The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Introduction

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (“the Bill”), currently in the committee stage in the House of Commons, is Labour’s attempt to codify their manifesto commitments to drive high standards in education, keep children safe and support children in care. The Bill introduces far-reaching reforms to social care and schools.

This article will look at three areas of policy reform introduced under Part 2 – Schools, namely: (i) Children not in School, (ii) Regulation of Independent Educational Institutions and what may colloquially be referred to as (iii) De-Academisation.

Children not in school

In a census in autumn 2024, local authorities reported 111,700 children in elective home education (EHE). This is an increase from an estimated 92,000 in the previous autumn term. While home education is not a safeguarding risk in itself, for children who are at a risk of harm, schools are an important factor. The Bill aims to better regulate the sector and introduces safeguards for children not in school, so that no child falls through the “cracks” in the services.

Under Clause 25 of the Bill, Local Authorities (LAs) will be mandated to maintain a compulsory Children Not in School Register. Parents will be required to supply LAs with details of the child, the amount of time the child is receiving education, who is providing the education, and whether the student has SEN. Failure to do so could result in monetary penalties.

Further, while parents will still enjoy the general freedom under s7 Education Act 1996 to decide to educate their children other than in school, Clause 24 introduces the requirement for LA consent to withdraw certain, “relevant children” from school. A “relevant child” is one who attends a specialist school, is under a child protection plan or is subject to an enquiry under s47 Children’s Act 1989.

The Bill will give LAs the power to make a School Attendance Order for a child who is home educated if the child is not receiving suitable education or there are safeguarding concerns under s47 Children Act1989.

Independent Educational Institutions

The Bill introduces additional due diligence measures to ensure Independent Educational Institutions (IEIs) meet enhanced standards.

Clause 30 defines an IEI as an institution in England which provides “full-time education” for “at least five children of compulsory school age, or at least one child of compulsory school age who is looked after by a local authority or has special educational needs”. Exceptions include institutions otherwise defined such as early years provisions, maintained schools, or academies.

Arguably one of the most significant steps taken by the Bill is to offer a definition of an institution providing “full-time education”, which it broadly defines as an institution where a child “could be expected to receive all or a majority of their education”. The relevant factors for consideration in determining this are the number of hours per week attended, the number of weeks in an academic year and the time of day at which children are expected to attend. Previously, the absence of a statutory definition created a loophole in the law, whereby unregistered schools could claim they were not full-time and therefore did not need to comply with the registration and regulation requirements under the Education and Skills Act 2008.

The Bill introduces increased obligations for IEIs to register with the Secretary of State (SoS) and imposes harsh sentences of unlimited fines and up to 6 months imprisonment for the proprietor if not complied with. Under the Bill, all new IEIs are subject to regular inspection against the independent school standards. Clause 36 of the Bill extends the Chief Inspector’s powers of entry and investigation to those akin to police powers e.g. the power of entry without warrants and powers of investigation, subject to conditions.

Furthermore, the Bill introduces extended powers to the SoS to suspend IEI registration and makes it more challenging for a proprietor to win an appeal against the SoS’s decision to do so.

De-Academisation

The Bill will bring an end to the academy-centric thinking introduced by the Gove reforms.

Clause 44 of the Bill aims to repeal the duty under s4(a)(1) Academies Act 2010 for the SoS to make an academy order in relation to schools causing concern. While the Policy Summary Notes set out that the worst performing schools will likely still face forced academisation, the reform is driven by the principle that forced academisation can be disruptive to pupils, and staff and parents seeks to give the SoS more flexibility to determine the most appropriate solution for school improvement.

Secondly, Clause 51 of the Bill ends the legal presumption introduced by Part 2 s6(a) of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 that proposals for the establishment of new schools should be Academies. It restores LAs powers to propose opening new maintained schools and pupil referral units and prevents LAs from approving Academy proposals unless the Secretary of State is willing to enter into a funding agreement.

Moreover, the Bill will remove many of Academies’ previous freedoms to deviate from maintained schools’ requirements for teacher status/qualifications, pay and conditions, curriculum, and admissions. Under the Bill’s new provisions, Academies will be duty bound to follow the National Curriculum, teachers will be required to qualify in line with state funded school requirements, and Academies will be subject to the overarching pay and conditions framework over all state funded schools. Additionally, the Bill seeks to equalise academies’ powers to direct pupils off-site and introduce a duty to cooperate with the LA for admissions, as well as extending the local authorities’ powers to influence PANs (Pupil Admission Numbers).

Conclusion

The provisions described above will continue to be subject to amendment as the Bill continues to be debated in Parliament. However, the government has been ambitious with their approach to reform and once codified, the Bill will likely give rise to wide ranging implications for Local Authorities.

The proposals have caused considerable debate already and the progress on the Bill through Parliament should be interesting.

You can read the entire Bill in its most recent form here.

Satnam Virdi (Solicitor) and Maia Cohen (Paralegal)

SV Law Solicitors and LASEN Ltd

31.01.25

This blog contains general information about law and legal practice. The information is not advice and should not be treated as such.