Giles Watling, MP for Clacton, has attended the Young Carers in Schools Parliamentary event on 4th March.
At the event, Giles spoke to several young carers and pledged to ask Ofsted to include young carers as a named group within the 2019 draft framework – if successful, this campaign will mean that the educational support for young carers will be under greater scrutiny from Ofsted during inspections.
Research from Young Carers has shown:
- 27% of young carers (aged 11-15) miss school or experience educational difficulties (40% where children care for a relative with drug or alcohol problems);
- They have significantly lower educational attainment at GCSE level – the difference between nine Cs and nine Ds;
- A quarter of young carers said they were bullied at schools because of their caring role.
There are over 180,000 unpaid carers in Essex that need our help and support, many of which will be young people, and Giles will now work with Carers Trust and Young Carers to take this issue forward.
Information about organisations that can offer support to carers can be found here: https://www.tendringdc.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/support-carers
Speaking after the event, Giles said:
“I would like to thank Carers Trust and Young Carers for inviting me to this reception, and it was very moving to hear the experiences of young carers. I hadn’t appreciated how many children are in a caring role – one in twelve in each class – and I will continue to lobby Ofsted to ensure that they receive more support when at school.”