Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill

PAGE UPDATED APRIL 29TH 2026. The bill has received royal assent. Read more here https://edyourself.wordpress.com/2026/04/11/wellbeing-bill-end-parliamentary-session/

Background

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill put forward proposals for compulsory registration of children not in school and said that in future some parents would need permission to home educate or to continue home educating.

Last minute changes were made to the bill in the House of Lords at the end of January 2026, read more HERE.

There will be specific scenarios where the local authority gets to decide what is in the child’s “best interests” – click on the link below for more details.

What Wellbeing Bill Means For Home Education

On March 19th 2026 the Senedd voted in favour of formally adopting new Children Not In School law for Wales. Wales was not originally in scope of the Wellbeing Bill but was added in March 2025.

Wellbeing Bill End Parliamentary Session

It takes a long time for a new law to be made. Anything you have read about the proposed new law does not change the current law; the government has to get all the details of the new law in place first.

Hence there is a further time after the bill became law during which details of secondary legislation (regulations and statutory guidance) are hammered out before the measures come into force.

As the bill received Royal Assent on April 29th 2026, the earliest the measures could come into force would be 2027.

THE PILOT SCHEME FOR MANDATORY MEETINGS WITH THE LA IS LIKELY TO START EVEN LATER, see https://edyourself.org/pilot-mandatory-meeting/

Parallel Parliament Bill Page

https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/bills/2024-26/childrenswellbeingandschools has all the bill information displayed on a single page which is clearer than on the official parliament page below.

Parliament Bill Page

The parliament home page for the bill is where you can find the current version of the bill, plus tabs for News, Stages, and Publications.

NB Department for Education [DfE] Policy Summary Notes [LINK] are published separately elsewhere (UPDATED JANUARY 2026 WITH GOVERNMENT AMENDMENTS FOR REPORT IN THE LORDS), plus all the detailed Impact Assessments are on a separate page (UPDATED JANUARY 2026 WITH GOVERNMENT AMENDMENTS FOR REPORT IN THE LORDS)

Bill Pages and Posts

Listed in reverse date order, latest at top. Where relevant I am also circling back to previous posts and pages bringing them up to date; significant updates to existing pages and posts are flagged up on my NEWS page.