The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026: What's Actually Changed for Parents

What the Act is, and why parents are hearing about it now

The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026, becoming the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026. It is a sprawling piece of legislation covering everything from breakfast clubs and school uniform to safeguarding, admissions and home education. Most of its provisions do not switch on automatically — ministers have to commence them in stages, and some require new regulations or a revised admissions code before they bite.

That matters, because a lot of what is currently circulating online treats every clause as if it took effect on the day of Royal Assent. It didn't. Here is what has actually changed, what is coming, and what you can safely ignore for now.

Home education: a new register, and consent for some withdrawals

This is the section that has produced the loudest headlines, and also the most confusion.

The Act creates a statutory "Children Not in School" register in every local authority in England. The government's stated aim is for local authorities to identify all children not in school in their area — including those being home-educated, those at unregistered settings, and children who have simply slipped off school rolls.

A few things worth being precise about:

• It is not in force yet. There is no announced start date. The commencement section does not automatically switch on the home education clauses on Royal Assent or after two months, so ministers still need to bring them into force separately. The Home Education Advisory Service has been blunt with families about this: an Act of Parliament does not cause an immediate switchover to the new system and in the meantime, all the current law remains in place and all the current national guidance still applies.
• Home education itself is still lawful. Parents will still be able to educate at home. The change is administrative: when the register goes live, parents of home-educated children will need to give the council certain information about their child and the education being provided. Parents will be required to provide information about their child including some sensitive information. However, the Bill states that such information must not be published in a form which identifies a child or parent.
• Some parents will now need council consent before withdrawing a child. This is the most significant change in principle. An amendment was agreed that makes local authority consent necessary before withdrawing a child from school if there are current or past child protection enquiries or a child is classified as a child in need. Children attending special schools by local authority arrangement fall into a similar category. For families with no safeguarding involvement, the existing deregistration route remains.
• Schools will have to tell the council. Schools will also have to notify their local authority and the council responsible for the child (if different) if a parent notifies them they intend to withdraw their child for education otherwise than at school.

If you home-educate now, or are thinking about it, the practical message is: do not file new paperwork or change your provision yet. Wait for the regulations and the commencement date, which the Department for Education will publish on gov.uk.

School admissions: more council muscle, and a new role for the adjudicator

Most parents come into contact with the admissions system once or twice — usually when applying for a Reception or Year 7 place, or when appealing a refusal. The Act changes the architecture behind that system rather than the appeal process itself.

The headline shifts:

• Councils can now direct academies to admit a pupil. Previously this power applied only to maintained schools. Powers for LAs to direct an academy to admit a pupil (previously a power that only applied to maintained schools), but academies retain a right of appeal. A clearer role for the Schools Adjudicator in setting published admission numbers (PANs) sits alongside it.
• The Schools Adjudicator gets new teeth on places. The schools adjudicator will be able to set the published admission number (PAN) of a school, including academies, where an objection is upheld. A PAN is the number of children a school must admit into each year group. Until now, schools have been able to lower their PAN with limited external check; that becomes harder.
• Academies must cooperate with councils on place planning. Academies will now have to cooperate with councils over admissions. In practice this is meant to stop the situation, common in some areas, where a popular academy keeps numbers down while a nearby community school carries the overflow.
• A new admissions code is coming. When it comes into effect: Alongside a 'new school admissions code' which will be consulted on, says DfE. Until that code is published and in force, the existing code still governs how schools rank applicants and how appeals are run.

What this means for an individual appeal in the meantime is: very little. If you are appealing a refused place for September 2026, the rules you face are the ones that already existed. The new admissions code, when it lands, will reshape future cycles — and it is worth keeping an eye out for the DfE consultation when it opens.

Safeguarding, information-sharing and exclusions

This is the quieter part of the Act and probably the most consequential in day-to-day school life.

The Act creates a stronger duty on local safeguarding partners — councils, police and the NHS — to work with schools, and gives education a formal seat at that table. Safeguarding partners such as councils, police and health services will also have to secure the participation of education settings in their safeguarding arrangements.

There is also a notable change to how information is shared. As one specialist data-protection service put it for schools: "You no longer need a parent's or child's consent to share information if the reason is safeguarding." Schools could already share information without consent where a child was at risk of significant harm, but the Act clarifies and broadens the basis for routine safeguarding information-sharing between agencies. For most families this will be invisible. For families already in contact with social care, it means joined-up record-keeping is now expected, not optional.

On exclusions, the Act does not rewrite the headteacher's power to suspend or permanently exclude. The Department for Education has updated statutory guidance on school suspensions and permanent exclusions, introducing new rules on safeguarding separation, off-rolling and managed moves as exclusion rates continue to rise. This version applies from 26 July 2026.

For parents, the practical changes in the new guidance are around process rather than principle:

• Schools must be clearer about distinguishing a behaviour-driven exclusion from a safeguarding-driven separation.
• "Off-rolling" — quietly removing a child from the roll without a formal exclusion — is explicitly unlawful and the guidance is sharper about it.
• Managed moves between schools must follow a defined process, not be used as a back-door alternative to exclusion.

If your child has been suspended or permanently excluded, the route of challenge has not changed. You still write to the governing board, you can still request an Independent Review Panel for a permanent exclusion, and SEND tribunals still have their existing role.

What parents should actually do now

Most of the Act will reach families through changes their school or council make, not through anything a parent needs to action. A short, honest list:

1. If you home-educate, carry on under the current rules. Watch gov.uk and your local authority's home education page for the register commencement date.
2. If you are mid-appeal for a school place, the existing School Admissions Code and appeals process applies. The new code is not yet in force.
3. If your child is facing suspension or permanent exclusion, ask the school which version of the statutory guidance they are working from. From 26 July 2026 onwards, it should be the new one.
4. If you are in contact with social care, expect more information to flow between school, the council and health services without a separate consent form. That is the design, not a glitch.

The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act is large, and it will reshape parts of the system over the next two to three years as regulations and guidance roll out. For now, the day-to-day reality in most schools looks much as it did last term. The exception is safeguarding, where the cultural shift — schools at the table with police, health and social care — is already underway.