Telling a New School What It Needs to Know

Where to start

• Write to the school before the first day; leave out the details of your child’s past.
• Include who may collect your child, and a copy of any court order.
• Ask who leads for adopted and looked-after pupils, and for one named contact.
• In England, state schools must have a designated teacher for children who are in care or who left care through adoption, special guardianship or a child arrangements order. Independent schools don’t have that duty, but the government’s safeguarding guidance says a suitably trained teacher should take the lead in schools without one, so ask who that is. Ask, too, for one named person to deal with, an adult your child can go to, and somewhere to go when it gets too much.

The rest of the tip, and why it works, is in the library.

Sources

Department for Education, The designated teacher for looked-after and previously looked-after children (2018); Department for Education, Keeping children safe in education 2026, paragraphs 8 and 235 to 239; Department for Education, Understanding and dealing with issues relating to parental responsibility (2023); NICE, Children’s attachment (NG26, 2015), recommendation 1.2.5; Kinship, School support for kinship children (2026)

It goes with

• A Child With Two Families. For parents and carers whose child came to them through adoption, special guardianship, kinship care or fostering.
• The Move to Secondary School. For parents whose child is about to go from being one of the oldest at school to one of the youngest.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full.

Free on this subject

• Adoption, fostering and kinship care. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.
• School stress. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.