Adopting older children

Most children waiting for adoption in England are under five. But a meaningful minority are primary-school age, and they wait longer than the rest. This page is for families thinking about adopting an older child — what's different about it, what tends to work, and what Jigsaw does.

Who waits longest

Around one in five children waiting for adoption in England is five or over. They are the smallest group on the register, and they wait the longest to be matched.

There's nothing unusual or difficult about these children — they want a family for the same reasons every child waiting does. But adopters more often come forward hoping to adopt a baby or a toddler, which means primary-school-age children spend more time waiting for the right family to find them.

What's different about adopting an older child

A primary-school-age child arrives with a personality already in place. They have memories — of birth family, of foster carers, sometimes of one or two earlier placements. They have school friends, opinions about food, things they're good at and things they're not. You're joining their life as much as they're joining yours.

A few practical things follow from that:

School matters more. You may be helping a child settle into a new school as part of the move, or supporting them to stay where they are. Either way, school becomes an active part of the placement rather than something on the horizon.
Different demands, not lighter or tougher ones. You'll skip the sleep-deprivation years, the nappies, and the weaning. You'll instead be helping a child make sense of their story, often while they're navigating school and friendships.

None of this is harder than adopting a young child. It's different. Some families know from the start that this is the kind of family life they're looking for.

A pattern that often works: one pre-school child and one primary-school child

Many of the families we work with end up adopting a sibling pair where one child is pre-school age and the other is primary-school age. Sometimes that's the match they were offered; often it's a deliberate choice from the outset.

It's worth thinking about. The age gap looks like one you'd see in any birth family. The older child often takes a steadying role. And if you've always wanted to be there for a child's early years, this gives you that with one of them — without ruling out the older child who would otherwise wait.

If you're thinking about this kind of pairing, our adopting siblings page covers what sibling adoption actually involves.

What Jigsaw does

We assess and approve adopters, match them with children when the fit is right, and provide ongoing support after placement. We have placed children across the age range, including primary-school-age children, both as single placements and as part of sibling groups. The process is the same one we use for any approved adopter — one assessment, one panel, one approval — and the timeline is no longer.

What changes is the matching stage. Because there are more older children waiting than adopters open to them, families willing to adopt an older child often get matched faster than families holding out for a baby.

Support after placement

Where therapeutic support is helpful for an older child, the Adoption Support Fund can contribute toward it, alongside the support we provide ourselves. We talk through what a family is likely to need as part of matching, not as something to figure out afterwards.

There's more on what we offer on our adoption support page.

If you're thinking about adopting an older child, the simplest first step is to fill in our interest form and we'll be in touch to talk it through.