Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

The Government has published its full Children’s Wellbeing and Schools bill .

Schools Week has been through the bill documents and provided a list of what they believe are the 15 key changes:

• A maximum of three branded uniform items
• Flexi-schooled pupils will need to be on council registers
• Reform of the process for the issue of school attendance orders
• Special school parents will need council permission for home education
• First legal definition of full-time education
• Ofsted will get power to seize illegal schools evidence
• Teacher misconduct agency scope expanded to include misconduct when not employed as a teacher, but have at any time carried out teaching work
• Qualified Teacher Status and national curriculum requirement for academies
• New non-compliance directions for academy trusts prior to termination notice
• No automatic academy orders for schools causing concern
• Councils can open new schools (but regional director will decide)
• National pay rules extended to academies, but CEOs will not be within its scope
• Legal duty on mainstream state schools to co-operate on admissions
• Councils get power to direct academy admissions following a refusal
• Councils can challenge academies’ capacity through a PAN (published admission number).

See the schools week article for further details.