Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

The Bill includes a range of measures which broadly fall under two areas:

School age education

Removing the presumption that new schools will be opened as academies.

• Requiring academies to follow a minimum remuneration level in line with that for maintained schools, and to follow a revised national curriculum.
• Requiring new teachers to have or be working towards Qualified Teacher Status, with statutory induction extended to newly qualified teachers in academies.
• Providing a framework for free breakfast clubs and to limit the number of branded uniform items that schools may require.
• Introducing “Children Not in School” registers, and introducing a requirement for local authority to consent to home educate in specified circumstances where children are most vulnerable.
• Expanding registration requirements for children’s education under the Education and Skills Act 2008 to require more independent educational settings to register.
• Reforms to the regulation and inspection of independent schools, including powers to suspend registration temporarily, with a linked power to close boarding accommodation where there is a risk of harm to school students.
• Broadening the teacher misconduct regime to include cases of misconduct where the individual was not employed or engaged in teaching work, for example a teacher on a career break or an occasional/supply teacher where the individual is likely to try to return to the classroom, and in a broader range of settings.
• Permitting grater information sharing between Ofsted’s Chief Inspector and the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) to assist ISI inspections.

Care, safeguarding and local authority support

Introducing new corporate parenting responsibilities on a range of public bodies including English schools and FE institutions in relation to children in care and care leavers.

• Supporting children with care experience through requirements on local authorities to publish their local offer for children in kinship care and their carers.
• Supporting care leavers by requiring local authorities to provide additional support to help find suitable accommodation and access to services where an individual’s welfare requires it
• Tightening the framework for care providers, including through legislation that could potentially cap the profit providers can make.
• Requiring local authorities to publish arrangements to support care leavers when they transition to independent living and adulthood.
• Stronger powers for Ofsted in relation to children’s social care providers (including unregistered providers), including the power to issue fines for breaches of the Care Standards Act 2000
• Protecting 16- and 17-year-olds  from ill-treatment or wilful neglect in regulated children’s social care establishments.
• Providing a statutory framework for the “deprivation of liberty” of children with complex needs in specified circumstances.
• Requiring greater family involvement in local authority decision-making concerning the care of children.
• Requiring information-sharing between agencies and service-providers relating to the safeguarding / welfare of children.

The Bill has completed its consideration by the House of Commons and is now being considered by the House of Lords.

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