Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill: What families need to know - as major safeguarding changes mooted

• A new bill could see children given a unique identifying number to connect them across different services
• It would also see councils made to keep track of children not enrolled in schools
• They may be able to make home schooled children attend school, if their home environment or education isn’t considered good enough
• Schools that do badly in Ofsted inspections may no longer be forced to become academies

A new bill aiming to better protect children in the education system - and stop many from falling through the cracks - could see sweeping changes for schools and home schooling families alike.

The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill was introduced to Parliament earlier this week, where it will need to make its way through both Houses before becoming law. It was unveiled the same day that Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother were sentenced for her murder, Sky News reports, and could help to patch up some of the safeguarding issues that arose in the 10-year-old’s tragic case.

The proposed legislation will take aim at a wide array of issues in the education sector, from teacher pay and conditions to councils’ powers to monitor home schooling parents. But at its heart, the Department for Educations says it is about “keeping children safe”, and ensuring all children have access to a high-quality education.

But what exactly will it mean for parents, and for schools? Here’s what you need to know:

How would the Bill help protect children?

One of the key measures the bill would see introduced is a single unique identifier number for children, similar to NHS or national insurance numbers. The government plans to pilot this, the Department for Education wrote in a blog post, in order to improve information sharing between different government services “to better protect children’s safety”.

The Department says that a consistent identifier “will allow those responsible for the safeguarding and welfare of children to better join relevant data”, helping quickly identify children and families in need of intervention, or more support.

Teachers and schools would play a bigger part in safeguarding children, with the bill requiring councils, police, and health services to involve them in decision-making. The Department added that while there would always be some cases where children needed to go into care, but under the new bill there would be more support for families to stay together.

“Children who stay with their extended family network have better outcomes than those who are put into care, which is why we are making it a requirement for local authorities to offer all parents of children who are at risk of entering the care system the chance to attend ‘family group decision making’ meetings,” it wrote. These meetings will have families come together with professionals to make a plan for their child, keeping them together where possible.

The government will also introduce compulsory ‘Children Not in School’ registers for every local authority in England, meaning councils will need to keep track of children not enrolled in a school and make sure they are still receiving an education - so “that no child falls through the cracks”.

A report released by the Children’s Commissioner earlier this year found that some 11,600 children were considered missing from education at some point during the 2022/23 academic year. Children with special educational needs (SEN) and those known to social workers were both overrepresented in these figures, but the Commissioner found that it was difficult to get a true handle on how many children were missing out on schooling, due to local authorities having different definitions and processes.

What could change in schools?

Many changes included in the bill’s umbrella would help to improve state schools and the education system, the Department says. These include requiring all new teachers to have qualified teacher status from 2026, and putting all state school teachers on the same pay and conditions framework (including those at academies).

All state-funded schools will also have to teach the new and revamped national curriculum under the proposed legislation. Councils will also be able to open new maintained schools again as well as making bids for new academies, to make sure there are are enough school places for local families.

Finally, the government will have new powers to intervene in “failing schools”. If Ofsted inspectors find a school needs serious improvement, it will no longer be forced to become an academy - with the state now able to take a more flexible approach tailored to the facility’s specific situation.

What about for families that home school?

The new proposed law could also mean big changes for families looking into home education for their child, as well as those already home schooling them.

Sara Sharif’s parents, who both received life sentences in prison on Tuesday (17 December), had pulled her out of school in order to home school her four months before her death. The BBC reports that her primary school had started noticing bruises on her face from the abuse she had suffered, prior to her being withdrawn.

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The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill will mean that parents whose children are subject to a child protection investigation or under a child protection plan won’t automatically have the right to home school them anymore. The department said these measures would “ensure that the most vulnerable children cannot be withdrawn from school until it is confirmed that this would be in their best interests, and that the education to be provided outside of school is suitable”.

It will also give local authorities more power to make sure this is happening. The new ‘Children Not in School’ registers will mean councils can identify all children not enrolled in a school in their area. For any child being home schooled, if the council deems either their home environment or the education they are receiving there to be unsuitable, they would then have the power to intervene - and even to demand they attend a school.

What do you think of the bill and its proposed changes? Have your say and make your voice heard by leaving a comment below.