Education and Skills Bill

We very much like parenting contracts because we want parents to be as engaged as possible in their children’s education. I am sorry, I should have referred to home-school agreements. I am always an amendment behind. I shall start again. We very much like home-school agreements—we like parenting contracts as well—because we want parents to be as engaged as possible in the education of their children, and for this to be a partnership activity with the school. We have brought in measures designed to strengthen the relationship between parents and schools, including parent support advisers and transition information sessions. The evidence is that a significant proportion of parents have signed home-school agreements, although we would like that proportion to be higher. The 2007 parental involvement in children’s education report found that two in five parents had not heard of home-school agreements. Overall, 39 per cent of parents said that they had signed a home-school agreement. We would like that proportion to be higher, although it is not clear that all parents understand that what they have agreed to is a home-school agreement. Often parents go through the process of making undertakings to a school to abide by its discipline policy, to see that their children attend on time, and so on, but they are not always aware that that is a home-school agreement. The evidence is that a significant proportion currently signs those agreements, but we would like it to be higher. However, though home-school agreements have a statutory basis, and we would like to see them being more widely adopted, we do not think that it is right to say that they can be conditions of admission to a school, which is what the amendment would do. That would be discriminatory and unreasonable. Home-school agreements are specifically prohibited from being linked to the school admissions process by Section 111(4) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, precisely for the reason that we fear that otherwise that could be an unfair source of admissions selection by schools. The school admissions code restates that section of the 1998 Act. It prohibits admission to a school being conditional on parents signing a home-school agreement. The code also provides in paragraph 1.49 that schools must not ask parents to sign agreements before they have been offered a place at the school. All local authorities’ admission authorities, admission forums, schools adjudicators, and admission appeal panels are required to act in accordance with the school admissions code. Whether a child gets a place at a school should not be determined by the willingness of their parents to sign a home-school agreement, although it is entirely appropriate and strongly to be encouraged that parents may be invited to sign one after their child has been admitted to the school. As I said, we strongly support home-school agreements and wish to see them much more widely adopted.