Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill

 Written evidence submitted by Catherine Froud to The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee (CWSB11).

1) I am a parent and my son, who is 6 years old is home educated. My son managed all of Reception year and two terms of year 1. Before he started school he was diagnosed with expressive speech and language delay, so I picked a school twenty minutes drive away that had a resourced provision for children with the same. It also had an above average number of pupils with SEN, so I knew the school was well equipped to support my son. However, even with an EHCP he was falling behind mainly because he was so anxious and worried every day. His fear of school was stopping him from learning. This fear was learnt at school as he was a totally different child at preschool. My son told me he found the class too busy – there were 30 children in his class. There was also only one teacher and one teaching assistant and he did not get the 1-2-1 support he needed even with an EHCP. He told me he didn’t understand the work and didn’t like certain teachers as they were not kind.

2) Instead of him running in excited for the day ahead, I would have to gently push him through his classroom door where a teacher would coax him into his classroom. Every morning, he would have a tummy ache due to anxiety and every Sunday his behaviour changed, and he would be quiet and withdrawn. Holidays were worse as he would count every day he had left until he had to return to school. My happy, adventurous little boy was slowly becoming increasingly anxious, worried about making the wrong move at school and being told off. Children should not spend their time worrying about school if a child feared going home schools would be questioning parents and social services would get involved but if children fear school it’s supposed to be normal! That is not normal and there is something really wrong in the education system for this to be happening, but no one seems to listen and they don’t seem to care either.

3) During his time in Year 1, my son was diagnosed with autism after being on the assessment waiting list for over 2 years. It was then I started to understand his behaviour, he would mask all day and come out of school completely dysregulated. It got to the point he would come out at the end of the day and as soon as he got to me, he would have a melt down. On one occasion he was he took all his school uniform off in the car and sobbed for over 2 hours. At that point I knew enough was enough, I I was not going to sit back and watch my 6-year-olds (5 at the time) mental and emotional health decline.

4) After 2 terms of Year 1 I made the decision to home educate him. I knew I could do a better job than his school were doing.

5) We have been home educating for 9 months, and he is thriving, learning and more importantly he is a happy boy again.

6) We go to local home education groups on a weekly basis where he socialises with children of all ages, and he attends a forest school once a week. He has the freedom to follow his interests and has recently joined a home education parkour group. His reading has improved enormously and I can give him the much needed 1-2-1 support that he was lacking at school. I can taylor the learning to him and schools can never provide that. How could they in a class of 30 or more? We have the freedom and flexibility to learn whatever he wants.

7) I do not support a Child’s Wellbeing Bill that seeks to strip parents and children of their right to choose their education or one that removes the freedom and flexibility to follow their interests. Most parents want the best for their children and know their children best, not the government and not LA’s. A one size fits all approach as seen in most schools does not work especially for children with SEN. This is why so many are choosing home education.

8) If the government really cared about our children’s wellbeing, they would be investigating why children in the UK are the unhappiest in Europe and the World and why we are having a mental health crisis. (The Good childhood report 2024). The findings from the report have highlighted that school makes children worried and they are anxious about the pressure of exams and failure and are not hopeful for the future. Bullying also plays on children’s minds the report discovered. The government should listen to children and their parents and try to understand the problems instead of ignoring us.

9) I would like the government to put more energy into making schools places children want to be. I would like the government to listen to children’s views and ask them what can be done to make education better. I would like them to ask home educated children how happy they are and why and then ask state school children how happy they are and see which comes out on top? I would also like the government to ask both sets of children what they would change in schools and home education and what makes them unhappy. I would like the government to ask parents what they believe the problems are and finally I would like them to sort out all the problems in schools before they start attacking the home education community which is currently growing because of the problems in schools in this country.

10) There are other aspects of the bill I’m not happy with as a HE parent, they are as follows; Page 49-50 in the CWB talks about parents having to give information about all the groups they attend and notify any changes within 15 days. It also mentions LA’s can ask for any information about the child as they see fit. This is

a) completely unmanageable, as one of the joys of home education is the flexibility and having to provide every detail to the LA would lead to over reporting and unnecessary admin.

b) it is extremely intrusive especially having to report on groups where the parent also attends. Is the government implying that parents cannot be trusted to safeguard their own children?

Not only that if all home education groups must start providing information on the children that attend them, this would lead to lots of groups closing. I am wondering if the government know that, and they are trying to make home education as tedious as possible, so parents have no choice than to send children back into failing schools.

c) Local authorities should not be allowed to have a carte blanche to obtain information.

January 2025.