This exploratory study highlights the importance of the combined effects of school experiences and care experiences on the post-school lives of young people leaving care.

Some children and young people do not reside with their birth families but are, instead, being cared for by the state. Systematic reviews have indicated that while not a homogenous group regarding their personal circumstances, many careexperienced children and young people tend to face some similar challenges when growing up and moving through the education system (O’Higgins et al., 2015; Evans et al., 2017; Haddow et al., 2021; Townsend et al., 2020). On average, careexperienced young people tend to have lower levels of educational attainment in comparison to their peers who have not been in care (Cotton et al., 2014), although their attainment levels can increase later on (Harrison, 2017). The implications of their school and care experiences are likely to extend beyond second-level schooling since the educational outcomes of children and young people in care are strongly linked to their post-school outcomes across a number of fields, such as employment, entry into third-level education and training (Harrison, 2020; Herbers et al., 2013; McNamara et al., 2017). This makes exploring their experiences in the education system an important focus for research and policymaking...