Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment the Government has made of the impact of the current Education Bill on local communities’ democratic input to the (a) governance and (b) curriculum of their local state schools.

The Government has undertaken detailed assessments of the policies within the Schools Bill, which can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1074679/Schools_Bill_impact_assessment.pdf.

The Department knows that a high proportion of academy trusts already have some form of local governance arrangement. As set out in the recent Schools White Paper, the Department is continuing to discuss options with the sector to ensure all trusts benefit from local input.

Academies and free schools have greater freedom in how they operate for areas such as the curriculum, but they are expected to teach a curriculum that is comparable in breadth and ambition to the national curriculum. Therefore, it is up to schools themselves to arrange opportunities for parents and the local community to input into the school curriculum.

The Department expects all schools to be transparent about their curriculum. All schools are required to publish information in relation to the content of their curriculum on their websites annually, including how parents can obtain further information about that curriculum. The Department also plans to write to schools to clarify what the law permits regarding sharing curriculum materials with parents.

The Academies Regulation and Commissioning Review is ongoing and is looking at the overall regulatory and accountability framework for multi-academy trusts in a fully trust-led system, including transparency.