Written by Michellle.

We are saddened and disappointed although not surprised to see the initial announcement of what the Children’s Wellbeing Bill will contain. The one thing guaranteed is this contains nothing to genuinely ensure a child’s wellbeing it spits in the face of every SEND parent as those children are unsurprisingly ignored, other than if you choose to home educate then you will now have to demonstrate your home environment is safe even if your Education provision is topnotch (note that little ‘or’ they slid in when discussing suitable education and/or home environment) it proposes to in effect circumvent other legislation to remove parental responsibility by the back door, for all who choose home education. It does nothing to support parents to protect their children when the school environment is enabling them to be harmed, in fact despite all the news stories over the last few months about the real harm happening to children at the hands of schools it plans to strengthen schools’ positions. It appears to be planning to reverse Labour’s legislative policies from the last time Labour was in power. It was Labour that removed the requirement for qualified teacher status in certain schools, it was Labour that introduced Academies specifically on the premise they would have freedom in what they chose to teach so they would not need to follow the national curriculum.

It does not surprise us to see that long-promised support for home educators by this bill appears to have magically vanished and it is now all subjective judgments on home educators, we know the children not in school register will not help a single home educator who wants to be home educating because the children’s commissioner has explained its purpose as “If we get proper registers and we have our local authorities taking their responsibilities seriously to engage with these families, we may find that we can get lots of them back to school, which is where they need to be.” If I have chosen to home educate then my child does not need to be in school, if my child has asked me to home educate them and I act on their request to facilitate there education through home education they do not need to be in school. If I withdrew my child because the school environment was harming them then my child does not need to be back in school.

Worse than that we already know Local Authorities are not good data handlers. A document released recently shows Local Authorities recording parents’ social media accounts on their “CME registers” It showed an active choice to include home-educated children knowingly in receipt of a suitable education on their “CME registers” It showed a substantial proportion of Local Authorities recording children who are not CSA (so do not need to be in education) on their “CME registers”. They are not a safe space to hold registers so why give them another register to handle when they can not handle their current responsibilities.

As for the unique Identifier comparing it with NI number is disingenuous because my NI number is not held on my medical records it is like saying cheese is the same as milk, and turning our children into data fodder and ensuring they grow up in a world where they never have ANY meaningful privacy rights.

We will ensure when the full wording is known to analyse it closely and highlight any specific concerns and potential unintended consequences, let’s just hope the DFE got ahead of itself in its blog and the intention is not as bad as it first appears. Until the bill’s wording proves me wrong I am nicknaming it the Child’s unhappiness bill.

The government blog: https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2024/12/17/the-childrens-wellbeing-bill-what-parents-need-to-know/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3cL8FIkrCDeSFW1k8_72UAblzuTsUCv6fsv9TNYFtUi1D7ncvx1pDIzA4_aem_kCDmajJn6knwcrVkpTz1xA

The bill will be introduced today 17th December, we will update as soon as we can. Remember to sign up to our newsletter to ensure you get regular updates.