Care Experienced Young People Are Overrepresented in Wales’s Pupil Referral Units
Dr Phil Smith and Dr Nell Warner
Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre (CASCADE), Cardiff University
For young people who have experienced care, navigating education can be particularly challenging. They are more likely than their peers to experience difficulties with attainment, school attendance and exclusion. But what happens when these experiences lead young people away from mainstream education and into alternative provision?
Recently published research using data from across Wales provides important insight into this question. The study examined over 93,000 young people in their final year of compulsory education between 2018/19 and 2020/21, linking education and social care records to explore the relationship between care experience and attendance at pupil referral units (PRUs).
The findings reveal a striking pattern: young people with experience of children’s social care were substantially overrepresented in PRUs.
Overall, 1.1% of young people in the study attended a PRU in Year 11. Among those who had entered care from the age of 11 onwards, however, 10.4% attended a PRU. This compared with just 0.8% of young people with no recorded involvement with children’s social services. The relationship remained important even after taking account of other factors strongly associated with PRU attendance, such as special educational needs and previous exclusions.
Interestingly, the timing of care experience mattered. Having entered care before age 11 was not significantly associated with PRU attendance once other factors were considered. This suggests that adolescence may be a particularly important period for understanding the relationship between care experience, education and exclusion.
The research also highlights an important difference between boys and girls. Boys were more likely overall to attend a PRU, but care experienced girls made up a larger proportion of girls in PRUs than care experienced boys did of boys in PRUs. When the researchers analysed the groups separately, care experience was more strongly associated with PRU attendance among girls.
These findings matter because attending alternative provision can have long-term implications for educational opportunities and transitions beyond compulsory schooling. They also raise questions about what happens before a young person reaches a PRU. Exclusion may sometimes reflect behaviour, but behaviour can also be a sign that a young person’s needs are not being understood or supported within mainstream education.
The researchers stress that the data cannot tell us whether entering care leads to PRU attendance, or whether difficulties experienced during adolescence contribute to both entering care and leaving mainstream education. More research is needed to understand these pathways.
What the evidence does make clear is that PRUs and children’s social care cannot be considered separately. The high proportion of care experienced young people in alternative provision points to the importance of stronger collaboration between education, social care, health and other services. This is particularly important for those who enter social care aged 11+. Early and quality interventions should be used to reduce the risks of school exclusion.
For PRU staff in Wales, greater awareness of children’s social care—and more integrated, multi-agency support—could be an important step towards ensuring that care experienced young people receive the support they need to remain engaged in education and successfully move into life after school.
The full paper with these research findings can be downloaded here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejed.70854
More information about research is also available on the CASCADE website: https://cascadewales.org/research/leaving-a-pupil-referral-unit-exploring-the-transitions-and-post-16-destinations-of-care-experienced-young-people-across-wales/
