Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill

 Written evidence submitted by Anonymous to The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee (CWSB02).

I have a number of concerns about the Children’s Schools and Wellbeing Bill, particularly in regards to home education.

I currently support the running of a popular local home education group and therefore know all too well how the current education system is failing children with special educational needs and their parents. Almost 80% of the school aged children who have attended the group in the last year had started at a mainstream school and were deregistered because the school were unable to meet their emotional, mental health or special educational needs. Several parents and children had harrowing stories of their children being severely bullied, of schools struggling so much with autistic children they were frequently secluded and of their children being at significant risk of suicide.

This Bill does nothing to support those children or parents. In fact, in some cases it would have actively prevented those parents from taking the difficult but necessary step to deregister their children from school. Allowing the local authority, who in many of these cases had failed to support or protect those children, to have the final say in whether they could be removed from school is absurd and potentially dangerous and I believe that Section 24 of the Bill requires removal or significant amendment. The default position should be that parents are able to choose the education for their child. I agree, that if there are already significant safeguarding concerns, then social services should be aware of the deregistration but I think it is naïve to think that children are immediately safer if they are registered at a school. Most of the serious case reviews of children who have died were registered at a school, or already known to social services.

In addition, Section 24 8(b) could cause harm to children or their parents where there is a history of domestic abuse and may offer abusive partners ability to exert control from a distance. Section 24 12 is particularly concerning for parents whose children may have poor mental health which may decline rapidly. If a child is struggling so much with school that they become suicidal, it is dangerous that their parents would not be able to home educate, simply because the LA had denied an application within the past 6 months.

I also have significant concerns about the proposed register and the sheer amount of information it requires. It appears that those writing the Bill have no experience of different types of home education and how the information required here would be impossible. Children may have formal and informal education throughout the week, from waking until bedtime, 7 days a week and it would be impossible to quantify the amount of education they receive and the names and addresses of each parent, grandparent, librarian, museum curator, art class teacher, fishing coach, zookeeper, farmer, horse riding teacher, piano tutor, group facilitator, vet… In addition, in part 3 it allows LAs to add their own criteria. Some local authorities already misuse their duty – if there is a register, it should at least be uniform and there should not be a postcode lottery. The data on school attendance orders shows the current disparity between authorities – some authorities have not applied for any and others are well known in home education circles for being ‘heavy handed’. In 436E it seems to suggest that each of these piano teachers, museum curators, fishing coaches, horse riding instructors, art class teachers, librarians etc offering any sort of education to a child without the parents being activity involved would need to provide information to the local authority about the child’s personal details and the total time they provide education. It seems obvious that all this is going to do is severely limit the opportunities to home educated children. If this is about children’s safeguarding – why would schooled children not be included?

Finally I wish to draw your attention to section 436G related to support. No support appears to be being offered here and nothing will change as presumably local authorities are already providing ‘what they see fit’. Again, there is currently a significant postcode lottery. The data set (available as part of the elective home education statistics on the government website) shows that across England, some local authorities are doing significantly less than others. Some local authorities reported that they gave no support with regards to even distributing useful information or developing resources. By contrast, others reported giving extensive support in many areas including access to examinations. The most useful support that I would like to see included would be financial and access support for examination. Parents have to make difficult financial choices to be able to home educate. Low income families do not benefit from breakfast clubs or free school meals, families often have to rely on only one working parents whilst also paying for resources, curriculums, social and educational opportunities. Examination fees, and the significant travel costs involved to be able to go to the few centres which accept private entries limit the number of exams most parents can afford to support.

January 2025.