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Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill was announced on 17th December 2024, and had its second reading in Parliament on Wednesday 8th January.

There will be direct implications for people (in England) within the Progressive Education community, including progressive schools, home educating families, and those who are striving to create something different to mainstream education via innovative part-time learning communities.

While we are supportive of the aims behind the Bill relating to keeping children and young people safe, there are parts of the Bill which are not in the best interests of the child and must be challenged.

Scroll down to find out how you can take action – by Friday 24th January if you can!

Here are some key elements of the Bill affecting our community:

  • Academies will be forced to follow the National Curriculum, reducing creativity and innovation (this has disappointingly been proposed prior to the completion of the Curriculum & Assessment Review) [Bill clause 41];
  • Once this Bill has been passed, the Secretary of State for Education will decide how ‘full-time’, ‘all’, ‘majority’, and ‘part-time’ education is defined in the Bill (i.e. this will be decided “by regulations”). Therefore, even a learning community which currently operates on a part-time basis could actually be considered ‘full-time’ or as taking up ‘the majority’ of a young person’s education. This would mean they would need to register (and be inspected) as an ‘Independent Educational Institution’. [Bill clause 30; Explanatory notes point 285]
  • The LA “must” refuse deregistration from a special school if they decide it is not in the best interests of the child (potentially omitting child/parent/carer perspective);
  • A new register for all children not in school, to include contact details of all educators – including tutors, websites, learning communities etc – and the exact number of hours per week with each parent, and any other person involved with ‘out of school education’ for the child. Any changes to be reported to the Local Authority (LA) within 15 days. [Bill clause 25, section 436B-D]

This would result in an unrealistic amount of admin for parents/carers, as well as for the additional educators (which could include personnel in the library, museums, on trips; neighbours; extended family; friends etc) who would then, in turn, be required to report back to the LA as well.

  • Group leaders/facilitators ‘without parental supervision’ to be required to report to the LA when they have home educated children taking part (Scouts, music classes, sports groups, clubs, etc.). This could lead to exclusion of home educated young people altogether if groups don’t have resources for extra admin. [Bill clause 25, section 436E];
  • Increased LA oversight, meaning the LA (without training in alternatives to conventional schooling, child development or SEND) would be required to assess the suitability of the home education;
  • LAs can ask home educators for home visits and must consider a refusal as part of their assessment, therefore potentially noting this as an indication of unsuitable education.
  • An LA (at their discretion) may deem that pedagogy that does not follow the National Curriculum (NC) is unsuitable or that it does not count towards ‘education’. This could result in either the family changing their approach to avoid prosecution, or proving in a court the suitability of their alternative to the NC;
  • School Attendance Orders’ (SAOs) could be sent to families who do not follow a conventional education approach. If breached SAOs can result in fines or imprisonment.
  • Opportunities for personalising the learning to the young person will be limited, should the LA not find an autonomous/interest-led learning style to be ‘suitable’;

Get Involved and Take Action

There is real concern that this Bill will pass through quickly without proper scrutiny, so please get involved today, to express your concerns and query any areas that need clarifying. Please write to your MP AND to submit evidence to the House of Commons Public Bill Committee (you can use the same content for both) so that, together, we can challenge the direction of this concerning advancement in education law.

The deadline for both is Tuesday 11th February which is when the committee consultation period ends BUT we don’t know when they will look at the Children Not in School or the Independent Educational Institution sections, so we are being advised to submit our evidence and write to our MP by Friday 24 January.

You can find out more about the committee stage here. We will then need to reach out to the Lords and we’ll update this page about that in due course.

How to Write to Your MP:

STEP 1: Find the contact details of your local MP

You can find your MP here: https://members.parliament.uk/members/commons

STEP 2: Draft your letter

You can use one of our templates if you wish. Please edit as appropriate, and add as many personalised details as possible, as it is much more effective to use your own words than duplicated templates. Personal stories will have the most impact!

<Download MP Letter Template – Learning Communities>

<Download MP Letter Template – Home Educators>

STEP 3: Email and/or post it to your MP ASAP!  

Do both if you can as some people find that letters get a higher response.

STEP 4: Request a meeting

If you also feel able to ask for a meeting with your MP to discuss your concerns, this can be highly impactful. You could do this as an individual or in a group.

STEP 5: Log your response

If you receive a response from your MP (and you are a home educator), please take two minutes to complete this form – on behalf of the Home Education Action Group – indicating how supportive they were of elective home education.

How to Submit Evidence to the Committee:

The UK Parliament is calling for evidence and their Public Bill Committee will be scrutinising the Bill line by line from 21st January to 11th February. We are advised to submit our written evidence by Friday 24 January in order to have our feedback taken into consideration.

The video below and supporting web page gives you some info on the committee and some advice about submitting your evidence.

And this page shares the timings of the committee stage as well as a list of the MPs on the committee. Is your MP a committee member? If so, please do feed back your concerns and questions to them ASAP!

Good luck! Please do keep in touch and let us know how you get on.

Keeping in Touch and Accessing Support

There are many ways to keep in touch and stay informed:

Further Resources

Educational Freedom:

  • This new section of their site, which is dedicated to the Bill, includes another letter template, should you need it.
  • They are also running helpful webinars, like this one from 4th January.
  • Their update on 10th January offers more info about the 2nd reading of the Bill in Parliament, where you can find out what your own MP might have said, and how to respond to it. Further down the page, you can find a list of the sections of the Bill which need removing or rewording, which you could include in your letter.

We Are Home Educators UK:

  • This new home education campaigning group launched in January 2025, with the aim of “breaking down stereotypes around this empowering, child-led approach to education and family life”.
  • They are putting out some useful resources including this 13 minute video, which sums up the main problems of the Bill succinctly.
  • They are also sharing tips for writing to your MP, and make the reassuring point that, “your letter doesn’t need to be perfect, or long. Just say something!”

HE Byte:

The HE Byte posts short articles summarising recent news and events relating to home education. You can read their updates on the Bill here.

Home Education Action Group:

This Facebook group was set up to coordinate actions to fight the current attacks on Elective Home Education in the UK. They are sharing lots of using info about the Bill and have been an invaluable support in putting this page together and running our recent webinar.

Ed Yourself:

This blog gives some info about the timeline of the Bill. And there is more information on their website.

Education Otherwise:

Education Otherwise is sharing information via their website and Facebook Group and are running webinars too, like this one.

Progressive Education:

Finally, you can find lots of resources about home education generally – blogs, books, groups, more websites etc – on our Home Education page.