February 2026
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Still Not Law
In December 2024 the government introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to parliament. The measures set out in the bill for “Children Not In School” will directly affect parents wishing to home educate their child in future as well as families who are already home educating. The bill has almost finished all the required parliamentary stages and is expected to become an Act of Parliament around Easter 2026.
As generally happens with bills going through parliament, the House of Commons rattled through all the stages very quickly in accordance with a strict timetable set out in advance. From July to September 2025 the House of Lords spent a lot of time during Committee stage on the proposed Children Not In School measures both in debate on the floor of the House of Lords and also in meetings with government officials.
The Lords resumed debate on the bill at Report stage in January 2026. Following Report, there is a final stage in the Lords – called Third Reading – set for February 9th 2026 just before the parliamentary half term break.
Commons Has To Approve Lords Amendments
It may be helpful for MPs to know that the home education chapter of the bill has undergone some significant changes since it left the House of Commons in March 2025. All the changes made in the Lords have to be agreed by the Commons. Changes which have been made by the government will obviously be approved, but there have also been non-government changes and these are much more controversial.
The government does not have a majority in the House of Lords so it is possible for opposition parties to win votes on amendments which is what has happened with a successful late amendment from shadow minister Baroness Barran whereby the local authority can refuse permission for home education if there has ever been a child protection enquiry regardless of outcome and also if there is a current Child In Need plan.
MPs may reject an opposition amendment, particularly if it did not have cross-party support in the Lords, and when this happens, the bill goes back and forth between the Lords and the Commons in a process known as “ping pong” before one side backs down. The bill is expected to receive Royal Assent by Easter 2026 which will make it an Act of Parliament.
Secondary Legislation
Getting a new Act of Parliament onto the statute books in the form of primary legislation is only the first step in getting a law changed. A new Act of Parliament cannot exist in a vacuum; it requires secondary legislation in the form of regulations and new statutory guidance so there will have to be public consultations on regulations after the bill becomes an Act.
Because of the length of the consultation process and the fact that it can’t even begin until after the bill receives Royal Assent, we estimate that the earliest that all this could possibly be in place would be the end of 2026.
It is very important to be aware that an Act of Parliament does not cause an immediate switchover to the new system and that in the meantime, all the current law remains in place and all the current national guidance still applies.
England And Wales
The most directly relevant part of the Wellbeing Bill for home educators is the Children Not In School chapter. Initially this only applied to England but in March 2025 the government expanded it to include Wales, apparently at the request of the Welsh government. The government keeps saying it is about knowing where children are and that children are “seen”.
Consent For Withdrawal Best Interests
In future parents would have to obtain local authority approval before children in certain categories deemed to be potentially vulnerable could be taken out of school for home education. The categories relate to safeguarding and also to children on roll at special schools. Government ministers have been adamant that local authorities should not and would not start child protection enquiries purely because a parent has decided to home-educate.
The child will remain on roll during the decision-making process and the usual penalties for unauthorised absence will apply. There is no time limit or deadline by which the local authority has to make a decision. If the decision is a No then parents may not ask again for 6 months.
Under the safeguarding heading, consent for withdrawal from school will be required for a child subject to a child protection plan OR where there has been a child protection plan in the last 5 years OR there is a current and ongoing child protection enquiry. It will be up the local authority to decide whether home education is in a child’s “best interests”.
Extending consent for withdrawal to child protection plans going back 5 years came very late in the parliamentary process. It first appeared in updated Policy Summary Notes on January 7th 2026 and was agreed in the House of Lords on January 28th.
Sara Sharif
The Department for Education wants everyone to know that these late changes to the bill are in response to the tragic case of Sara Sharif and the safeguarding review into her death carried out by Surrey county council which was published in November 2025. The majority of the review’s recommendations around Surrey CC failings, plus national issues with the family court system are not receiving attention as politicians and the media focus on home education.
The government has also made other changes to the bill said to be prompted by the review into Sara Sharif’s death. These are mainly in relation to home visits as explained below.
New Compulsory Register
In future, home educating parents will be required to register with the local council and to supply information about people involved in the child’s education. The School Attendance Order process will be used as a sanction for parents who fail to comply. For most of the bill’s time in parliament, the government was insistent that parents would have to report every change of provider in minute detail but in January 2026 concessions were made and this was cut back.
In a late change said to be prompted by the tragic case of Sara Sharif, the bill also now says that the local authority must “consider where the child lives” and may request to visit the home within 15 days of a child going on the new “Children Not In School” register. If a visit request is refused then the local authority can escalate to formal action and within the formal action process there will be further stages when a visit may be requested and where a refusal will allow the local authority to take steps towards issuing a School Attendance Order.
School Attendance Orders
School Attendance Orders will be the main sanction for parents who do not comply with the new law and the SAO process is to be made quicker with penalties for breaching the order increased to bring them into line with truancy penalties, that is to say the maximum fines will be increased and at the top end of the scale a prison sentence can be imposed.
