What is the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2025 and what is the Government hoping to achieve with it?
The Bill represents a significant reform package addressing both children’s social care and educational standards, with implications for public authorities, schools, and families throughout England.
The Bill was introduced as part of a broader governmental agenda to prioritise child welfare and rebuild public services post the Covid pandemic. It aims to address disparities in child outcomes, improve safeguarding mechanisms, and bolster educational standards across all state-funded schools.
Children’s Social Care Reform
● Family Group Decision Making (FGDM): Requires local authorities to offer FGDM meetings to parents and guardians prior to pursuing care or supervision orders, providing families with an early opportunity to develop a plan for their child’s welfare.
● Safeguarding Enhancements: Mandates that education and childcare providers participate in multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. Establishes statutory multi-agency child protection teams including health, education, social services, and police representatives.
● Information Sharing: Specifies legal obligations for relevant agencies to share information pertinent to safeguarding children’s welfare, subject to exceptions where sharing would risk child harm.
School Standards and Pupil Wellbeing
● National Care Offer: Institutes a statutory minimum standard for the support of care-experienced children, striving for consistency in service levels and accommodation provisions.
● Universal Free Breakfast Clubs: Compels all primary schools to offer complimentary breakfast to pupils, aiming to address food insecurity and support educational engagement.
● School Uniform Regulation: Limits the number of branded school uniform items that schools may require, with the intention of reducing cost burdens for families.
● National Curriculum & Teacher Standards: All state-funded schools, including academies, must deliver the revised National Curriculum upon its implementation. From September 2026, all new teachers in maintained primary and secondary schools must have Qualified Teacher Status (QTS).
● Teacher Pay and Conditions: Moves towards a single core pay and conditions framework for teachers across maintained schools and academies.
Children Not in School and Safeguarding
● Compulsory Register for Children Not in School: Establishes a mandatory register for all children not receiving formal school education (e.g., home-educated), placing duties on local authorities to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children outside traditional educational settings.
● Enhanced Oversight by Local Authorities: Imposes greater responsibilities on local authorities regarding the monitoring and welfare assurance of children not in school.
Other Provisions
● Mental Health Assessment for Looked After Children: Requires the presence of mental health practitioners at initial health assessments for all children entering care.
● Duties on the Secretary of State: The Secretary of State is required to promote public awareness of the new reforms and periodically report on their effects.
● Home Education and Parental Rights: Home education advocates have raised concerns regarding the scope of local authority oversight and the implications for privacy and educational freedom. The compulsory register is viewed by some as excessive state interference.
● Resource and Implementation Challenges: Concerns have been expressed regarding the Bill’s resourcing, especially in ensuring universal access to mental health support and free breakfast clubs, as well as recruiting sufficient qualified teachers.
● Legal and Practical Considerations: The introduction of increased information-sharing obligations and new consent regimes, particularly related to children deprived of their liberty, may present operational and legal challenges for public authorities.
● Children’s Charities and Welfare Agencies: Many children’s welfare organisations have welcomed the more robust minimum standards, mental health priorities, and the universal breakfast provision. The abolition of corporal punishment is broadly supported.
● Education Sector: School leader groups and teacher unions largely endorse the drive to standardise the curriculum, improve teacher quality, and reduce uniform costs, seeing these as steps towards greater equity.
● Public Policy Consensus: The emphasis on multi-agency safeguarding and raising national standards is widely considered likely to benefit vulnerable and disadvantaged children.