Guest Post: Bridget Phillipson MP: "How new laws are putting you and your families first"

[SophiaCMumsnet]

For too long, baked-in inequalities have been left to fester in our education and care systems.

Every day, families are battling to get their first-choice school, forking out for costly uniforms – and even more costly childcare, or seeing children fall through the cracks of a care system that is supposed to support them.

I know it’s not good enough.

My driving force is breaking the link between a child’s background and the success they achieve, and our Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, currently going through Parliament, will do exactly that.

The laws within it are integral to our Plan for Change, which aims to improve protections for vulnerable children, drive up standards in schools and put cash back in working parents’ pockets.

Here are just some of the ways our plans will benefit you and your family:

Better access to high-quality education
Trying to get a place at your first-choice local school is an all-too familiar challenge for so many parents.

Of course, a place at any one school can’t be guaranteed, but that shouldn’t mean children going without a brilliant education.

Our new laws will enable councils and schools to work together better to make sure there are enough school places in the local area and that children without a place can get one quickly.

Councils will also be able to open all types of school, not just academies, so they can meet the needs of local parents.

We are making sure that every child is taught by a fully qualified teacher, and that all schools use the national curriculum. Many currently don’t need to. These changes will create a stronger, more accessible school system, with higher standards, focused on delivering the best local offer for local children and families.

But we know that some children may still be at risk of falling through the cracks. That’s why we are introducing registers of children not in school, to give us a better understanding of which children are consistently absent and whether they might need additional support. Each child will be given a unique identifying number, in order to join up systems and put a stop to children vanishing from education.

Breaking down financial barriers
Every day, some children arrive at school without having eaten breakfast, leaving them unable to focus and not ready to learn.

Meanwhile, sky-high branded uniform costs have put financial pressure on parents and forced children to arrive in ill-fitting or worn-out clothes, leaving them feeling self-conscious and uncomfortable throughout the school day.

These laws will change that.

Our new breakfast clubs will be free and universal in every primary school, saving parents as much as £450 a year, with 30 minutes of free childcare and a nutritious meal to start the school day.

The benefits of breakfast clubs are huge, from helping with flexible working for families, to improving behaviour, attendance and attainment. That’s why we’ve already started this vital work, with 750 schools due to kickstart the rollout from April.

On top of this, a new cap on expensive branded uniform items will make sure you have as much flexibility as possible to shop around and save.

From next year, primary schools will be able to require a maximum of three branded items, and secondary schools will have the option to include an additional item if one of those is a tie – which could save you over £50 per child during the back-to-school shop.

Supporting families to stay together
For some families, the most important and valuable support any government can offer is protecting their children during times of crisis.

We’ve inherited a cycle of crisis intervention that is letting too many families down. We must be better at preventing issues before they escalate to crisis point.

Under these new laws, families will be able to rely on accessing the help they need to keep their family together.

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.

These meetings will give all families an opportunity to come together and make a plan, working alongside professionals, prioritising the wellbeing of the child.

These changes will mean disjointed services will no longer stand in the way, and earlier intervention will mean more families can be supported to stay together.

And for families who have no other option but entering the care system, the bill will also support the government’s crackdown on excessive profit-making by children’s social care providers, including introducing a backstop law to potentially cap the profit providers can make.

No more words, and no more lessons learnt.

This is a child-centred government, and we are taking action to put your children, and your family, first.

“My driving force is breaking the link between a child’s background and the success they achieve,”

This reads like an attempt to stop parents doing the best they can for their dc.

What we need is for people to mentor and agitate for those who aren’t well supported by parents. We need schools that are good enough people don’t need to remove their children. It’s the individual attention that makes children successful- tailored opportunities for every child, not just those whose parents make it happen.

Here’s research about the impact of breakfast clubs - in particular in ameliorating the very real attendance crisis https://www.magicbreakfast.com/what-we-do/research-policy-and-advocacy/our-research/

And here is research on the harms of expensive branded uniforms https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/2020-10/the-wrong-blazer-report-2020.pdf

This is long overdue. Profiteering from poor care of the most vulnerable children in society is a national shame. A Botox mogul married to a multimillionaire pornographer was able to open children’s homes at a huge cost to local taxpayers, which were then shut down as they were unsafe. This shouldn’t happen. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1wj5v711zzo.amp

Children should not just be ‘disappeared’ from school like poor Sarah Sharif. I fully support a register.

Where is the money coming from for all this?

…and please do not say it will be funded by VAT on private schools as the IFS have shown this claim to be nonsense.

Was mentioned recently that England were going to adopt the Welsh curriculum.

