Views & Opinion
Remember, remember your care-experienced children Comment by ANDREW TOMLINSON, BBC Teach
Picture the scene: in the space of a matter of weeks, a child has been taken from their birth family and moved into the home of their new foster or adoptive parents. Then almost immediately, the child is thrust into the hustle and bustle of school life. Most adults would shudder at the thought of how to mentally process what has just taken place. Imagine you’re just five years old. How are you expected to cope? With many suffering from
post-traumatic stress disorder, the combination of a new home and school environment is all too much. Tragically, it’s an experience thousands of children and young people face each year. I’ve met so many parents and carers who have seen their child struggle. And yet, how to deal with the specific needs of this cohort of children is not widely known or accepted. So that’s why we here at BBC Teach decided to team up with award- winning production company, Mosaic.
I am the father of two beautiful care-experienced children. It’s the most rewarding aspect of my life. But amidst our family’s journey through the education system, I have seen first-hand how few resources are available to schools; specialist resources that would enable them to guide and nurture my children. The trauma that many such children carry during their school years means that they never fully catch up with their peers. And yet, it is now recognised that a trauma-informed approach can help many more care-experienced children to remain in mainstream education. According to Adoption UK, just 44 per cent of adoptive parents agree that teachers have a good understanding of the needs of care-experienced children. What’s more, 61 per cent of adoptive parents say that finding a trauma and attachment-aware school would make the biggest positive
difference to their family.
The BBC Teach resource include a series of films designed to help teachers understand where the behaviour of care-experienced children comes from. They suggest effective ways to respond and manage it. Our resource also includes powerful first-person testimonies by young adults who have been through the care system. Their stories illustrate the emotional rollercoaster care-experienced children endure, each a personal attestation to their remarkable resilience. But as Rebecca Brooks from Adoption UK rightly points out, when you’ve met one care-experienced child, you’ve met just one. Each care-experienced child is unique. Our hope is that their stories resonate with schools across the country. Every teacher will encounter care-experienced children during their career. The resource also shows how policies such as a zero-tolerance policy to behaviour may just not work with children who have experienced trauma. Let me be clear, we know the pressures schools face day in, day out. In a class of 30, it is neither feasible nor practical to single out a child. We can only guess at the countless teaching hours that have been spent attempting to address their needs whilst meeting the needs of 29 other children. Instead, we are asking schools to see the fragile position of care- experienced children from their perspective. We know that simple steps such as welcoming each child into the class and looking them firmly in the eye can make a big difference. And for many, school can be a sanctuary, a real safe space.
Our hope is that the BBC Teach resource can become a core element of regular teacher training sessions to enhance everyone’s understanding of the needs of care-experienced children and enable them to flourish.
To access BBC Teach’s Supporting care-experienced children resource, please visit
www.bbc.co.uk/teach
Cookie the Kookaburra is helping children and their families in Stow on the Wold
Comment by REBECCA SCUTT, headteacher
Cookie the Kookaburra has been a welcome addition to our school this year. He is the mascot of The Rapid Relief Team (RRT) that gifts Food Boxes and Early Bird Learning educational resources to children in primary schools and their families. I first saw them in action when their volunteers turned out to support the local community in the aftermath of serious floods in 2007; then during the Platinum Jubilee the RRT set up tents and produced around 400 free lunches for the community.
People think of the Cotswolds as an affluent area but it has pockets of deprivation. Employment in hotels, hospitality and agriculture is seasonal and families often work long hours for very low pay. Their employment status can lift them out of the benefits system into poverty, so these food boxes are very welcome. As well as the essentials, there are tasty extras such as a chocolate bar, sauce mixes and hot dogs, all supplied in an RRT branded box. When children see the logo, they know that someone cares about them. Hungry children can’t focus on their lessons, so we encourage them to come to Breakfast Club. The Early Bird Learning Programme has provided us with water bottles, bowls and ‘sporks’ which have a spoon at one end and a fork at the other. We also have Smarrt Cookie Bars which the children love. These are nutritionally balanced, healthy eating bars which we can give to children who arrive late to school on an empty stomach.
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www.education-today.co.uk
As an Early Bird Learning Programme school, we get our very own Cookie the Kookaburra. He is the mascot of the RRT as the charity was born in Australia. Cookie’s five key messages help children to be more alert and get more out of their day.
1. Make a bright and early start to the day 2. Have some ‘brain food’ for breakfast
3. Use a checklist to make sure you are ready for the day 4. Check your breathing when you are anxious 5. Always be positive and laugh like a Kookaburra!
As a visitor from a faraway land, he encourages children to think about how to make newcomers welcome. Post Covid, many children are experiencing anxiety and loneliness and Cookie helps them through this. He appears in videos which I have shown in assembly. He discusses mental health and wellbeing from a child’s perspective, creating a meaningful and engaging story that has proved to be a great tool for our teachers. The children remember what he has said and talk about it to one another.
Cookie is much loved. The messages in his videos reinforce our school values such as teamwork and determination. He tells them to work with others and encourages children to put in the effort and not to give up, even on bad days when nothing goes right.
For further information about Early Bird Learning contact Rhianna Gurr, UK Communications Manager at RRT
rhianna.gurr@
rrtglobal.org tel:02083917625
October 2023
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