On January 22nd 2025 I submitted evidence to the bill committee set up to scrutinise the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. The committee did not publish my submission so I have now secured permission to reproduce it here.
PLEASE NOTE THAT AS OF 19.3.25 CLAUSE 24 IS NOW CLAUSE 30, READ MORE HERE https://edyourself.wordpress.com/2025/03/24/clause-25-is-now-clause-30/ (24 already became 25 in February) I am currently in the process of footnoting all the updated references to new clauses, lines and pages.
Executive Summary
1. This submission is devoted to clause 24, local authority consent for withdrawal of certain children from school, specifically taking a child out of special school and taking a child out of school when a child protection investigation is underway or a child protection plan is in place
2. I have extensive experience of supporting families who would have been negatively affected if clause 24 had been in place
3. Clause 24 will have perverse consequences and lead to less support through parents’ fear of being locked into a special school arrangement
4. Clause 24 will disproportionately impact families with disabled children and also single mothers
5. Clause 24 hands power to anyone opposed to home education (school, neighbours, family members)
6. It is premature to claim that clause 24 would have saved the life of Sara Sharif since the Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review undertaken by Surrey CC only began after her murderers were convicted in December 2024
7. I am an independent elective home education and EOTAS consultant. The name of my organisation is Edyourself https://edyourself.org/ I believe I have a useful perspective to share in this highly specialised area and I am greatly concerned about over-reach in the bill as currently drafted.
8. In the 1990s I made the decision not to send my son to school and he was home educated from start to finish. He is now in his early 30s.
9. Following the Badman Review during 2009-10 I gave oral evidence to the Select Committee and the bill committee through my role at the elective home education charity Education Otherwise.
10. I subsequently set up an independent consultancy and began close cooperation with the Home Education Advisory Service [HEAS] through my friendship with Jane Lowe who has been a steadfast champion of home education freedom for many decades.
11. HEAS provided administrative backup to the All Party Parliamentary Group [APPG] for Home Education set up by Graham Stuart MP and co-chaired by Lord Lucas. We organised regular meetings in parliament bringing together interested parties to highlight problem areas for home educating families. Through the APPG we had input to the home education section of the national Special Educational Needs Code of Practice.
12. I have extensive experience supporting families through special educational needs and disability tribunals [SENDIST] to secure Education Otherwise Than At School [EOTAS] funding where children and young people are unable to attend school. In 2021 I won an EOTAS case at the Upper Tribunal https://www.gov.uk/administrative-appeals-tribunal-decisions/nn-v-chesire-east-council-sen-2021-ukut-220-aac13. I have also successfully supported a number of families to take complaints to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman for breaches of section 19 Education Act 1996 where the local authority has a duty to arrange alternative provision for a child unable to attend school, and also under section 42 of the Children and Families Act 2014 where the local authority has a duty to the secure special educational needs provision in an Education Health and Care Plan [EHCP].
14. This submission focuses on clause 24 of the bill which is the first clause within Children Not In School and is headed “local authority consent for withdrawal of certain children from school”.
15. The first category of children requiring consent for withdrawal from school relates to special educational needs and disability [SEND] where a child with an EHCP is a registered pupil at a special school. This is set out on page 46 lines 4-9 as “Condition A.”
16. The most recent Department for Education [DfE] statistics show that under half a percent of children entering home education came from special schools (Source = Elective Home Education and Children Missing Education [EHE and CME] statistics https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/elective-home-education )
17. Under current law (Pupil Registration Regulations), local authority consent is already required for deregistration from special school, but clause 24 adds an extra condition which would effectively deny the option to home educate.
18. At present it is generally understood that a request to remove a child from special school will precipitate a review of the child's EHCP, with parents being asked how home education will cater for the child's special educational needs as set out in their Plan. In other words it is about education.
19. However, under the new system, the parent would have to convince the local authority that home education was a better option than school. The term used in the bill is “the child's best interests”
20. Page 46 lines 33-37 state that the local authority: “(b) must refuse consent if the local authority considers—
(i) that it would be in the child’s best interests to receive
education by regular attendance at school, or
(ii) that no suitable arrangements have been made for the
education of the child otherwise than at school”
21. Line 33 specifies that the local authority must (not may) refuse consent and line 35 then uses the word “or” rather than “and”, indicating only one of the conditions need be met.
