Press Notice: Children’s Commissioner raises the alarm over the numbers of children who are falling through the cracks after leaving the state education system
Shocking new statistics show that local authorities in England have no idea what has happened to 10,181 children who left state education between Spring 2021/22 and Spring 2022/23, the Children’s Commissioner revealed today. The data also shows around 13,120 further children left the state education system for home education, with many parents reporting this was […]
Tips for parents whose children are struggling to attend school
Sarah is Safeguarding Manager at School-Home Support and previously worked as a primary school teacher and Deputy Headteacher. This week, thousands of children will be returning to school after the Christmas break. Going back to school will be an exciting time for some children, who will be looking forward to seeing their friends and getting […]
A look back on Help at Hand in 2023
Help at Hand is the Children’s Commissioner’s advice and assistance service for children who are in care, leaving care, working with social services or living away from home. Children and their advocates can get in touch with Help at Hand via the freephone telephone line, website or email. As we look forward to 2024, we […]
Why focusing on families matters in Alternative Provision
In this blog, Brenda McHugh, co-founder of the Pears Family School and Consultant Psychotherapist (Inclusion and Specialist Help in Schools) at Anna Freud, tells us about the importance of a family-centric approach to Alternative Provision. For the past 10 years, the Pears Family School has been doing something really innovative – but also incredibly simple […]
Football Beyond Borders: Transforming the lives of young people
Football Beyond Borders (FBB) is an education and social inclusion charity using the power of football to transform the lives of young people. In October, Dame Rachel de Souza visited the FBB programme at Manchester Enterprise Academy. In this blog, their Senior Policy Manager, James Reeves, tells us more about their work. For children and […]
Connecting the dots – the importance of sharing data on children and families
As Children’s Commissioner, I have seen how important good and consistent data sharing is for improving children’s outcomes in life. But sadly, too often children fall through the gaps due to a lack of knowledge sharing between children’s services. This was most apparent earlier this year, when I conducted regional roundtables in areas with […]
The importance of health and well-being to children and young people
Children want to grow up feeling happy, healthy and well. In my last big survey, The Big Ask, in 2021, children spoke about wanting good physical health, and younger children in particular spoke about wanting to live healthy lives. I am now going round the country again asking them what they want politicians to prioritise […]
Celebrating World Children’s Day
Today is World’s Children’s Day, a chance to celebrate children across the country and to raise awareness about the importance of upholding children’s rights. We should all take this moment to reflect on how we are upholding children’s rights and why it is paramount that we do so. Children themselves recognise the need for the […]
Help at Hand annual report 2022-2023
As the Children’s Commissioner for England, my statutory duty, as set out in the Children Act 2004, is to promote and protect the rights of all children, with particular regard to children who are living away from home or receiving social care services. In 2014, under section 2D of Act, the Commissioner’s powers were extended […]
Protecting children from serious violence
‘I think in certain areas we ain’t provided with lots to do and that makes kids fend for their own type of fun and most of us just end up hanging out on the street. This causes knife crime and stuff like that’ – Girl, aged 14 (The Big Ask). Recent months have been heavy […]
Missing Children, Missing Grades
Since becoming Children’s Commissioner, I have made tackling school absences one of my top priorities. I first came into this role in March 2021, after 30 years of experience in education as a multi-academy trust leader and headteacher. The nation was emerging from successive lockdowns and children’s education had been immensely disrupted. I sensed that […]
Experiences of children with SEND
Earlier this year, I was commissioned by the Cabinet Office’s Disability Unit to explore the lives, experiences and needs of disabled children in England, to inform its Disability Action Plan. Since then, my team and I have spoken to children, young people, parents and practitioners across the country to understand the challenges disabled children face, […]
Archived Content
School attendance since September
In March 2020 schools across England closed for nearly all pupils. Those allowed to attend rarely did, and even a partial re-opening of schools in July saw a peak school attendance of just 17.5%. By the time schools re-opened in September, 575 million days of school had been missed by children in England. The impact […]
School return: Covid-19 and school attendance
Examining school attendance rates during and after lockdown
Roadmap to reopening schools
Policy briefing Ever since last August, the Children’s Commissioner has said “Schools must be the last to close and the first to reopen.” This is now a well-used phrase as parents, teachers, scientists, politicians and the media all recognise the massive impact that the lockdowns are having on children’s education, and even more importantly, on […]
Requesting details on Government plans to minimise learning loss during lockdown and support for reopening of schools
The Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield has today (6th January) sent a letter to the Secretary of State for Education Gavin Williamson, following the start of the new national lockdown, to request further details on the Government’s plans to minimise learning loss during the national lockdown and support schools to reopen as soon as possible. The […]
Lockdown school closures mean we need to act now to save children’s education and wellbeing
Since the start of the pandemic, I have pushed again and again for schools to be the last to close and the first to open in any lockdown. Yet something that seemed unthinkable only a month ago – a national closure of schools – is now happening as a result of the new, more transmissible […]
Amid the coronavirus uncertainty, millions of children are back in school
Now is a good time to reflect on the progress that has been made as children have returned to school after so many months out of the classroom. Schools, teachers and children themselves have worked so hard to adapt to a new normal, from one-way hallways to staggered drop-offs, from classroom bubbles to shorter lunch […]
Children’s Commissioner warns 420,000 children in England are at risk of eviction unless Government acts
Anne Longfield, Children’s Commissioner for England, is today warning that hundreds of thousands of children will return to school in two weeks with the threat of housing eviction hanging over their families, unless the Government changes its mind and extends its ban on evictions. Her intervention comes as the Children’s Commissioner’s Office publishes a new […]
Children and schools must come before pubs and shops in planning for future Covid-19 lockdowns
Anne Longfield, Children’s Commissioner for England, has published a new briefing setting out the key actions needed to ensure children are at the heart of planning for any future coronavirus lockdowns, including making sure all children are back in school in September. The Children’s Commissioner argues that if any local or national lockdown takes place, schools […]
Children’s Commissioner for England creates local area profiles of child vulnerability during Covid-19
Analysis of the extent of child vulnerability around the country, much of which is hidden from sight under lockdown.
How young people are gaining valuable life skills with the police
The relationship between the police and teenagers can be fraught and complex. We often hear from some children that they don’t trust the police. They tell us they feel there is a “them against us” attitude. But at the same time, they also tell us they would like more police visibility to make them feel […]
