4.3.12 Adopted from care [collected for: ALL schools]
Guidance for the January school census 2014 asked schools to include, for the first time, children adopted from care on or after 30 December 2005 as well as those who left care under a special guardianship order or residence order (now known as a child arrangements order4) so that they attract the pupil premium worth £1900 per pupil this financial year.

Schools are now asked to include in this data return all children adopted from care and not just who were adopted from care after 30 December 2005. All are now eligible to attract the pupil premium this financial year. This data item will therefore identify all eligible children on census day who will attract £1900 this financial year.

It will be up to those who have parental responsibility (adoptive parents, special guardians and carers of former looked after children on residence/child arrangements orders) to decide if they wish to self-declare their children’s status to schools. Parents should be asked to provide supporting evidence, for example, a photocopy of the adoption order, and asked to confirm that their child was adopted from care. Parents may conceal sensitive information (eg the name of the birth parents) if they wish.

Schools are reminded that this is a particularly sensitive data item, and of the need for confidentiality. Schools should ensure that, as for other pupil level data items, they comply with their responsibilities with respect to the data protection act when processing this data.
Schools will be able to record the information using the following codeset. Only one of the values will apply to each pupil and a school’s MIS should provide a default value of N – not declared.

Data item recorded in:
Nursery
Primary
Middle-deemed primary
Middle-deemed secondary
Secondary
All-through
Special
Pupil referral unit

Response scale for all data items:
Not declared
Ceased to be looked after through adoption
Ceased to be looked after through a special guardianship order (SGO) R Ceased to be looked after through a residence order (RO)
Ceased to be looked after through a child arrangement order (CAO)