The Department for Education has published its Schools Bill today, which aims to bring in new powers over multi-academy trusts, private schools and attendance rules.
It follows the publication of its Schools White Paper at the end of March.
Here is a round-up of the key announcements.
Education secretary to have new powers to close or tackle failing MATs
Legislation will allow for new intervention powers to be created which will allow the education secretary to direct multi-academy trusts to meet new standards or terminate their funding agreement if they are deemed to be failing.
The Department for Education says this is necessary because it has not always been able to adequately intervene in failing MATs.
These will include powers to:
- issue a notice to improve and impose financial restrictions on academy trusts
- issue a compliance direction telling trusts to meet standards
- direct the appointment of trustees and replace existing trustees with an interim trust board
- Statutory powers to terminate funding agreements of a MAT
Councils can apply to convert some schools to academies without their backing
The Bill also proposes giving councils the power to be able to apply for maintained schools in their area to become academies.
The Department for Education has said councils may wish to use these new powers for any or all schools in their area.
If the schools are a foundation or voluntary-aided then councils will need the consent of trustees of the school and the body responsible for appointing foundation governors.
But it will not need the agreement from the governing body of other maintained community schools before applying for an academy order for them.
Bolstering Ofsted inspection of illegal schools
New measures will permit Ofsted inspectors to act in “a more intrusive fashion” during an inspection of a suspected unregistered independent school and during inspections of registered schools believed to be acting unlawfully.
The DfE said these changes will make it easier for inspectors to enter a setting and allow a more thorough inspection to take place. Ofsted has repeatedly called for its inspectors to be given more powers in this area.
A DfE document explaining the changes adds: “For example, rather than being permitted to ‘inspect and take copies of’ documents found, inspectors will be able to search for evidence and seize what is found. This means inspectors may be able to access and review nearly all evidence that is available in an educational setting which is believed to be operating unlawfully.”
The government said it will no longer be possible for unregistered schools to avoid detection “by locking documents in cupboards or not responding to inspector’s requests for entry to the building”.
New criminal offences will also be created. It will be an offence to not provide, on request, information or assistance to inspectors during inspections of suspected criminal offences in relation to independent schools.
These enhanced investigatory powers will not apply to inspections of registered independent schools against the Independent School Standards, where the question is one of a school’s performance. These powers will apply only in cases where it is suspected a criminal offence is being committed.
Private schools could have registration suspended over pupil safety fears
As Tes reported last week, the DfE is also seeking to create new powers to be able to suspend the registration of private schools where serious safeguarding failings pose a risk of harm to students.
It intends to give the education secretary the ability to intervene by making it a criminal offence for the proprietor of the school for it to continue operating while its registration is suspended.
The government has said that existing action to close failing independent schools is “unacceptable” as it can be slow and difficult to achieve where institutions show periods of improvement but are still failing to meet the required standards
National system for fining parents over pupil absence
The circumstances in which fixed penalty notices for absence are issued are currently determined by individual local authorities.
As Tes reported last week, the DfE is planning to create a national system to improve consistency in their use across England
In a new document published today explaining the plans, the government has said the new system will retain local authority discretion in deciding whether to use legal intervention in a particular instance.
It will also end blanket policies for issuing penalty notices that some local authorities currently have. Instead, local authorities should make decisions on an individual case-by-case basis, only issuing penalty notices where support is not working, being engaged with, or appropriate.
The DfE has said that it intends to consult on the circumstances for issuing penalty notices ahead of setting them.
School attendance policies will be mandatory
The Bill will also require schools to publish and publicise an attendance policy. The DfE said today that these policies “covering specified components will help set clear attendance expectations for staff, pupils and parents”.
Last week, the DfE said that all schools’ policies will be expected to cover attendance expectations, day-to-day attendance management processes, school strategy for using attendance data, their strategy for reducing persistent and severe absence, and the point at which sanctions will be used.
The government has said these expectations will apply on a non-statutory basis from the beginning of the next academic year in September “to give schools time to implement them before legislation requires it” from September 2023.
Register of home-educated children
The Bill also includes a long-awaited plan for local authorities to keep a register of children who are being educated at home.
A DfE document explaining the plan says these registers will record eligible children of compulsory school age that are electively home-educated, flexi-schooled, or receive alternative provision in an unregistered setting - unless their school has made such an arrangement.
The DfE said registers will help ensure local authorities are aware of the children not in school in their area so that they can undertake their existing responsibilities more effectively, which include trying to identify children missing in education.
The government launched a consultation on creating such a register in 2019.
Teacher misconduct cases expanded
The government has set out plans to broaden the current teacher misconduct regime.
This includes investigating people who commit misconduct when not employed as a teacher, but who have at any time carried out teaching work.
The DfE is also set to broaden the scope of the regime to include a wider range of education settings and to enable the education secretary to consider referrals of serious teacher misconduct regardless of how the matter comes to his attention.
Tes has previously reported on how these changes will allow the Teaching Regulation Agency to be able to consider cases of misconduct that the DfE has identified itself, such as fraud or exam malpractice inside schools.
