Families are diverse and have many different forms in the UK. Sometimes they find a ‘fit’ that is best for them, and children grow up in the care of grandparents, friends, ex-partners, the local authority, adopters or others. This can provide children with opportunities they otherwise would not have received but can also mean the child is vulnerable. It is therefore important that we are all able to identify the living arrangements for children in education settings.
Where children are not with their parents, we should try to understand how the child came to be living with a person other than their parents in the first place, and what it means for both the day to day experiences and longer-term outcomes for that child.