An experienced Southampton councillor has described a response about a foster child’s performance at school as a “terrible attitude”.

Conservative group leader Cllr Peter Baillie said more could be done to change the culture about looked after children’s educational achievement.

The Harefield ward councillor praised executive director for children and learning Robert Henderson and his team for the “immense” improvement that had been made to the overall foster and children looked after area.

During a recent city council meeting, Cllr Baillie shared an experience he had as a foster carer.

Cllr Baillie told councillors: “There are some changes we can try and alter within the council and the culture can be changed. One is how well the children do at school.

“I queried my own foster child’s progress just a few months ago and was told ‘she is doing as well as we would expect for a foster child to do’. That’s a terrible attitude.

“It’s a poor attitude. However, if we look at the results, and I believe last year’s results were quite a bit better than these results, but they are still pretty poor generally.

“Yes we have some excellent and talented young people but across the board, we are not equipping our children looked after for life after school or college.

“We are not giving them the results they need to really push on in life.”

Cllr Baillie made the comments during discussions of the latest annual corporate parenting report, which covered 2022/23.

Corporate parenting is the collective responsibility of the local authority to provide the best possible care and protection for children and young people who are looked after.

To be successful it involves commitment from all council employees and councillors, the report said.

In response to Cllr Baillie’s comments, cabinet member for children and learning Cllr Alex Winning said: “That’s just not okay to say ‘that’s what we would expect from a foster child’.

“That really saddens me to hear that. That’s not okay, so that needs to change and I will be raising that as well because you wouldn’t accept that for your own child and that’s what this is about.”