Trauma walks into a classroom before care experience does

One of the most important areas to examine in the care experience as a protected characteristic campaign is education, and whether discrimination is truly the primary barrier to care-experienced people achieving positive outcomes.

When I go back to my time at school, my formative years were chaotic. Before I came into care, I attended at least seven primary schools. When in care, I was expelled from one high school, which became the opportunity for my local authority to move me to another school far from where I grew up.

I was angry and felt “done to”, but years later I understood the move was about safety, not punishment. This matters because we often give local authorities a hard time for moving children far away - but sometimes it’s necessary. And it matters because this campaign often presents these moves as discrimination, without recognising the safeguarding reasons behind them.

I didn’t want social workers to tell the school I was in care because I was ashamed but if I felt criticised by teachers, I would use my ‘care story’ in unhelpful ways.

“Where is your homework, Luke?!” a teacher would ask.

“I was with my mum this weekend, sir. I’m in foster care.”

I used my story as a shield, sometimes a weapon, even though I insisted others keep it private. When I did this, teachers didn’t continue telling me off. They didn’t react with discrimination.

My words evoked pain, not punishment.

They recognised I was a traumatised child - but the system didn’t yet have the language of trauma-informed practice.

My story isn’t universal. But it highlights something often missing from this campaign: the difference between intentional discrimination and a system struggling to respond to trauma. This isn’t to say discrimination never occurs.

I have seen it: keynote speakers criticising care-experienced people, headteachers removing “challenging” pupils to “flatten the grass”, and schools refusing to admit children in care. These behaviours exist, but they sit within specific pockets of leadership, not across the entire workforce.

What I do not see, in my direct work with schools, is evidence of widespread discrimination from teachers. Teachers repeatedly tell me they want the tools to support children in care and those who have experienced trauma. Often, it is school policy or leadership culture that holds them back. I know this because teachers are one of the largest groups I train. In 2025 alone, I worked with thousands of them, and more than 3,000 are on our e-learning platform.

This is not a workforce of stigmatisers - it is a workforce desperate to support.

And the need for that support is clear in the data:

• Early years: Only 40% of children in care reach a good level of development at age five, compared with 68% of all children.
• Primary school: By age 11, just 37% reach the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, compared with 65% of all pupils.
• GCSEs: Children in care achieve around half the attainment of their peers.

The data is interesting. It shows us children are already behind by age five. Then how can care experience be the primary issue? If the gap exists before children enter care, we cannot claim that discrimination of ‘care experience’ caused it. A likely explanations lie in early experiences and trauma - things that happened before they became ‘care-experienced’.

Despite this, care-experienced people do achieve less against their peers, and we a whole system that surrounds them:

• Every local authority has a Virtual Schools
• All schools have Designated Teachers
• We must create ‘Personal Education Plans’ (PEPs) for all children
• Pupil Premium Plus funding exists to fund extra education support.
• Schools across the country are becoming ‘trauma-informed’

All of this work is done with the purpose to champion attainment, reduce barriers and ensure care experienced people receive the right support. It is not a perfect system, but it is a system intentionally designed to prioritise and support children in care.

The biggest issue for care-experienced people is unlikely to be the discriminatory actions of a small number of senior leaders. A more likely explanation is trauma.

Trauma is not fixed by equality law.