Pilot Scheme Mandatory Meeting
Again said to be prompted by the review into the death of Sara Sharif, the Wellbeing Bill now provides for a pilot in England and Wales whereby families wishing to home educate will have to take part in a mandatory meeeting with the local authority (NOT the school unless parents wish the school to be involved) before a child’s name can be removed from the school roll.
The pilot scheme will operate in no more than 30% of local authorities and will be tested for 2 years, after which it may be changed or rolled out nationally or just stop altogether. At this point we know nothing more about the pilot and it will depend on secondary legislation being drawn up after the bill becomes law. A pilot scheme usually involves local authorities putting themselves forward as volunteers to try out a new process.
Regulations And Guidance
Obtaining information about providers and having providers supply details of children on their books are key elements of the bill. The government believes these measures will enable the local authority to know where a child is spending time and be helpful for flagging up illegal schools as well as potentially leading to the discovery of children who are eligible for registration.
One of the major policy areas which will remain to be decided after the bill becomes law relates to education providers. Individuals and organisations delivering education “for more than the prescribed amount of time” will be obliged to pass on names and addresses of children on their books to the local authority, facing fines if they don’t comply. A number of commentators have pointed out that this is likely to have a negative effect on choice in education as providers may just opt to withdraw their services to home educators.
The government has steadily resisted defining “prescribed amount of time” in the bill. To make things even more complicated, the bill puts forward a number of possible ways of calculating the “prescribed amount of time” plus adding exemptions so that the provider duty is proportionate and captures only those the government wants included.
Another significant area where there will have to be a full public consultation after the bill receives Royal Assent is in relation to new statutory guidance on home education. Readers may recall that the government consulted on draft guidance in 2023 but this was not finalised before the general election and the new Labour government then opted to change the law instead.
In theory, any new draft guidance issued for consultation later in 2026 should be quite distinct and different from the earlier draft, but we do know that governments like to recycle previous material rather than start from scratch so it remains to be seen what will actually appear.
A third area of controversy and concern which is still to be decided in secondary legislation relates to exemptions for having to supply contact details for both parents.
Fiona Nicholson is publishing regular updates about the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which you can find linked from this page https://edyourself.org/childrens-wellbeing-schools-bill/
January 2025Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2025
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill was introduced to parliament at the end of 2024. It was not unexpected given that it was announced in the King’s Speech after the general election in July 2024.
The bill covers a number of areas in relation to children’s social care and academy schools, as well as proposals for compulsory registration of children educated outside school.
The education parts of the bill will apply to England only, since other countries in the UK are responsible for making their own new education laws. The Parallel Parliament site has a good starting page about the bill https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/bills/2024-26/childrenswellbeingandschools
There is a defined process which has to be followed when the government wishes to bring in a new law; it does not happen quickly. The bill has to go all the way through both Houses of Parliament with many days of scrutiny and debate at each stage. For more details on what to expect in the coming months, plus relevant links, we recommend Fiona Nicholson’s article here https://edyourself.org/childrens-wellbeing-schools-bill/
The more MPs and members of the Lords understand about the impact of the bill, the less likely it is to go through without at least substantial modification. HEAS will be happy to assist with this process.
Meanwhile of course the current law remains in place and current guidance still applies.
What Is Being Proposed
1) Consent For Home Education
Under the new law, parents wishing to take a child out of special school for home education would not only need to satisfy the local authority about their educational arrangements, but would also need to justify why home education was in the child’s “best interests.” If refused, parents would have to wait 6 months before asking again.
The “best interests” rule – as determined by the local authority – would also apply if a safeguarding investigation was underway or if a child protection plan was in place. If the local authority disagreed about “best interests” – as one might expect – then it could refuse consent for the child to be taken out of school.
For children already being home educated, if a safeguarding investigation were to start, then again parents would need to convince the local authority that home education was in the child’s “best interests.”
The local authority would be able to serve what is called a ‘preliminary notice’, moving swiftly on to a School Attendance Order if not satisfied. One of the factors the local authority would consider was whether the parent had allowed access to the home.
Parents who received an Attendance Order but did not register their child at a school, could – as now – be prosecuted, but the penalties if found guilty would be substantially more severe. In addition, parents once found guilty could be prosecuted again for the same offence, reversing current case law.
2) Parents Having To Register
Parents who are already home educating and parents wishing to start home educating would have to register with the local authority and supply details about who is delivering the education, including those outside the family such as tutors and organisations. In turn, these providers would have to send information to the local authority and could be fined for not doing so.
There would be a similar requirement for flexischooled children, which is where the child attends school part-time by arrangement and is home educated for the rest of the week.
The local authority would be able to serve a preliminary notice as above if parents did not register or failed to give all the information requested during the registration process, which again could be escalated to a School Attendance Order.
