Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Written evidence submitted by Sarah Mansfield to The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee (CWSB100)

434A(6)(b)(i) – This current wording of the local authority must refuse consent if they consider that it would be in the child’s best interests to receive education by regular attendance at school is putting too much power in the local authority’s hands. The wording should be similar to 436H(5)(a)(ii) where it says that ‘where enquiries have led the local authority to conclude that the child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm.

No need to include anything about educational outcomes at this point, as this is solely for safeguarding. Educational concerns will come under a different part of the proposed Bill.

436B(3) – We need to consider traveller and boating community.

436B(5)(b)(i), (ii) & (c) – These should be removed from the Bill. Flexischooling should not come under this Bill. The Headteacher already has complete oversight for the child’s education, and as they would see the child weekly, would be able to raise any safeguarding concerns. There is no educational nor safeguarding reason why this group should be included in the bill. Head teachers should be trusted to make the decision, and they are allowed to refuse or cancel an arrangement if they have any concerns at any point. This is just the SoS/local authority chipping away at the trust we put in Headteachers.

436c(1)(d) – This is far too specific for legislation. Perhaps this could be included in guidance which can then be changed if it is shown that this information is unmanageable, both for parents to provide, and for local authorities to collect and update accordingly. For many home educators, the amount of time that a child spends receiving education from each parent varies week to week, if not day to day. It is unreasonable to expect this to remain static and to have it updated when it changes.

436C(1)(e) – Wording in bold needs to be added: ‘if the child receives education from a person other than their parent that involves an individual or organisation providing education that typically amounts to more than 6 hours a week.

This should be included because it is unnecessary to have the complete oversight that the government wants to have. Parents should be trusted to educate their children as they see fit. This time limit would ensure that illegal schools or situations where a child is being fully educated by one or two individuals is known about, but allow the majority of home educators to choose provision that best fits their child without needing to report on every single detail.

436(C)(1)(e)(v) – (To be added) An extra clause needs to be added stating ‘436C(e) does not apply to provision provided outside of school hours or during school holidays’

This point is important because otherwise local authorities could choose to insist on everything being reported – after school music lessons, Scouts/Brownies, Saturday morning sport class, Sunday Schools etc. This could also create a two-tier approach to activity providers choosing to allow home educators to join, or not. If they join and the provider is then obliged to complete tedious information sharing with the local authority, they may begin to refuse allowing home educators to join in these activities.

436(C)(2)(d) – ‘Child in need’ is too much of an umbrella term that would also include all children with disabilities. This should be changed to be more specific.

436(C)(2)(k) – This clause currently permits an inappropriate level of discretion to the SoS to amend the content of the register without any oversight by parliament. It should be removed, or significantly amended.

436(C)(3) – This appears very open and vague, leading to untrustworthy local authorities potentially abusing this clause. At the very least, adding in ‘relating to either the safeguarding or education of the child’ at the end of this clause.

436(D)(2)(b) – This should have a more reasonable time frame for some of the ‘softer’ details being requested. Yes, a change of address etc should be updated immediately; an update on groups attended/amount of time spent educating etc doesn’t require the same urgency and will create unnecessary and unmanageable work for both parents and local authorities to keep track of. Requesting an update every 12 months (6 months if we had to compromise) for those aspects of the bill is more appropriate.

436E(1)(a)- ‘prescribed amount out of time; should be amended to include the wording ‘which is not less than 6 hours a week’. Timing is included elsewhere in the bill (for example, stating the 15 days), so it follows that minimum timings should be included here as well.

436E(1)(a) – ‘…without any parent of the child being actively involved in the tuition or supervision of the child’ should be reworded as ‘without any parent of the child supervising the education of the child’. This removes the ‘actively involved’ part and also removes the statement re being involved in the tuition. This will then align with schools where a teacher overseeing an online provider is still counted as teaching the children and being responsible for their education.

436E(2)(a)(i) – (to be added) (i) Not to apply to any person or providers who is providing education to children not in school solely out of regular school hours or during school holidays. It is important here, as per earlier explanation, that external providers are not hit with undue admin when having home educated children take part in their activities.

436E(2)(b) – where it talks about ‘prescribed amount of time’, this can include the specification of ‘not less than 6 hours’.

436E(3)(b)(iii) – the wording should be updated to reflect the above point re parents only needing to be supervising the education, not ‘actively involved in the tuition or supervision of the child’.

This information will also be difficult for one-off providers to gather and time-consuming to end on. Visits to the Natural History Museum, Science Museum, Royal Albert Hall, Space Centre, zoos, Windsor Castle etc, may well decide to decline future home education days if it costs them too much to provide the information. This comes back to the statement change of just requiring parents to be supervising the education of their child, which would then cover most of these.

436E(8)(b) – I appreciate that without threats of fines etc, people won’t feel the need to comply, but this is why we must make sure that it is easy for education providers to relay the necessary information, otherwise the threats may mean they close their doors to home educators.

436F(2) & (3) – The text as it stands provides too broad a scope whereby the SoS and local authorities can provide personal information of home educated children to third parties purely based on the promotion of education. Anywhere the Bill mentions about sharing data for the ‘promotion’ of education should be removed. Doing this would restrict the circumstances to where there is a genuine safeguarding concern – in other situation the data should not be shared.

436G(2)(c)- (to be added) – a clause should be added as follows: (c) If a parent of a child registered by a locally authority in England under section 436B so requests, the local authority must pay the examination fees for that child to sit:

(i) GCSE English

(ii) GCSE Mathematics

(iii) The duty in subsection 2(c) does not apply if the local authority, or any other local authority, has already paid the examination fees for that child to sit the above named exams twice

436H(5)(ii) – This wording already exists re a local authority having concerns that a child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm. This should be copied to 434A(6)(b).

436H(6)(c) – This is very tight where a family may be on holiday. It also doesn’t allow for genuine mistakes in providing incorrect information. The local authority should be required to work with the family to resolve the issue first before issuing a school attendance order.

Ensuring that the workload prescribed in the Bill is manageable for all involved – parents, education providers and local authorities – is really key, and perhaps some of the more detailed information should be included in the guidance rather than the legislation to avoid it being difficult to change when it becomes apparent that it is too much. If the goal is to ensure compliance on the key parts of the register, making it too difficult for many will lead to mass non-compliance of all of the register.

And finally, there is currently nowhere in the Bill that gives home educators any recourse if they feel the local authority have overstepped their authority or come to an incorrect conclusion. There needs to be a new independent ombudsman or tribunal that parents can appeal to. Or something similar to governors overseeing a school, but a team of people overseeing each EHE team – ideally made up of some in local government, some from the local home ed community (current or past), and some independent members.

January 2025