Frome’s home-educating families have joined a nationwide protest against the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, currently making its way through Parliament.
With hundreds of families in Frome choosing to educate their children outside the traditional school system, parents have taken to social media in a digital protest, warning that the proposed changes would strip them of their rights to determine their children’s education.
The bill, introduced in late 2024 following the death of 10-year-old Sara Sharif, aims to close gaps in child welfare services and ensure all children receive a ‘quality’ education. Key changes in the bill include free breakfast clubs, limits on branded uniform items and enhanced oversight of children’s social care providers. However, it has raised concerns that it also represents a significant overreach by the government.
A coalition of parents, charities, and educators have launched the Are You Listening Now? campaign to challenge the bill. Frome home educators gathered as part of the campaign, creating a community banner and placards to flood social media. These will also be carried to Exeter for a national day of protest, held across ten UK cities.
The campaign calls for school reform, the protection of home education rights, removal of attendance fines, protection of children’s data, improved SEND support and understanding, the removal of VAT from private schools, and the rights of academies to follow unique curricula.
The bill, introduced in late 2024 following the death of Sara Sharif, marks a significant shift in education policy.
Jennifer Connor, a Frome home educator and community organiser, explained, “Sara’s horrific death was due to a multi-agency failure. She should have absolutely stayed in school through a ‘school attendance order,’ which already exists. She was not ‘hidden’—she was known to child services before she was born, as she had older sisters. Two weeks before leaving school, there was an incident involving child services, her school, and the police. Tragically, the safeguards designed for her were simply not used.”
Frome’s home educators are urging all parents to familiarise themselves with the bill, which they say critically removes their right to determine the best education for their children.
“At the moment, in the UK, parents are legally responsible for educating their child. Home education is the legal default. However, most parents delegate this responsibility to the State by sending their children to school. As it stands, if you want your child to leave school, that is your parental right,” explained Frome home educator and educational psychologist Ronnie Biffen.
“However, the CWS Bill flips this legal responsibility on its head, giving local authorities the power to evaluate and determine what is a suitable education for your child and dictate which school they should attend. This is concerning because these job roles do not require any knowledge of educational methodologies, the needs of SEND children, or even basic child development.”
For Chris Hall, a Frome father who home-educates his neurodivergent son, the bill threatens the educational freedom that has transformed his child’s learning experience.
“The school environment just didn’t work for him. He was unhappy, stressed, and unable to learn. Home education has allowed us to create something very different from school. It’s not as structured, it’s built around his interests, and subjects are integrated within those. Now he’s thriving. This bill assumes that a traditional school model is best for all children. I’m afraid they will force him back when we know our approach is the right one for him.”
Another major concern is the bill’s criminalisation of parents who refuse to comply with school attendance orders. Home educator Sarah Gooding warned, “The bill removes the current path of recourse for parents to challenge local authority decisions, threatening a six-month to 51-week prison sentence for non-compliance. This sets a dangerous precedent—that the State, not parents, knows best. And if you try to challenge it, you may be imprisoned without trial or recourse.”
The bill also requires academies to follow the national curriculum for the first time, which opponents say limits flexibility in teaching approaches and reduces innovation in education.
Jennifer Connor, Frome home educator and community organiser, said, “Despite the word ‘wellbeing’ in the title of this bill, it has only caused harm and worry for the hundreds of home-educating families here in Frome. The millions that will be spent on this bill should instead go to underfunded and overworked child protection services to follow up cases they already have, like Sara Sharif’s. It should go to schools to improve SEND provision and support teaching staff to embrace new methodologies. This bill does nothing to solve the growing mental health crisis in young people or tackle the reasons families are increasingly turning to alternative forms of education.”
For more on the campaign, visit We Are Home Educators UK on Facebook.
