THE IMPACT OF THE CHILDREN’S WELLBEING AND SCHOOLS BILL ON HOME-EDUCATORS
WEBINAR OVERVIEW
This webinar is for parents concerned about the impact on home education of Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which has passed its third read reading in UK Parliament.
The purpose of the webinar twofold: to inform and encourage parents to lobby parliamentarians and to build long-term parental resistance to the legislation, which seems likely to pass by a large majority.
There are five main areas of concern with the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill:
- An underlying disregard for the principle that parents are the primary educators of their children and should ordinarily be free to choose whether or not to delegate that responsibility to a school without suffering discrimination on the grounds of that decision.
- Linked to (1), the presumption that homes are unsafe places whilst schools are safe places.
- The unjustifiable amount of data required when registering a home educated child, which presents serious safeguarding concerns relating to data protection issues.
- A lack of clarity which leaves the way open to abuse of any new laws based on this Bill.
- A substantial increase in the power of Local Authorities to scrutinise home educating families which is not balanced by any substantial commitment to supporting those families.
The webinar features Dr Tom Rogers, representing Parent Power, which has reported on the Bill, and to Randall Hardy, a long-time defender of the freedom to home-educate, whose personal website is No Nationalisation of Our Kids.
THIS WEBINAR COVERS
- Information for parents to cover in lobbying their MPs on the Bill
- Long-term strategies for parents to resist state control over their children
- The big picture of the importance of the right of parents to home-educate
LIVE WEBINAR
on Friday 21 March 2025 at 19:30 (UK time)
THEN ON DEMAND
Moderator
- John Smeaton
Dr Tom Rogers
Dr Tom Rogers is one of the founding directors of Parent Power, the UK's leading parental rights and advocacy organisation. He also works as the Cultural Outreach and Project Manager for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) and previously co-ordinated SPUC's Safe at School campaign which opposed compulsory RSE in schools.
Randall Hardy
Having witnessed the benefits of home education within his own family, Randall has maintained an ongoing interest in the political climate affecting English home educators since 2010. He’s particularly exercised about the increasing pressures which home educators now find themselves under in many parts of the world, and seeks to encourage parents everywhere to value their parenthood, protect their freedoms and take up their responsibility to provide their children with a suitable education. Some of his material may be found on his blog No Nationalisation of our Kids (https://northshropshe.wordpress.com)
FURTHER READING
UK Parliament, The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
David Wolfe KC, “Proposals relating to children not in school: two big issues”
The HE Byte, The Children’s Wellbeing and School’s Bill(tag)
Parent Power, “The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill — a radical undermining of the parent–child relationship”, 30 January 2025.
A Home-Educating Parent, “Stop the UK Bill targeting home educators” (Voice of the Family Digest, 5 February 2025).