The Children’s Wellbeing Bill

Following the election, the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday 17 July provided more detail on the key themes emerging for education.

The Children’s Wellbeing Bill will put children and their wellbeing at the centre of the education and children’s social care systems and will include:

• Strengthen multi-agency child protection and safeguarding arrangements
• Require free breakfast clubs in every primary school
• Limit the number of branded items of uniform and PE kits that a school can require
• Create a duty on councils to have and maintain children not in school registers and provide support to home-educating parents
• Provide Ofsted with stronger powers to investigate the offence of operating an unregistered independent school
• Enable serious teacher misconduct to be investigated, regardless of when the misconduct occurred, the setting the teacher is employed in and how the misconduct was uncovered
• Require all schools to co-operate with the local authority on school admissions, SEND inclusion and place planning, by giving local authorities greater powers to help them deliver their functions on school admissions and ensure admissions decisions account for the needs of communities
• Require all schools to teach the national curriculum. This measure will be commenced after the review of curriculum and assessment is concluded and is reflected in programmes of study. The review will set the foundations to equip every child with the essential knowledge and skills for the future
• Ensure any new teacher entering the classroom has, or is working towards, Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). This will be accompanied by recognising the essential role of support staff in schools by giving them a national voice in the setting of their pay and conditions
• Bring multi-academy trusts into the inspection system and enable direct intervention when schools and trusts are not performing to the highest standards.