Education and Inspections Bill — Number of votes needed on a governing body to change a school's status — rejected — 19 Oct 2006 at 12:40

The majority Not Contents defeated an amendment^[1] to the Education and Inspections Bill. This would have required school governing boards who wanted to move to Trust status to have a two thirds majority rather than a simple majority. Usually school board decisions only need a simple majority, but proponents of this amendment thought that acquiring Trust status was a sufficiently momentous decision that it should require a stronger mandate. However, the amendment was rejected. More information on what it means to be a 'Foundation' or 'Trust' school can be found here.

The main aims of the Education and Inspections Bill were to^[2]:

• Allow schools to achieve 'foundation' or 'trust' status - this gives governing bodies greater freedom to manage the school.
• Reaffirm the existing ban on selection by ability and proposes a ban on interviewing.
• Give local authorities greater scope to intervene more quickly in failing schools.
• Ensure local authorities provide free school transport for the poorest families.
• Enable nutritional standards to be applied to all food and drink on school premises.
• Allow staff to discipline children for bad behaviour even outside of school.
• Ensure parents are held responsible for excluded pupils.

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• [1] Baroness Sharp of Guildford, House of Lords, 19 October 2006
• [2] BBC Summary of the Education and Inspections Bill, 8 March 2006

Debate in Parliament | Source |