Regarding a register of homeschooled children (and I assume also independently and online schooled children?), how often would this be updated? Once a year at the same time as the Census? And a duty on the parents to correspond with the LA? What if the parents do not respond promptly?

I thought the Welsh have a bilingual curriculum? That sort of changes everything.

34% of state school leavers don't attain a 'basic' level of education (GCSE A-C in English and Maths. As a parent, why should I trust you with my children's education?

Labour scrapping computer hubs now as well as the Access to Latin programme..

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/labour-scraps-computing-hubs-with-languages-scheme-scaled-back/

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said:
‘Keeping children safe will always be my first duty as education secretary, but we can only truly do that if we know where our children are. The sad reality is that at the moment there are thousands of children hidden from sight.
This government will make no apologies for doing whatever is necessary to keep children out of harm’s way, and I will not stand by while some young people fall through the cracks, left without a good education and vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.’

It is brilliant that this government know that PRIVACY can be at conflict with SAFETY for the most vulnerable.

The word ‘safety’ is not in the toilet design section in the building document for secondary schools. It has been replaced by the word ‘privacy’.

Please reintroduce the gaps the Department of Education (under the last government) has closed under secondary school toilet doors.

Your current documents for secondary schools state there should only be a maximum of 5mm gap under the toilet door for privacy (the relevant part is in Annex 2A on p.12 3.2.14d)

School toilet manufacturers have changed their products to conform to this document.

This makes schools dangerous environments for the most vulnerable children - those at risk of collapse through drugs (including spiked vapes) or medical conditions such as epilepsy (1 in 100 schoolchildren), diabetes, heart conditions POTS, self harm, fever and brain injuries. Enclosed private spaces are also linked to abuse and exploitation - as you are aware sexual assaults happen inside school premises daily. Having no witnesses is a good incentive for criminal activities. Gaps prevent abuse occurring in the first place.

The irony is that secondary schools have defibrillators and the mechanisms to open the doors from the outside but they are only of use if you know someone has collapsed. Defibrillate within three minutes and the chances of survival are 70 percent. After 10 minutes, the chances of survival are negligible. Likewise seizures should be timed and an ambulance called straightaway or after 5 minutes depending on whether it is known the child has epilepsy, but how would you time? Enclosed cubicles also have detrimental effects on hygiene (can't wash floors effectively), the concentration spread of aerosol disease and emergency building evacuation times.

The DfE have told me it is the governors and schools responsibility to know the health of the cohort and should design and supervise toilets accordingly. Is that fair on schools when they are following DfE designs? People head to the toilet when they feel ‘off’ and there is no school that can say that none of their pupils in their present or future cohort will have a medical emergency. How do schools have the resources to supervise such toilets when the cubicles are acoustically soundproofed and you can’t see what’s going on? What is worse is when the cubicles are open to both sexes which is true of lots of school toilet blocks now.

Creating a safe environment is the most essential thing in protecting vulnerable children. It creates a barrier for those with invisible disabilities to attend school.

Please, for the sake of the most vulnerable children and their families, put safety first, and change the toilet designs. It will save lives and prevent harm.

Forcing schools to have affordable uniforms doesn’t cost anything and blocking exploitative owners from the care sector saves money.

I know someone whose child was raped in the toilets in primary school. Designing toilets to be dangerous, and then making them mixed sex, tells me that the people in charge haven't prioritised the safety and well being of children at all.

yes this. I know so many parents who have had to take their children out and so have dropped to part time (spoiler- loss to the government in income tax) and who are now either home schooling or burdening the state with education for their child.

And by the way- you know that thing your government said about brining it in next academic year- you lied. We see you. Enjoy your single term.

I think if your experience of state school is a voluntary aided catholic school, you probably don't have any idea of what some state schools are like and how terrifying they are for many children. My child's grammar school is a VA catholic school and is a very strict, safe environment compared to many schools. It would be great if all schools were brought up to this standard.

I was extremely disappointed to see nothing about making exams more affordable for home educated children. The cost of exams can run into the thousands. Your bill makes home education harder, with nothing to support home educating parents.

Well of course because they don't like HE. Look at the proposed Education Bill whereby each child will have a traceable number so they can track those not in mainstream education

but giving children better access to high quality education, ensuring everyone is taught by a qualified teacher and breakfast clubs will….

I know, it’s very frustrating. There are a myriad of different reasons children might be being home educated. If they’re worried (genuinely worried… not just hand wringing worried) about home educated children not maxing their potential, they could do a lot to help. Instead I think they’re hoping they can make it so difficult to do, with the LA on your case the whole time, that a lot of parents will just “give up”.

