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Guidance

Children’s social care: virtual school head role extension

How local authorities should extend the virtual school head role to promote the education of children with a social worker and children in kinship care.

Updates to this page

From:
Department for Education
Published:
16 June 2021
Last updated:
2 September 2025
Show all updates

  1. Added 'Memorandum of understanding between the Department for Education and local authority', 'Memorandum of understanding authorisation' and 'Financial progress report'.

  2. Added ‘Virtual school head role extension: grant determination letter 2025 to 2026’.

  3. Updated the grant determination letter and memorandum of understanding to support the extension of the virtual school head role to children with a social worker and children in kinship care from September 2024. National funding for 2024 to 2025 has been uplifted to £20.4 million across all local authorities.

  4. Added 'Promoting the education of children with a social worker and children in kinship care arrangements: virtual school head role extension’. The guidance now includes how virtual school heads should promote the education outcomes of children in kinship care.

  5. Added ‘Virtual school head role extension: grant determination letter 2023 to 2024’. Updated the memorandum of understanding for 2023 to 2024.

  6. We have updated the 'Promoting the education of children with a social worker: virtual school head role extension' guidance, 'Virtual school head role extension: grant determination letter' and the 'Virtual school head role extension: memorandum of understanding'.

  7. Grant determination letter has been updated with funding allocations for North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. Removed information about local authorities returning the memorandum of understanding by 31 July 2021 as the deadline has now passed.

  8. First published.

Applies to England

Documents

Promoting the education of children with a social worker and children in kinship care arrangements: virtual school head role extension

HTML

Virtual school head role extension: grant determination letter, 2025 to 2026 financial year

PDF, 217 KB, 9 pages

Memorandum of understanding between the Department for Education and local authority

HTML

Memorandum of understanding authorisation

MS Word Document, 594 KB

Financial progress report

MS Word Document, 601 KB

Details

Virtual school heads are strategic leaders who promote the educational outcomes of children with a social worker. From September 2024, the duties under this non-statutory function will also include children in kinship care.

The guidance on promoting the education of children with a social worker and children in kinship care arrangements:

  • defines the cohort of children in scope
  • explains what the extended role involves
  • provides direction on how to partner with education settings to improve children’s outcomes

The grant determination letter sets out the terms of the section 31 grant that local authorities will receive to support the virtual school head role in promoting the educational outcomes of children with a social worker.

To support the extension of the virtual school head (VSH) role to include children with a social worker and children in kinship care, we have added:

  • Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which sets out DfE expectations for how local authorities should use the funding to deliver the extended VSH role
  • MoU authorisation form, which confirms receipt of the MoU and agreement to its terms, local authorities should complete and return this form by 26 September 2025
  • financial progress report, which local authorities should use to show how the funding has been used to support the extended VSH role, we will provide details of how to complete this in November 2025

These documents provide clarity for local authorities on responsibilities, funding use, and reporting requirements.

Local authorities should review and complete the required forms within the specified timeframes.

Previous grant determination letters and memorandums of understanding are available in the National Archives:

Statutory guidance on promoting the education of looked-after and previously looked-after children is also available.

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