Education Law Digest – Summer 2025: In Legislation

Children’s Wellbeing and School’s Bill

On the 17 December 2024, the government introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-25 to Parliament. The bill intends to put the wellbeing of children at the centre of the education and social care system with a range of changes proposed which are aimed at removing barrier and encouraging fairness and equality.

The bill proposes the following changes:

• Providing free breakfast clubs in every primary school;
• Limiting the number of branded uniform items that can be required by schools by way of bringing down costs to parents;
• Requiring that schools maintain a Children Not in School Register and help to support parents of those pupils being home schooled;
• Providing Ofsted with greater powers to enable them to investigate unregistered independent schools;
• Making changes with regards the situations in which teachers can be investigated for misconduct; and
• Increasing consistency between all schools by requiring academies teach the national curriculum.

Although the bill has currently not become law yet, it has passed in the House of Commons and is on its second reading in the House of Lords. Further, we are already seeing the impact of the bill as the first 750 schools to take part in the breakfast club scheme, began offering free breakfasts after the Easter holidays.