The pandemic re-set the relationship between children and school. After a tough two years of mainly online learning, children missed their teachers, their friends, their activities, and real classroom learning. […]

Foreword by Dame Rachel de Souza “People with disabilities are very intelligent in their own way, we all have a voice if it’s by iPad or by mobile phone or eye gaze or a communication book” – Boy, 17, The Big Ask. This paper is dedicated to all children growing up in England with additional […]