The new Labour government will include plans for an education bill in its first King’s Speech this Wednesday.
King Charles will announce during the state opening of Parliament that Sir Keir Starmer’s government will legislate for a register of children not in school, a requirement for all schools to follow the national curriculum and for all teachers to have or be working towards qualified teacher status.
The King’s Speech sets out the legislative priorities for the government in the next year-long Parliamentary session. The Sunday Times said the bill was “expected to become law this year”.
However, given the size of the proposed bill, it is likely that it may not be introduced in Parliament until the autumn.
This would likely mean changes would not be enacted for schools until September 2025 at the earliest.
There are also few details currently about how the proposed policies would actually work.
But here’s your Schools Week round-up of what is set to be in the bill, and what we know about each so far …
1. National curriculum for all …
Making all schools – including academies and free schools – follow the national curriculum has been Labour policy for some time.
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has spoken of the need to “smooth the differences” between the academies and maintained school sectors.
According to the Sunday Times, the new education bill will include the requirement. Labour has also committed to launch a wider curriculum and assessment review.
Teacher Tapp data from September 2023 found that 48 per cent of secondary teachers reported that their school deviated from the national curriculum.
2. … and QTS for all
The bill will also include a requirement for all new teachers entering the profession to have – or be working towards – qualified teacher status, it has been reported.
Again, this is an area where academies and maintained schools currently differ. Academies are allowed to employ unqualified teachers.
According to DfE workforce statistics, almost 17,000 unqualified teachers were working in state schools in England as of November last year.
3. Inspection of MATs
Labour pledged in its manifesto to “bring multi-academy trusts into the inspection system”, but has given few details about how this might work in practice.
This is something long-advocated by Ofsted under its previous chief inspector Amanda Spielman, and her successor Sir Martyn Oliver has said MAT inspection is “inevitable”.
Ofsted has previously done “summary evaluations” of trusts, batch-inspecting some of their schools. But it does not inspect the back-office function of the trusts themselves.
The Sunday Times reported that Labour’s plans would “ensure that Ofsted can intervene when schools and trusts are not performing to the highest standards”.
4. Register of children not in school
Plans for a register of children not in school were proposed in the ill-fated schools bill put forward by Boris Johnson’s government in 2022. The legislation was abandoned by Rishi Sunak’s new government later that year.
Creating a register enjoys cross-party support and also featured in the Labour and Liberal Democrats’ election manifestos.
However, calling it a “truancy register” (as the Sunday Times did) is somewhat misleading, as the government already collects daily data from schools about pupils on roll who are absent.
Instead, the register would be of children who are not attending school at all, including those home educated or considered “missing” from education entirely.
5. Legal requirement for breakfast clubs
Labour pledged in its manifesto to provide free breakfast clubs in every primary school in England, with £315 million a year allocated from its plans to close non-dom tax loopholes.
The Sunday Times reported that Labour will make it a legal requirement for every primary school to provide the clubs.
Teacher Tapp data suggests 79 per cent of primary schools already had breakfast clubs as of September 2023. However, of those, only 17 per cent provided free food for all pupils, while 44 per cent provided it for those on free school meals.
6. Branded uniform cap
Labour had previously pledged to go further than current government guidance on school uniforms, with a cap on the number of branded items schools are allowed to require.
In 2018, a Schools Week investigation revealed how one academy trust’s school uniform supplier was charging nearly three times the price for blazers in its grammar school than in its non-selective schools.
We also revealed instances of parents being stung by deals between schools and single uniform suppliers, and how one school even charged £4.50 for compulsory branded “drama socks”.
The Sunday Times reported that the number of branded items would be capped at three. Current rules only state branded items must be “kept to a minimum”, and appear to have had limited impact.
According to Teacher Tapp, only 16 per cent of teachers say their school’s uniform has no branded items. Half said their uniform included a branded jumper, 44 per cent reported having a branded blazer and 9 per cent have branded skirts, trousers, shirts or blouses.
7. AI to boost co-ordination
The Sunday Times reported that these measures would be included be included in the new legislation and that the AI proposal would be used to “improve co-ordination between schools”.
8. ‘Enhanced’ powers for Ofsted
This appears to relate mostly to Ofsted’s inspection of social care providers, and the Sunday Times said the powers would enable the inspectorate to “spot patterns of poor care across providers”.
However, the powers will also “ensure that rigorous standards of care apply to residential special schools”. Further details have not been published.
PS: Focus will be on ‘stuck schools’
The Times also reported that Sir Kevan Collins, the former catch-up tsar appointed last week as a non-executive director at the DfE and adviser on school standards, would focus on improving so-called “stuck schools”.
These are schools that have previously been called “coasting” – those with two consecutive Ofsted judgments below ‘good’. It is estimated there are between 300 and 500 such schools.
However, it is unclear how such schools will be identified once Labour has enacted another manifesto commitment – to scrap single-phrase judgments.
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