Category: Uncategorized
-
The “however” of institutionalised bias? – Cabinet Secretary’s closing statement on EHE and CME
Yet again – continued conflation of EHE and CME. Main observations on this closing statement of the Cabinet Secretary for Education’s time in post: “Families have the right to educate their children at home. However, where parents choose to exercise this right there is a balance to be struck between that right and the child’s…
-
Survey of Impact of “CME Database” Pilots and Non-consensual Datasharing from Healthcare Sources on Welsh Home Educators
Introduction This survey was designed to evaluate the impact of pilots of “CME databases” that the Welsh Government have been running in one-third of Welsh local authority regions over the last year. These database mechanisms involve sharing identifying data of children from NHS healthcare sources without knowledge or consent of children or parents, with councils.…
-
WG’s commissioned CME pilot evaluation – sharing data from healthcare without consent. Guess what the evaluation does and doesn’t show.
An initial consideration: The Welsh Government today published their commissioned evaluation of their “CME database” pilot studies. An evaluation conducted by the same commercial company as their commissioned evaluation of their EHE guidance last month. More can be read on that previous evaluation here. The Welsh government have not stated the reason for bringing…
-
Who ends up on these “home ed registers”?
One of the aims of the CNiS sections of the CWS Bill is, allegedly, to “find” children as a safeguarding measure. To do so by placing a duty on parents to “register” their children with the council. Is that really going to be an effective way, an efficient way of “finding” any children of concern?…
-
Senedd’s LJCC again criticises “piggybacking” onto Westminster’s CWS Bill.
The Senedd’s Legislation Justice and Constitution Committee (LJCC) yesterday published their report on the Welsh Government (WG) supplementary legislative consent motion (SLCM) regarding the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. This latest LJCC report again criticises Welsh government’s approach of trying to “piggyback” onto Westminster’s CWS Bill rather than develop its own approach and legislation if…
-
Welsh Labour’s silent U-turn – U-turn on two points:
The present Welsh Government want the Senedd to vote on 17th March to give assent for Westminster to pass extensive legislation on behalf of Wales on a fully devolved issue. That could be interpreted as something of a U-turn in relation to their spoken comments of support of devolution. A U-turn about process. However, this…
-
Summary of Report – Survey of Experiences and Perspectives of Welsh Home Educators of LA Conduct and WG Policy
This survey was designed to evaluate measures proposed or considered in the Children Not in School clauses of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools (CWS) Bill, alongside consideration of some of those suggested in the Welsh Government commissioned evaluation of its 2023 guidance on elective home education (EHE), publication of which was timed to “inform” voting…
-
Preliminary Report – Survey of Experiences and Perspectives of Welsh Home Educators:
Welsh Government Policy and LA Conduct Preliminary Report – February 2026
-
Comply First, Define Later…
An article of this title, published today by the British Rabbinical Union, explores further the issues of mandatory meetings before deregistration. It raises similar concerns to our own article on this issue, which can find here: Exposing further flaws in the measures in the CNIS sections of the CWS Bill that the Welsh Government wish…
-
Have Westminster forgotten about us in their CWS Bill?
It would appear so, in a remarkable oversight… Further grounds to consider that Wales shouldn’t be relying on England to legislate for us on a devolved matter? Amendment 121a, put forward in the House of Lords, isn’t only controversial because of the content. A key component of it quotes and relies on section 17 of…
-
Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education before the CYPE Committee – what can we learn?
The Cabinet Secretary for Education, Lynne Neagle, took part in a routine general scrutiny session on behalf of the Welsh Government with the Children, Young People and Education Committee (CYPEC) at the Senedd on 4th February 2026. This saw Ms Neagle, Vikki Howells (Minister for Further & Higher Education) and their officials responding to questions…
-
Evaluation and rebuttal of Welsh Government’s present justification of Westminster’s CWS Bill.
The Welsh Government are pursuing Senedd permission to apply key clauses of Westminster’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools (CWS) Bill to Wales, even though this would mean the Senedd asking Westminster to legislate for Wales on devolved issues. The Welsh Government has produced a standardised generic copy and paste response to enquiries, that attempts to justify…
-
Citing cases to try to justify the measures in the CWS Bill.
The Welsh Government claim that the reason for the CWS Bill is “safeguarding”, and seek to apply the CNIS (Children Not in School) section of this Westminster Bill to Wales. The Prime Minister’s comments tell a very different story for the reason for these clauses, of an intention for the use essentially as what could…
-
CWS Bill – Discrimination on grounds of disability
This article will be amended as and when further examples of discrimination on grounds of disability are investigated and established. Disabled children are particularly likely to benefit from home education, be that because of the flexibility that enables families to work around physical needs, the benefits of the deeper emotional connections forged by learning together…
-
How does the CWS Bill put children at risk of harm or danger?
