Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 121: 121: After Clause 38, insert the following new Clause— ““Home-school contracts (1) An admission authority may make it a condition of a child’s admission to a school that the parent of a child agrees to secure compliance with any school rules made by the head teacher and governors of that school. (2) In this section ““admission authority”” has the same meaning as in section 88 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (c. 31) (admission authorities and admission agreements).”” The noble Baroness said: This proposed new clause is simple. The Bill establishes various interweaving duties and responsibilities between young people and local authorities and between local authorities and parents. The proposed new clause seeks to establish duties and responsibilities between schools and parents. If we are to place a duty on parents to ensure the participation of their children in continued training or education, I suggest we recognise that the parents’ involvement should ideally be an ongoing process. I have spoken before about how the building blocks for continued education should have been laid long before a child reaches 16, and how it is up to the education system to engage children and young people so that they do not become disaffected. I do not apologise for making that point again because it is crucial to the long-term success of broadening participation in education. This amendment recognises that everyone has a part to play in this. When children are still their legal responsibility, parents should play as full a role as possible in helping them with their schooling. It should not be left to teachers alone to deal with unruly or ill-disciplined children; parents also have an obligation in that regard. Last year, 13,278 parenting contracts were issued following poor school attendance, while 2,535 contracts were issued following exclusions from school. The amendment would allow schools to make it a condition of admission that parents ensure compliance with the rules. If parents and schools are engaged with each other from the start, and everybody knows what is expected of them, I hope that it will not be necessary to wait until pupils are excluded or play truant before their parents are brought on board through a contract. The amendment should be seen as a preventive measure. I hope that the Minister will see its merits. I beg to move.