The goals of this article were to (a) examine the changes in educational achievements of children in care from preschool through the end of primary school; (b) identify subgroups exhibiting distinct educational trajectories; and (c) explore key predictive individual, care, and school characteristics. To this end, the study investigated a cohort of 1,834 children in England who had been in care in their final year of preschool. Data from the National Pupil Database and from the Children Looked After Database was used to examine national assessments of literacy and numeracy in preschool and School Years 2 and 6, as well as potential child (e.g., special educational needs), care (e.g., placement changes) and school predictors (e.g., school's mean ability level). The findings indicated that as early as preschool, children in care lagged substantially behind their peers and their relative academic condition worsened over time. Latent growth analyses revealed four distinct subgroups of children. One was a relatively resilient subgroup of children with "stable high" achievements over time, but more than 8 out of 10 children belonged to one of the other subgroups and exhibited maladaptive educational trajectories. Risk factors for a poorer trajectory included having special educational needs and spending more time in care during primary school, whereas attending higher performing schools was found to be related to better performing trajectories. The findings underscore the crucial need for early assessment and intervention efforts to deal with the unique educational needs of children in care. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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早期教育和小学阶段受照料儿童的教育轨迹：英格兰的一项全国队列研究。

本文的目的是 (a) 考察从学前班到小学结束的受托儿在教育成就方面的变化；(b) 确定表现出不同教育轨迹的亚组；(c) 探索关键的预测性个人、护理和学校特征。为此，该研究调查了英格兰 1,834 名在学龄前最后一年受到照顾的儿童。来自全国学生数据库和儿童照看数据库的数据用于检查全国对学龄前和学年 2 和 6 年级的识字和算术以及潜在儿童（例如特殊教育需求）、护理（例如安置）的评估变化）和学校预测指标（例如，学校的平均能力水平）。研究结果表明，早在学龄前，受照料的儿童大大落后于同龄人，而且他们的相对学业状况随着时间的推移而恶化。潜在生长分析揭示了四个不同的儿童亚组。一个是相对有弹性的儿童亚群，随着时间的推移取得“稳定的高”成就，但 10 个儿童中有超过 8 个属于其他亚群之一，并表现出适应不良的教育轨迹。较差轨迹的风险因素包括有特殊的教育需求和在小学期间花更多的时间在护理上，而上表现较好的学校被发现与表现较好的轨迹有关。调查结果强调了对早期评估和干预努力的迫切需要，以应对受照料儿童的独特教育需求。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2020 APA，