If you do not spend your days reading government bills, legislation etc then we can completely understand how getting involved in the children’s wellbeing and schools bill could be overwhelming and confusing. We are trying our best to provide detailed but easy to understand information.

We have written lots of posts since December about the bill and what it will mean. Please try to read them (you can scroll through them at the bottom of this page).

But, let me take some time to try to explain some of it a bit more.

The bill was voted for in parliament, it doesn’t mean that the MPs who voted for it agree with all of its content.

The current process, which is only over a couple of weeks, so do not delay, is the opportunity for us and you to write to your MP, AND write to the scrutiny committee. They will then make amendments to the bill. It has a long way to go after that. But we will update you as each stage happens.

Why you should write to your MP: They can submit suggestions for making changes to the bill’s wording on your behalf. If your MP is on the committee then this is even more important. Make sure you explain what home education is like and how this bill will change that. Keep reading for more explanation.

And you can submit your own suggestions of changes that need to be made directly to the committee. You can tell the committee about how parts will be misused, how the specific sections will not protect children, how they will do harm to you and the home education committee. Keep reading for how.

This is your chance to make a difference. But do it as soon as you can as this is a small window of opportunity which may only last until early February.

We have written this post, to help you see what your MP said in parliament, and how to submit a response to the committee. It explains which parts of the bill are most problematic, and there’s also a link to the bill with our annotations.

At this stage it is up to you what you write, we can not write a template for this, as it all needs to be unique to be given consideration. It is up to you how deep you dive into this. You could just point out that the overall idea is bad and explain a little about why. Or you could go line by line through the relevant parts, and explain the issues with the language used, and the impact every line will have. PLEASE READ THE ABOVE POST.

Remember if your MP didn’t speak it could have been that they were unable to be there, or they were not given time to speak (not everyone was) it doesn’t mean they agree with all of the bill. Voting for the bill does not mean they agree with it all.

Any response is better than nothing! Power in numbers as they say. And there’s a lot of us.

Remember this is now not about them pulling the bill (as there’s a lot more in it than home education), it is about ensuring what they publish is fair and does not do harm to home educators.

We know there’s some accusations that we and others are scaremongering, we wish we were, but this bill, in it’s current wording is horrific. The people writing it clearly did not understand home education, or current legislation, they may have thought they were doing good, it’s clear they want to protect children, we do too, but the bill needs some serious changes for it to not do harm to you. We think a lot more can be done to ensure children are not harmed, but those children were usually failed by services, current legislation used properly would have saved them. Making ridiculous rules for home educators does nothing to find or support children who need it.

Read our annotated bill carefully to see how the wording is problematic. It doesn’t matter what they hoped the bill would be or the intentions behind it, the wording is what LAs will use. LAs already misuse current EHE guidance, for example we have evidence of some LAs issuing notices and SAOs to coerce families into letting the LA overstep. We need to stand firm together and say the bill will do massive harm. We want children protected, but not at the detriment of home educators.

Write what you can, spend as much time on it as you can but submit it ASAP.

Write to your MP
Extra effort if your MP is on the committee
Submit a response to the committee
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Share this post to encourage other home educators to respond.

And instead of being confused and doing nothing, reach out so someone can explain more.