Foster care and education is a key priority for TACT, and our specialist education service has been developed to support foster carers and advocate for children of all ages, to ensure that young people are able to access their educational entitlement of a full time and appropriate education based on their age, ability and needs.

The service is overseen by our dedicated Head of Education, and consists of a full time Advisory Teacher in England, dedicated part time Advisory Teachers in Wales and Scotland, a Post-16 Advisor and an Education Support Administrator.

Training and projects of innovation are a big focus for the team – such as being part of Literacy Catch-up with What Works for Children in Social Care, and writing the Black Lives Matter curriculum.

What is our vision for the future?

The education service echoes the same sentiments that are held TACT-wide, with an emphasis on ‘aspiration’ to promote a high-quality education for all; the hope is to close the gap between attainment and expected standards and to ensure that young people do not miss out on opportunities by virtue of being in care.

• We want to support our young people to achieve as a good parent would, with care and encouragement.
• We want our young people to know that they are not alone, that they can be anything they want to be and that they can have a positive future.

By working with a positive regard for every young person, we hope that we can support them and their foster carers to hold high aspirations and to believe in themselves.

TACT’s National Year Of Reading 2026

Reading for enjoyment is at the lowest levels since records began. Only 1 in 3 children and young people aged 3-18 enjoy reading in their free time, and only 1 in 5 read daily. With the smartphones and AI embedded in our culture, reading for pleasure has taken a backseat. To try and tackle these issues, the Department for Education in collaboration with the National Literacy Trust have nominated 2026 to run a 3rd National Year of Reading campaign, with the theme title of Go All In.

The National Year of Reading is a campaign aimed at promoting a love of reading and to ultimately transform the nation’s reading culture longer term. Specifically the Go All In campaign aims to encourage young people to read about their hobbies, interests and passions (including music, films, food or sport) using a wide range of different formats to make reading more culturally relevant.

TACT’s Education Service have planned a whole calendar of events across 2026. The activities, available to foster carers, children and staff within TACT, will be specifically aimed to get our children off their screens and engaged in a range of different activities to exercise their imaginations!  Some amazing authors and illustrators have been carefully chosen to work with us, and who will be providing some online talks and draw-alongs for our children.

Some of our planned activities include:

• Foster carer webinars to support children with phonics and paired reading
• Recorded stories weekly for children
• Monthly newsletter with featured authors
• Regular fun competitions, with prizes for every child and young person who enters
• In collaboration with The Book Trust, a supply of books for our early years children
• A free book for all of our children and young people

Read more about the National Year of Reading