King's Speech promises free breakfast clubs for primary school children
Teachers have come out in support of the new Children’s Wellbeing Bill, as long as the measures are properly funded
Last updated 17th Jul 2024
The King's Speech has outlined 39 bills that minsters want to pass in the next parliamentary session.
Amongst the new laws are several impacting on the education system.
The new government will introduce a Children’s Wellbeing Bill in the next year which aims to raise standards in education and promote children’s wellbeing.
It includes expectations for all primary schools to provide free breakfast clubs and limits the number of branded items of uniform and PE kits that a school can require.
Chris Denson is a teacher from Coventry and one of the NEU’s national executives.
He says the bill and its measures are much needed, but that the government must properly fund its new initiatives:
“Over the last decade, schools have been getting squeezed and squeezed and squeezed every single year. We absolutely believe it's important our children are coming to school not being hungry, not being thirsty, being able to concentrate, being able to perform to the best of their abilities. The government needs to make sure they're putting their money where their mouth is and if the funding is there, then absolutely it's something we would back to the hilt.”
Another aspect of the Children’s Wellbeing Bill focuses on measures being brought forward to remove the exemption from value added tax for private school fees.
The government says this will fund 6,500 new teachers, while critics have argued this will put greater strain on state schools having to accommodate pupils who can no longer afford to attend private schools.
Chris Denson says that suggest that past data shows there is unlikely to be an impact on families choosing whether or not to send their children to private schools.
He added that the critical financial challenges faced by state schools means measures such as this are necessary:
“The biggest issue that we have is that the amount of money that's gone into education, the amount of per pupil funding that we have in education, considering the need that we have in state schools, is in a real crisis. We need more money into education. So if the Labour Party are proposing something which is going to start to get more money into state education, then it has to be welcomed. We don't think that by bringing in VAT rises that will have the sort of drop in private school attendance that is being suggested. If this is a move that will bring in more money to state schools than for me, I would accept that.”