Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Written evidence submitted by a person who wishes to remain anonymous to The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee (CWSB82)

Written evidence submitted by a home-educating mother for the public committee on Children’s wellbeing and Schools bill

My name is Rebecca, I home educate my 2 daughters, as well as working part-time. Recently my daughters and I met with Tom Rutland MP to discuss our concerns about the impact of the Children’s well being and schools bill, for our family, the wider home educating community and the small learning community my daughter attends.

As it stands, the bill offers no additional practical support to me as a home educating parent, may cause fewer educational activities to be available to us, and will create a huge administrative burden and invade our privacy. This may damage my children's wellbeing and education as a result. This bill does nothing to identify children who are not receiving an education or who are being hidden by those who wish them harm.

The requirements of this bill would not only create unnecessary additional administrative work for well-meaning responsible parents, but also for over-stretched Local Authorities. My children have a rich and varied education utilising a wide range of resources and support, and for me to report every new person they speak to, place they visit, website they access, resource they utilise, would mean I spend the majority of my time reporting rather than facilitating their education. I am concerned that the proposed register will add to the administrative burden of clubs and groups my children attend, and that the threat of fines will mean they no longer wish to accommodate home educated children (which they won't have to do for school educated children).

This bill also does not address the question of why there has been such a large increase in the numbers of families who are home educating. Last year more than half of new home educators said their children’s mental health/SEND needs were not met in school (Charles-Warner (2024) https://www.educationotherwise.org/home-education-picking-up-the-failings-of-schools/ ) Collaboration with the home educating community, rather than threatening and isolating them, could help to address the crisis in mental health and SEND in schools and save LAs millions.

Funding could be more usefully allocated to support and strengthen mental health and SEND provision in schools, and provide real support to home educated children such as access to exams centres which we have lobbied for over a decade for.

My concerns relate to part 2 of the bill. Some of these suggestions have come from my 9 and 12 year old children! Here are our concerns and suggested amendments to the bill:

Section 24

• Local Authorities and Social Services can already access emergency rulings to protect at-risk children. LAs already keep lists of home educated children and can ask families to submit a report of their educational activities and issue an SAO.

• Who decides what’s in a child’s best interests and what a suitable education is? Removing parental say gives dangerous powers to LAs who may not know the child well enough to determine their best interests.

• The remit of the Elective Home Education team is to find children who are not receiving a suitable education. It's not to check on the welfare of children or undertake safeguarding visits. If EHE team are not trained for this could cause serious harm if they are making decisions they are not qualified to make.

• 1.4% of home educators received SAOs in 2023 while 10% of schools needed improvement (Ofsted (2024) https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/state-funded-schools-inspections-and-outcomes-as -at-31-december-2023 ) so school is not necessarily currently the best option for all children.

• More transparency around the definition of ‘suitable education’ and an open debate with relevant mainstream and non-mainstream advocates about the breadth of holistic education. It currently varies widely between LA areas.

• Currently in law it is the parent’s right to decide how their child is educated. A clear definition is needed about where parental rights stop and the government’s right to intervene begins. Include a mechanism to gain consent/consider the child's wishes about where they are educated.

Section 25

• Elective Home Education teams are already aware of the majority of home educators and there is currently no evidence that home education is a risk factor to children in itself. Abusive/neglectful parents are not home educating their children. The proposed register does nothing to identify children missing education entirely. The current requirements by EHE teams are more than enough to establish whether a suitable education is taking place.

• 436B: Remove from the scope of the register: children on part time timetables, on EOTAS packages, any situation where the LA is holding responsibility for full time education. Currently the bill places more expectation on home educating families and those on part time timetables and EOTAS packages than school-attending families. This is discriminatory and doesn’t seem to serve any purpose to protect vulnerable children.

• 436C: Only require parents to inform LA of education providers for home education of children when the provision is over 8 hours per week, and if it intends to continue for more than 2 weeks. From a home education perspective education as an ongoing thing where opportunities present themselves everywhere, this could lead to a huge amount of information being reported or requested and an unmanageable administrative burden placed on families and LA and costly.

• 436C: That a register of children being home educated is purely for those who have been flagged and confirmed as at risk. In 2024 more than 70% of s47 investigations did not lead to a child protection plan (GOV.UK 2024 https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-in-need . Under the proposed legislation these children and families would experience extreme disruption and potentially harm.

• 436C(3) That ‘whatever further information the LA considers appropriate’ is far too broad open to misuse and should be specified. Sharing of protected characteristics could lead to increasing risk for some children e.g. data breaches, domestic violence situations.

• 436D: The reporting requirement is excessive and unreasonable for parents and not going to improve anybody’s education or wellbeing or identify at risk children. Yearly reports to LAs are enough.

• 436E: Organisations may stop welcoming home educated children due to increased reporting/risk of fines.

• 436G Support: Access to exam centres in every region for home educated children would be a more effective and less costly way of supporting their wellbeing and education than the heavy costs of administering this register ( https://www.educationotherwise.org/childrens-wellbeing-and-schools-bill/ )

Section 26

• Section 436H: When considering whether to request a visit to see the children, the LA must seek the child's views and take these into account. If the LA needs to see the environment, they can request photos or video if a visit would severely disrupt the child/family wellbeing.

• I co-parent and my children are educated between homes in different LAs. In section 436O if one LA serves a SAO but the other is satisfied there is a suitable education in place, will my children be sent to school?

• 436P(8) Threatening prison is extreme and could be misused by LAs and cause serious harm to families and children.

• Provide a formalised budget that will be allocated for each child they wish to return to school.

• Provide a budget to employ more SEN staff for schools in order to cope with the potential capacity of new children entering the system.

• Provide a budget for adequate mental health staff to address the transitions for the above children.

Section 30

The redefinition of "Independent Educational Institutions" is likely to mean that many small learning communities cannot meet these requirements, will increase their running costs and force them to close or become inaccessible/unaffordable to home educators. Places like the community my daughter attends are an incredible example of one way to improve children’s mental health/meet SEND and support parents and their loss could bring increased isolation and reduce wellbeing and support.

January 2025