22. In other words, the authority might be satisfied about the proposed home education arrangements yet still consider school to be in the child's best interests, and therefore consent would be refused.
23. The special school deregistration part of clause 24 has the appearance of fairness; it is not a blanket ban but will be decided on a case by case basis.
24. The problem with this is that in my experience schools and local authorities tend to start from the position that the best place for a child is in school.
25. Over the past 15 years I have helped a number of families to deregister from special schools and I think it is uncontentious to observe that most local authorities would prefer the child to remain attached to a school.
26. Should these measures be adopted, I think it likely that special school deregistration would become virtually impossible.
27. When I surveyed home educating parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities I found home education was mostly in response to a crisis or was initially intended just to be a stopgap while waiting for the law to take its course. https://edyourself.org/sen-parents-survey/
28. I have intentionally referred to children registered as pupils at a special school rather than children “attending” the school since parents tend only to reach out for support with deregistering when the placement has broken down and parents feel they have no choice but to home educate.
29. The child may already be unable to attend. Alternatively parents can see that pressure to attend is having a very detrimental effect, with the child becoming increasingly anxious or angry or withdrawn.
30. Home education may not be an ideal choice but it can be a lifeline. We don't live in an ideal world and the choice may be between something bad and something less bad. The child who is prevented from being deregistered does not magically transform into a child able to attend.
31. The Human Rights Memorandum published with the bill points out that “If consent is not obtained and the parent fails to ensure that that child attends school regularly, they will be committing a criminal offence under s444 Education Act 1996.” (Section 444 relates to truancy)
32. Moreover, the same authority which refuses consent for withdrawal on the grounds that children would miss out on therapies and specialist support is the very same authority which has made the decision to withhold support should the child no longer be attached to a school.
33. It is understandable that local authorities with spiralling SEND costs and massive budget deficits would seize every chance to cut non-statutory support, but it does leave parents between a rock and a hard place.
34. Anguished parents seeing their child desperately unhappy are - under current law - allowed to home educate as long as they accept lack of any ongoing support and understand that specialist therapeutic provision such as speech and language therapy [SALT] or occupational therapy [OT] will probably be withdrawn.
35. To support parents making an informed choice, I will always advise that elective home education is NOT the only option, since the law does provide for alternative provision or funded support via Education Otherwise Than At School [EOTAS].
36. However, I also warn parents that getting funding will not be easy or quick, since it will be challenged by the local authority at every step and will require official complaints, first to the local council, and then to the Ombudsman, taking a minimum of 8 months to resolve and often more than a year, since LAs routinely ignore complaint deadlines and the Ombudsman is overwhelmed and under-resourced.
37. I also warn parents that it will probably be necessary to go to tribunal to obtain a bespoke EOTAS package (rather than the off the peg interim alternative provision achievable through a corporate complaint) and that tribunal proceedings can be expected to take at least a year, again due to supply and demand.
38. Families are invariably battle weary from previous struggles to get the child's needs met, often over many years, and in most cases prefer instead just to get on with home education despite a complete absence of support. They just can't face any more fights.
39. However, if the law were to change making deregistration into yet another battle, I think it is highly likely that parents might opt to fight for funding and support instead, since the option of just walking away and not asking for anything has been removed. Ultimately this could end up costing the authority money.
40. On the other hand, the proposed measures do present a potential for savings, although it is absolutely not in the best interests of the child. The expense of new EHCPs and of expensive special school placements is always cited as a contributory factor to local authority massive SEND deficits.
41. It is not far-fetched to envisage parents being too scared to ask for an EHCP in the first place in case it results in a special school since in my experience even the current law on deregistration from special school is a deterrent.
42. Moreover, there would definitely be fewer parents pushing for a special school place through tribunal because of the risk to the child of being locked into the arrangement even if the placement breaks down.
43. It will be interesting to see if any of the above is factored into the Impact Assessment which at the time of writing has not yet been published.
44. The other category of consent for withdrawal from school relates to child protection. This is set out on page 46 lines 10-18 as “Condition B.” This is new and can be presumed to have been introduced in the wake of the recent horrifying and tragic case of murdered schoolgirl Sara Sharif.
