Consent for deregistration
Some groups of children would see their parent’s or carers’ rights to make decisions about how best to educate them. Instead the local authority – without any court oversight – would have the power to decide what was in the “best interests” of the child.
Evidence suggests that it is the provision of the State rather than of parents which is often the main issue.
Families increasingly decide to home educate because they believe that the local authority has failed to provide a suitable and safe education for their child. There are also many thousands of cases where parents of children described as having ‘special educational needs or disabilities’ are fighting their local authority for adequate support and provision.
New amendments proposed in the House of Lords would further expand those groups of children that these powers would apply to.
Legal advice
Home Education UK have for a number of years been monitoring the situation around deregistration processes. Advice obtained in 2023 around new regulations, as well as about the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, from specialist barrister Steve Broach KC has been used to provide lobbying points in the guidance provided.
Home Education UK legal advice lobbying for HoL
Children at special or independent schools (funded by LA)
The measures proposed are startling. For children entitled to particular levels of support the State rather than their parents would be entitled to decide what is best for them, with regards to their education. The Bill claims these powers in the absence of any suggestion of parental failings, without any cause for concern and without even judicial oversight.
These powers only apply to those children and families who rely on the provision of the state for their child’s educational provision. It does not apply to those families who are financially able, and who have chosen, to pay privately for school.
It must be noted too that the backdrop to these measures is the long running and ever growing ‘SEND crisis‘. Families with children with special educational needs and disabilities are deeply unhappy with the education provided for their children and the lack of support. When this has reached the SEND Tribunal the decision of the local authority was overturned 95% of the time in 2024. On top of the fundamental questions about parental primacy to decide what is in the best interests of their child there is a significant issue of conflict of interest.
“A decision to place a disabled child within a special school should not bring with it a state held power to incarcerate children within a school that they may be rightly unhappy with.”
“Professionals able to overrule parents and decide what is in an autistic child or young person’s ‘best interests’ despite a fundamental imbalance in knowledge, both of autism/neurodivergence and of the individual child or young person.”
“We are concerned that local authorities will insist that children with disabilities remain in school when it does not meet their needs.”
…an introduction of a best interest test applied by authority rather than by parents represents an unpardonable erosion of
the rights, duties and responsibilities of parents.”
There has been a risk flagged that the measures will put parents off enrolling their children in the schools they believe are needed should their attendance there mean that they could not freely be withdrawn. During the debate the Government clearly acknowledged this was a risk, when explaining why it would be inappropriate to widen restrictions to include Children in Need (s17). Yet they did not acknowledge this risk with regards to children with special needs or disabilities.
“Bringing children in need into scope of the home education consent process is likely to prevent families from seeking support when they need it, the opposite of what we want. Parents and families might well be reluctant to accept support from the local authority under section 17 if it meant that their ability to home educate was called into question and, potentially, permission to home educate was refused.”
Rt Hon Stephen Morgan MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
They Work for You: Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, Public Bill Committee (30 Jan 2025)
Children under child protection
Children who are under Child Protection Plans under s47 powers are already in close and ongoing contact with social workers; there is no lack of oversight. If there are any concerns, then deregistration will not be allowed. There are already measures in place for social services should there be concerns, but these changes would both remove the element of consent and discussion between social worker and family and make the process more difficult for families plus it seems to presume in favour of school.
Children are not put under s47 Child Protection Plans necessarily because their parents are a threat to them. Children who need support for autism or other neurodivergence – as opposed to visible physical needs – are at higher risk of being triaged down an inappropriate investigative process. There is a crossover with children who experience barriers to attending school. Indeed, a child experiencing barriers going to school is one of the triggers for a social services investigation.
No help for Sara
Politicians have claimed that these measures are justified in the name of Sara Sharif. Disregarding both that the measures would not have applied to her and that there are already existing processes in place to protect children in such cases.
“Sara would not have been helped by measures to place restrictions on children in child protection plans or under s47 investigations being withdrawn from school as the local authority had decided she was not in need of protection. If they had recognised her plight, then even without this bill the local authority has these existing powers. The local authority will also have known that she had been withdrawn from school, given the existing robust requirements on schools to inform them.”
The Victoria Climbie Foundation UK
VCF Blog: VCF calls for meaningful measures in Children Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Jan 2025)
[Sara Sharif] “was known to social services and the school’s
concerns were reported to them but no investigation happened and the case was closed. The issue is not home schooling but the fact that children’s services are reluctant to challenge violent fathers and that a family court judge sent her to a man whose history of domestic and physical violence was well known.
Why are mothers (and it is usually mothers) who home school being blamed for the negligence and bias of social services and judges?”
Support Not Separation & Disabled Mothers’ Rights Campaign
Parallel Parliament: Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill: Written evidence submitted to Bill Select Committee (Feb 2025)