Fiona Nicholson
Home Education Consultant
DfE Consultation: proposed revision of Home Education Guidance
Consultation
The government has published draft revised versions of the elective home education guidance for local authorities and for parents and there is an online consultation which runs until January 18th 2024. Fiona Nicholson has put a lot of information about the consultation on her website, all linked from this page https://edyourself.org/2023-consultation-revised-ehe-guidance/ and this page https://edyourself.org/news/
Background
The guidance was last revised in 2019. Significant changes were made at that time with elements being taken out and new points being added. The main revisions in 2019 were removing the following elements: 1) ‘Local authorities have no statutory duties in relation to monitoring the quality of home education on a routine basis’ and 2) ‘A written report should be made stating whether the authority has any concerns about the education provision and specifying what these are, to give the child’s parents an opportunity to address them’ [at the informal enquiries stage]. Neither of these appears in the 2019 guidance.
A significant addition in 2019 was about taking formal action if parents would not give any information at all. The 2019 guidance says ‘a refusal by parents to provide any information in response to informal enquiries will in most cases mean that the authority has a duty to serve a notice under s.437(1) … where the parents have refused to answer, the only conclusion which an authority can reasonably come to … is that the home education does not appear to be suitable.’
This was in marked contrast to the previous version of the Guidelines where the LA was supposed to obtain information first and then explain any concerns to parents.
There was also much more emphasis in 2019 on the potential for using ‘safeguarding powers’ to address concerns about education.
2023 Draft Guidance
The proposed new version published in draft form in October 2023 has a lot of the same content as the current (2019) guidance and maintains the focus on using safeguarding powers, although the material is organised differently so it is difficult to compare them side by side.
The main point which has been taken out in 2023 is about the burden of proof not being on parents; the following no longer appears in 2023: ‘this should not be taken as implying that it is the responsibility of parents under s.436A to “prove” that education at home is suitable. A proportionate approach needs to be taken.’
Meanwhile the main element which has been added in 2023 and which changes everything for home educating families is that ‘parents should be able to provide information to the local authority so they can establish the child’s levels of literacy and numeracy and whether they are appropriate to the child’s age, ability, aptitude and SEN.’
All the investigation on the part of the LA has now been brought forward to the informal enquiries stage as part of a detailed ‘assessment of suitability’ and there are references to ‘ongoing judgement of suitability’ and ‘a routine annual review’ which amount to annual monitoring.
In the 2023 draft it is left entirely up to the local authority to decide how much information is sufficient at the informal enquiries stage and ‘insufficient information’ now justifies escalation to the formal process.
These changes taken altogether would have a huge impact on home educating families in this country if the 2023 guidance were to be taken forward.
It is important to note that the 2023 guidance has only been published in draft form. It is not in force. The current guidance remains the 2019 guidance. It is also important to note that the law has not changed and that this is non-statutory guidance. The Introduction says ‘This guidance represents the Department’s interpretation of how the current legal framework affects the provision of home education. The guidance is not intended to provide legal advice. It does not create new powers or duties.’
Fiona Nicholson
Home Education Consultant
December 2022Schools Bill Cancelled
The Department for Education has announced it is dropping the Schools Bill. Progress on the Bill had halted before it finished in the House of Lords and it would still have had to get through the Commons.The government needed new laws in order to make registration compulsory and to give local authorities new legal powers around school attendance orders for home educating parents who failed to register.Without a new law compulsory registration cannot be introduced.A maximum of two years remains for the present government before the next general election so in reality there is very little time to come up with a completely new education bill to replace the Schools Bill.The Secretary of State Gillian Keegan acknowledged this when she told the Education Committee ‘the need to provide economic stability and tackle the cost of living means that the parliamentary time has definitely been reprioritised on that.’Asked about possible timescales for bringing back compulsory registration proposals, the Secretary of State said ‘I cannot commit to dates or times because there is a process that has to be gone through and I do not have full control of it.’
The Schools Bill and Home Education The Schools Bill was introduced in the House of Lords in May of this year. It includes a range of measures about academy trusts, changing school funding, school attendance, unregistered schools, teacher misconduct and registers of all children who aren’t in school. The concept of a register of all children not in school in each local authority differs from previous plans for compulsory registration and Fiona Nicholson has provided some detailed information and analysis of the proposals in six linked articles:
1 New register of children not in school – England only 2 Overview of changes proposed in the Schools Bill for home educated children 3 More detail about how the register will work4 Sanctions for not complying with registration requirements – school attendance order process5 School attendance orders – current system 6 New legal duty for local authorities to offer support
Fiona Nicholson has more detail about recent events on her web page https://edyourself.org/articles/registration.php and blog https://edyourself.wordpress.com/2022/12/13/no-legislative-vehicle-without-schools-bill/