45. Clause 24 proposes that if a parent has initially sent a child to school and subsequently wishes to home educate but there is a child protection plan in place or a child protection investigation is underway, that the local authority must agree home education is a better option for the child, rather than the child remaining attached to a school. Again as with special school deregistration, the term used is “the child's best interests” (page 46 line 34)
46. Supporters of this proposed measure would I imagine point out that it is not a blanket ban, but will instead be decided on a case by case basis, plus it is only right that there should be an extra level of scrutiny if it could save a child's life.
47. However, Condition B appears to assume that a child protection plan is in place because the risk to the child comes from the parent, either through direct harm from neglect or ill-treatment or alternatively because the parent is deemed unable or unwilling to protect the child. In any event therefore, the less time the child spends with the parent the better, and the more the child remains in view of others the better.
48. This is already problematic where there is disability in the family and where as Cerebra puts it there is “a default position that assumes parental failings when assessing the needs of disabled children” or “institutionalising parent carer blame” https://cerebra.org.uk/download/institutionalising-parent-carer-blame/
49. Moreover, these are not the only circumstances which pose a risk to the child, there is also the growing category of what has been termed extra-familial harm.
50. For example there may be risk arising from the child being abused by another child in school or of sexual exploitation through grooming (in person or online) or the child being at risk of criminal activity and potentially physical or psychological danger through peer pressure to join a gang.
51. Parents may find when they report concerns that the safeguarding investigation which follows is almost exclusively centred on the parent's (usually the mother's) capacity to protect the child, a practice which has been described as “mother blaming”.
52. Even where the parent is not being blamed, a child protection plan may be put in place in the above situations to ensure regular multi-agency oversight, because budget cuts mean this is the only available option.
53. There is stigma and shame attached to child protection status and an unconscious bias which assumes that the parent (usually the mother) has actively done something wrong, or stubbornly holds wrong-headed beliefs which are damaging to the child, or contrariwise (and possibly simultaneously) is weak and easily led.
54. I have supported single parents (mothers) wishing to take a child out of school for home education where the school or the other parent has disagreed with the mother and has raised concerns. Child protection [CP] conferences have invariably followed with child protection plans subsequently being put in place.
55. My experience of the child protection process consisted of attending meetings with social care and education professionals (ostensibly multi-agency meetings but health services would always be too busy) discussing what had taken place in other meetings and noting the further meetings were due to happen, the proceedings of which would form the basis for discussion at the subsequent meeting.
56. To me it always felt as though the parent had to be watched for a certain length of time before the case could be stepped down from child protection, and I perceived the objective as delivering scrutiny rather than support.
57. However, if enacted, the proposed measures would mean that anyone, but most likely the school or non-resident parent (usually the father) could, if they disagreed with - or disapproved of - home education, or had a personal conflict with the parent, exercise controlling behaviour in preventing home education by making a safeguarding referral.
58. After all, what local authority is going to sign off on a decision NOT to begin a child protection investigation, arising from an abundance of caution, wanting to keep children safe?
59. The parent opposed to home education could even appeal to the Secretary of State if the mother somehow managed to obtain consent to home educate, as per page 49 lines 19-25 with reference to a parent's being “aggrieved” by the authority's decision to grant consent.
60. It is imperative to wait for the outcome of the Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review (LCSPR] currently being undertaken by Surrey into the horrifying case of Sara Sharif. Surrey's statement can be read here https://news.surreycc.gov.uk/2024/12/11/surrey-county-council-statement-on-sara-sharif/ and states “until the independent safeguarding review concludes, a complete picture cannot be understood or commented upon.”
61. Sara was horrifically ill-treated for many years while still at school before being taken out of school in April 2023 and subsequently murdered in August 2023. It is not possible at this stage to do anything more than speculate on how clause 24 “might have saved Sara”. At present we simply do not have all the facts, in addition to the general point that hard cases have a tendency to make bad laws.
62. From documents released into the public domain in December 2024 after Sara's parents were convicted and sentenced, it would appear that initially it was the father who was seen as the dangerous parent and orders were made for Sara to live with her mother. However, when safeguarding allegations were subsequently made against the mother, Sara was returned to the care of her abusive father and then left seemingly without safeguarding supervision in place, primarily because her now convicted stepmother was viewed as a protective factor.
Fiona Nicholson
January 22nd 2025