Could I please ask that you include adopted children when planning for vulnerable children.

My child is adopted and, so far, the schools she has been in have had an additional £15000 just because she is adopted. To date, not one penny of that money has been spent on her, despite her having significant difficulties because there is always someone louder, more disruptive with pushier parents whose needs come before hers. Nobody notices the quiet compliant well behaved child who can’t access their education when others in the class are so disruptive.

Applying for support through the ASF was lengthy and traumatic for us both but ended with a short email stating she didn’t meet the criteria. I know that I have failed her by not knowing how to shout louder but please don’t forget this group of exceptionally vulnerable children and give them the same protections they had before they were adopted and were in care. Thank you

@AncientAndModern1 thank.you for linking the various articles, much of which I agree with and support.

but…

• where is the evidence to show that removing academy freedoms that have led to innovation, raised standards for pupils and teachers, provided exciting curriculum developments etc will benefit our children and improve education?
• where is the plan showing how the government is going to recruit 6500 new teachers? It was a major part of their manifesto but curiously missing from the Bill…
• Where is the data showing exactly how much money the VAT on private school fees will raise when you factor in accurate figures of how many children will move from private to state, schools closing etc. and exactly where is any money raised going to go?
• where is the plan on how to support the increasing number of SEND children who are priced out of private education due to the VAT.

these are just a few examples and I could go on. Labour are dismantling an education system which has demonstrably improved children’s education over the last couple of decades. Of course there are areas for improvement like those highlighted in your links but the major changes to our education system which labour are introducing are fundamentally flawed. There is a distinct lack of any meaningful evidence to show how they are going to improve things for all children.

I’m all for change, but only if it is change for the better. In my opinion, Labour’s plans are based on ideology, dogma and do not put children first.

You do know that Sara Sharif was a schooled child for most of her life? You do know that she was very much known to social services and the family courts? As well as the education system and police? They are the ones that failed her. When her father took her out of school she was automatically put onto a register with her LA and the authorities STILL failed her. Safeguarding legislation is already in place but it failed to keep her safe. Don’t be fooled by the rhetoric of ‘slipping through the gaps’.

Do you also know that all local authorities already keep a register of HE kids? This notion of a new register is just a distraction, a nice little strap line for people like you who know nothing about home education. It is also worth informing you that there is practically NO correlation between HE families and abuse. Adjusting for the difference in numbers, HE parents are statistically far less of a threat to their children than parents of schooled children.

I just want to agree with this post very strongly. I work with a lot of home educated families. In MANY cases the reason they are homeschooling is to safeguard their child from bullying, or physical or sexual abuse they experienced IN SCHOOL.

For parents who homeschool as a positive choice, the children in my experience usually do better than those in school (hats off to the parents it's not easy). For those who homeschool as a result of school failing their child, it's very often for safeguarding reasons but also commonly as their SEND needs are not being met.

I really wish policy making was more evidence based.

For the latter group, most would absolutely welcome some input and responsibility taken for their child's education from the Local Authority. But they mostly get no help just lazy assumptions.

I've witnessed a lot of extremely negative attitudes towards homeschooling families from some people in positions of responsibility in Local Authorities (not all) and as public servants it's really not ok. It's not in the child's best interests to treat the parents as criminals, which frankly I think is a tactic mainly to cover up the LA failings. Lots of parents are suing LAs now and winning, but obviously the most vulnerable families don't have the financial and emotional resilience to do this. LAs are, in my experience, rarely discharging their legal obligations properly - maybe start there?

Also agree, safeguarding legislation exists and didn't help Sara Sharif - the school raised concerns and social services dismissed them after a brief investigation. A lot of times statutory safeguarding guidance isn't followed properly and there is no consequence at all for those who failed to act appropriately. The number of times I've seen families had to resort to homeschooling because there is ample evidence the school is not keeping their child safe, yet nothing happens to change the failures. School budgets stretched thin and pointless 'targets' on attendance based in no evidence I can find. I've heard horrific stories of children put in side rooms when ill (some with medical conditions that mean this is highly risky) but kept in school and parents not called as - although they're not learning, not in class, and ill - that helps keep attendance targets high.

My DD said to me once 'they care more about attendance targets than my health'. Luckily she's rarely ill, but I can't imagine what it would be like having to send a child with underlying / chronic medical needs into that environment.

If everyone was doing their safeguarding properly there wouldn't be ANY gaps for children to slip through. The problem is that since about 2015 there has been an infiltration into schools, social services, NHS, local authorities, police, government, everywhere, of people whose mission has been to dismantle safeguarding. It would be helpful if the government would turn their attention to that.