Children who grew up in the care system are continuing to achieve better grades.

At a meeting of cabinet, elected members heard that the educational outcomes achieved by care-experienced learners are continuing to improve – and is often better when compared to those in other local authority areas.

But nationally and in North Ayrshire, there remains a significant gap in the performances of those who have been in care, or remain in care, and other learners.

In recent years the Council has introduced a number of initiatives that have had a significant impact.

Social workers are now based within a number of North Ayrshire schools and they provide support and assistance to care-experienced young people who may be experiencing difficulties.

Funding has also been put in place to create a ‘champions board’. This provides a platform for young people to talk directly to council staff, elected members and service providers to ensure that decisions which affect their lives are informed by their own experiences.

Significant additional funding has been secured through the Scottish Attainment Challenge to support a mentoring programme from 2020, which will operate across six of our secondary schools, following a successful pilot last year in one North Ayrshire school.

Cllr Robert Foster, Cabinet member for the Health and Social Care Partnership, said: “We are delighted with the progress being made. Some of the initiatives introduced have been really successful. They have made a marked difference and helped improve the results of pupils at school and assisted them with the transition to life after school.”

The report highlights that the proportion of care experienced learners from North Ayrshire entering a positive destination – employments, further education, volunteering - has been above the national figure for the last five years and how care experienced learners are achieving better in literacy and numeracy than the national cohort at P4, P7 and S3.