CHILDREN referred to social care are twice as likely to fail English or maths GCSE than their peers, a charity has warned.

Action for Children blasted the “worrying attainment gap” and said young people in need of social care are often “shockingly overlooked.”

The organisation’s analysis of 1.6 million children’s results across England from 2019 to 2021 reveals that, on average, more than half — 53 per cent — of teenagers who had been referred to social care did not achieve at least a grade 4 in either maths or English.