Children’s voices, experiences and trauma ignored In the range of measures contained in these clauses And in the lack of opportunity for their input in the development of them. . There is a profound lack of trauma-informed understanding in these measures Kept or forced back into an unhealthy or abusive environment. The Bill would risk…
-
Jumped or pushed? Reasons for deregistration change over time
And that’s a good and positive thing. With the expectation for councils to act in a child’s “best interests” comes the repeated message that children “should” only be deregistered if this is considered to be for positive reasons, that deregistration for what the government consider to be “negative” reasons should be discouraged, obstructed or prevented…
-
🚩 🚩 Is there any objective evidence to suggest that LAs disproportionally and sometimes abusively use their powers? 🚩 🚩
Can LAs use existing powers and threat of legal action as control mechanisms rather than true safeguards? This research article by Educational Freedom concludes there is good evidence that some LAs do: The charity compiled data from Freedom of Information requests to all LAs in the UK to investigate and compare rates of commencement of…
-
CWS – Consent Required from Council Staff for Parents to Deregister “Certain Children”.
Clause 39 page 67 of the Bill relates to a new requirement for“Consent for withdrawal of certain children from school”. The list of who such “certain children” are considered to be has grown considerably in the many amendments since it was first announced that the Welsh Government had sought for these clauses to apply to…
-
CWS Bill – Effectively “Mandatory” meetings with parents and children in their own home.
One of the clauses of the CWS Bill that the Welsh Government are seeking to apply to Wales. What are the problems with this? Why doesn’t the Bill make meetings to be actually “mandatory”? The Bill will not make it mandatory for a child to be “seen” by council staff even in the absence of…
-
CWS – Mandatory registration of EHE children and young people
One of the clauses of the CWS Bill that the Welsh Government are seeking to apply to Wales. What are the problems with this? What’s the problem with this? The presumption behind the perceived need for a “register” is that parents and families cannot be trusted. A child not being on a council list is…
-
CWS – Pilots of Mandatory meetings to deregister a child from school
One of the clauses of the CWS Bill that the Welsh Government are seeking to apply to Wales. What are the problems with this? The Welsh Government (WG) have recently produced a generic copy and paste response and defence of their choice to continue to pursue this LCM, which has been sent to people who…
-
Kier Starmer’s “higher bar” to home ed freedoms speech – an excellent rebuttal
This is an excellent letter sent by a concern home educator to their MP seeking the contentious comments and conflations in the Prime Minister’s speech be addressed. Permission obtained from author for this to be shared as required. Dear Re: Legal, Equality and Policy Concerns Arising from the Prime Minister’s Remarks on Home Education I…
-
Chronology of former CCfW’s interactions with WG – tone and content.
In 2021, the former Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Sally Holland, published the chronology of her interactions with the Welsh Government in relation to elective home education. It is a very long document.in it, Ms Holland is referred to as SH, the Welsh Government as WG, CCfW Children’s Commissioner for Wales. Several key factors and recurring…
-
Is there any objective evidence to suggest that the Welsh Government may not want to hear from and engage with home educators?
Of not wanting engagement with those with lived experience of the very thing they are trying to legislate to control and monitor? (1) 🚩 🚩 🚩 The Welsh Government have asked for all the CNIS (Children not in school) clauses and amendments of the CWS Bill to apply to Wales, – all that is…
-
Job advert – policy adviser – what qualifications would be truly desirable?
Welsh Government are advertising for a new Professional Advisor to include measures relating to CWS Bill. Does this imply that the Welsh Government expects the Senedd to automatically wave through this Westminster Bill on a devolved matter? Does this imply that it’s not clear how they intend to use these unprecedented new powers? Quite what…
-
Consideration of the Children’s Commissioner for Wales’ Response to the CWS Bill
The present Children’s Commissioner for Wales’ response to the CWS Bill can be found here: Leaving aside the whole issue of routine surveillance of children not being effective and even counterproductive, and of the concerns raised elsewhere about her predecessor’s insistence on “seeing” children and her use of the UNCRC in justifying this, Leaving aside…
-
Legal challenges to the CWS Bill
The British Rabbinical Union has announced its intention and plan to launch a judicial review of the CWS Bill upon reaching Royal Assent. The reasons and basis are give here: And their KC opinion can be found here: It is worth noting that their legal challenge reflects their particular experiences and areas of concerns. Other…
-
An “Evaluation” of the Welsh Government Commissioned “Evaluation” of their 2023 EHE guidance.
Who did the Welsh Government (WG) commission to undertake the evaluation of WG EHE guidance? A commercial company, seemingly run by and employing mainly ex-WG staff. The key authors appear to be a former WG policy advisor and a former WG project manager. How much this company were paid by WG conduct this evaluation…
-
Standing for devolved powers – needs consistency between words and actions.
11 back bench Labour Senedd Members have written to the Prime Minister at Westminster, saying the UK Government is not only failing to deliver on promises to hand more powers to Wales but is “rolling back” on what is already devolved. The letter is signed by Labour’s Mick Antoniw, Hannah Blythyn, Alun Davies, John Griffiths,…
Wellbeing in Education Wales 