Top Ten Takeaways from the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

An important new Bill is currently being debated by MPs in parliament. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill sets out how the Labour Party aims to remove barriers to opportunity in schools and improve the education system to make it more consistent and safer for every child. It also seeks to strengthen regulation in children’s social care, improving quality of care and keeping children rooted in their families and local communities where possible. Adoption UK has welcomed these important proposals.  

 

As it stands, the Bill wholly excludes reference to adopted people. This is despite the fact that Labour’s own election manifesto acknowledged that “every child should have a loving, secure home” and promised to “work with local government to support children in care, including through kinship, foster care, and adoption, as well as strengthening regulation of the children’s social care sector”.  

 

We are working with policymakers to strengthen the Bill for adoptees and their families as it progresses.  

 

See our evidence submitted to the Public Bill Committee.

 

Here is our pick of the top ten things in the draft Bill that are likely to be most relevant to you and your family:

 

1 Introduction of a Single Unique Identifier (SUI) 

The SUI is intended to improve information sharing when there are concerns about a child’s welfare. It will be used by all agencies recording and sharing information for the purposes of safeguarding or promoting the welfare of children, including local authorities, the police, health, education and childcare agencies. The Department for Education will begin by carrying out a regional pilot to test the use of existing NHS numbers as SUIs. The important thing for adopted children will be to ensure these measures do not pose a safeguarding risk by making it easier to access and share their records.  

 

2 Changes to school admissions for previously looked after children 

Local authorities have long had powers to direct maintained schools to admit looked-after children who are struggling to find a school place. These powers will now be extended to include academy schools, and to include children who are adopted or in kinship care and who were previously looked after. This should give local authorities more power to secure an appropriate school place for previously looked after children who need to start a new school outside of the normal admissions round in Reception or year 7. 

 

3 Free breakfast clubs in primary schools 

Every state primary school is to introduce a free, daily breakfast club for at least 30 minutes each morning which is open to all pupils from Reception to year 6. This will take some time to roll out, but the first schools will begin offering the clubs in April 2025.  

 

4 New rules about branded school uniform 

There will be a new legal limit on the number of branded items a school can include in its uniform requirements. Primary schools will be allowed no more than three branded items and secondary schools will be allowed four, provided one of these is a school tie. This restriction will apply to the full uniform, across summer and winter, and includes uniform items for sports or any other activity or event facilitated by the school. Items with the school logo, or items that are distinctive enough in design, colour or material that they would only be available from particular suppliers will all count as branded items. 

 

5 Extension of the Virtual School Head role 

The local authority Virtual School Head has had duties towards previously looked after children, including those who are adopted or in kinship care, since 2018. However, where children were in kinship care but had not previously been looked after, they were not eligible to receive this support. This change brings all children living in kinship care with a special guardianship order or child arrangements order into the remit of the Virtual School Head, even if they were not previously in care. The role is also extended to include all children with a social worker (children in need). 

 

6 Register of children not in school (CNIS) 

The bill legislates for the creation of compulsory registers of children not in school in each local authority area. This will include all electively home educated children, and also those who are registered at school but receiving all or part of their education elsewhere – for example through flexi-schooling arrangements or alternative provision. Parents will be responsible for ensuring their children are on the CNIS register, and for notifying the local authority of any changes of circumstance. The bill also places new regulations on some providers of out-of-school education to provide the local authority with information about the children attending their setting. [we may want to link to my accompanying article about CNIS FAQs here] 

 

7 Changes to rules on home education 

Currently, any parent may withdraw their child from school to home educate. The bill proposes that parents of children attending a special school, or parents whose children are subject to child protection investigations (section 47) or have a child protection plan, will in future have to request permission from the local authority if they want to home educate. If a child with a child protection plan or who is undergoing child protection investigations is already being home educated, the local authority will have the power to review whether this is in the child’s best interests and, if deemed appropriate, issue a school attendance order.  

 

8 Changes to academy schools 

The bill introduces a number of changes to the way academy schools are run. There will be no more ‘forced academisation’ of struggling schools, and local authorities will again be free to build new schools that are not academies. Academies will be required to follow the National Curriculum (after the review of the National Curriculum is complete), and all new teachers employed by academy schools will need to have qualified teacher status (QTS) or be working towards it, bringing the rules for academy schools into line with those for maintained schools. Additionally, the statutory framework for teachers’ pay and conditions will now include academy schools and alternative provision academies. 

 

9 Kinship local offers 

Every local authority will have a legal duty to publish a ‘kinship local offer’ providing information for kinship carers and children in kinship care. This will include information about financial support, health and wellbeing, relationships, education and training and accommodation. The Department for Education will be beginning a programme of work to ensure the quality of these local offers. 

 

10 New protections for children in care and care leavers 

A loophole in legislation meant that 16 and 17-year-olds were not legally protected from ill treatment or neglect in children’s social care settings. This loophole will now be closed, providing greater protections for older children in care. Local authorities will also now have to assess whether care leavers up to the age of 25 require ‘staying close’ support, including support to find and keep accommodation and support to access health and wellbeing services, education, training and employment. 

 

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