The HE Byte

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024

Introduced in the House of Commons, 17 December 2024

For following the progress of the Bill we recommend Parallel Parliament’s CWS Bill page.

Unlike Parliament’s own website, links to all the relevant documents are displayed in a single list. The “Timeline of Bill Documents and Stages” is ordered with the most recent publication at the top. Above that is a “Latest Key documents” section, which saves searching for more recent publications.

Childrens Wellbeing and Scholls Bill 2024 graphic

Links to the transcripts of the sessions can be found on either Parallel Parliament’s page or the main page’s Publications tab. Recording can be located here.

Previous Event: 8 Jan | Second Reading

Official Parliamentary pages

The Bill’s Home Page | other tabs: Publications; Stages; News.

Direct links to key PDF documents listed on the Publications tab:

Videos of all session which consider the Bill can be found by using this search term.

Department for Education Publications

House of Commons Library

Note: The HoC Library is a branch of Parliament, not the Government. It is a research and information service based in the UK Parliament. One of its responsibilities is to produce briefings for MPs on matters before Parliament or those which may be raised by their constituents. These are read by MPs and their staff so they can be ‘informed’ about matters they are unfamiliar with. These briefings should not be mistaken for “statements from the Government;” they are written by journalist-researchers, and express their own understanding of any matter.

Resources to help you

To help you make your own notes on the contents of the Bill and the proposed changes to existing legislation, a friend of the Byte team has created tables based on clauses 24-29 in the Bill and other documents which are directly relevant to elective home education. [N.B. Other clauses worth noting include “Independent educational institutions” (30-37) and “Information sharing and consistent identifiers” (4).] The tables are available in 3 formats [Word, Open Document, PDF] with separate ones for each clause. See the bottom of this page for download options, along with further information.

If you require a simple introduction to help you explain key points in the Bill which will affect HE children and their families to family, friends and even your MP (& local Councillor), you will find this two page briefing helpful. It has been written by a HE parent, and is shared with their permission. We suggest it will be more effective if you use your own words and story, rather than simply forwarding MPs a copy.

Flowcharts of the Bill’s stages in through both houses. Click an image below to view and download each chart as a Portable Network Graphics (.png) file, or download an easy print PDF file of both.

Related Bytes

Recommended reading and listening

No Nationalisation of Our Kids
Defend Digital ME
Ed Yourself

Resources:

Educational Freedom
Encouraging articles from the wider media

Downloadable Clause Tables

These tables have three columns as illustrated below:

Sample from a CWS Bill tabes

The contents of each column are as follows:

  1. Current: The wording of the Education Act 1996 as it stands at present;
  2. Proposed additions: New wording which will be inserted into the Education Act if the Bill is passed in its current form;
  3. Notes: Most of these sections are blank for your own notes, but where the compiler has spotted something important in the accompaning documents, as above, they have provided comments to draw your attention to those sections.

The three download colums below contain files as per the column heading, the exception being the top item which are .zip files containing every file listed in that particular format.

If you find these useful, please tell others about this page.

Document DescriptionDOCXODTPDF
All the files listed in a single .zip archiveDownload
.zip file
Download
.zip file
Download
.zip file
CWS Bill Relevant ContentsDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 434ADownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436BDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436CDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436DDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436EDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436FDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436GDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436HDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436IDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436JDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436KDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436LDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436MDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436NDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436ODownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436PDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436QDownloadDownloadDownload
CWS Bill Clause 436RDownloadDownloadDownload
Ed Act 1996 Schedule 1DownloadDownloadDownload
Ed Act 1996 Schedule 31ADownloadDownloadDownload
Ed Act 1996 Schedule 572DownloadDownloadDownload