The new DfE school exclusions and behaviour in schools guidance documents were published yesterday. Here is a thread of thoughts/points of note based on an initial reading 🧵

We are asking House of Lords peers to support several amendments proposed for the #SchoolsBill Report Stage Day 2 debate on Monday July 18th, including 86B, 93A, 95A and B, plus 118C bills.parliament.uk/publications/4… #ScrapPartThree

Plans for a register of children not in school could put families off seeking help from local services, campaigners warn They have also questioned ministers' new #schoolsbill plans to collect data on pupils’ protected characteristics schoolsweek.co.uk/campaigners-wa…

Remember the outrage caused by the strip search of Child Q in Hackney? Today I can reveal that five children are being strip searched every week by the Met, without being arrested for anything first. More than half of the children were black. LBC lbc.co.uk/news/met-strip…

Worryingly the government's consultation on attendance registers and penalties has been designed to gather the views of schools and local authorities on the matter. Despite not seeking the views of parents they do have to have regard to all responses received. See how 👇❤

This consultation is neither accessible nor ‘meant’ for families/parent carers and yet impacts & affects them. Just not conducive to good policy development or co-produced public services. Department for Education #nothingaboutuswithoutus

The right to family life free from interference from Government is sorely lacking. We are measured, assessed, scrutinised, followed, monitored, coerced, threatened, bullied, blamed, shamed from the moment we are expectant parents, give our children to pre-school onwards.

An important paper, particularly when considering calls for action around attendance management & safeguarding duty. The evidence speaks volumes Department for Education aewm The independent review of children's social care Children's Commissioner for England National Children's Bureau @LordJimKnight Philip Hunt Natalie Bennett Ralph Lucas CountingChildren?

The government is further rolling out the live attendance tracker, part of their extraordinary surveillance measures of children. Defend Digital Me is mounting an important legal challenge but need support. Please donate to protect children crowdjustice.com/case/defenddig…

Data rights campaigner Jen Persson🌻 breaking down the fictitious claims about "ghost children". It's a myth used to justify some exceedingly worrying policy and legislation, including the live attendance tracking and the so-called 'children not in schools' registers.

Open letter: "It is vital that the Schools Bill be withdrawn and that it not be replaced with another containing the same powers." notoschoolsbill.uk/open-letter-ki… / Naomi Fisher No More Exclusions #Free 🇵🇸 York Travellers Trust VCF UK 🟪🟪🟪 @Andy_Bilson Not Fine in School Square Peg Parents, Familes and Allies Network

The Schools Bill includes measures which enable extraordinary levels or State surveillance over children and which pose a grave threat to the most vulnerable and marginalised in our society. #SupportNotSanctions #SafetyNotSurveillance #NoToSchoolsBill notoschoolsbill.uk

The DfE in a data breach which the ICO commissioner said was so serious it merited a £10million fine This is the latest in a string of offences. Yet they want us to trust them in the Schools Bill, which will write govt a blank cheque for children's data itv.com/news/2022-11-0…

Damning words by ICO - Information Commissioner's Office with regards to Department for Education’s flagrant profiteering from pupils’ data. Our children & young people deserve & are entitled to better than this. Defend Digital Me CountingChildren? Suitable Education Not Fine in School NSPCC Children's Commissioner for England @coyl2022

The Real World on Think Again naomicfisher.substack.com/p/the-real-wor…

A short thread on Oak National Academy, their founding documents and their claims to independence from government interference... Jon Coles Jonathan Dando-Laing Warwick Mansell Geoff Barton John Roberts

When I advocate for children’s voices to be heard, I am told of the dire consequences that will follow if we allow children to make meaningful choices. ‘They’ll never do anything hard’ I’m told. Or ‘We’d have no doctors or engineers if we did that’. Here’s why that’s wrong.1/

When you meet children and teenagers who have not been schooled, you see something quite different. They are still interested and curious. They haven’t learnt to choose the easy option. They want to learn - and so they do. They set themselves challenges. 7/