Clause 4

Part of Children, Schools and Families Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 1:30 pm on 28 January 2010.

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Photo of Tim Loughton Tim Loughton Shadow Minister (Children) 1:30, 28 January 2010

The right hon. Member for Don Valley referred to an important matter that I was about to bring to the Minister’s attention. Notwithstanding the pertinent comments made by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East about spending a lot of time on the agreements, the Government need to issue clearer guidance. I have had to write to a school on behalf of a non-resident father to ask it to release his child’s report, to which he was entitled. There was some confusion in the school about what it could release because of what the resident parent had told it, which might not have been within the confines of a court order.

Surely the default position must be that, unless there is a protection order set by the courts, non-resident parents should be entitled to a record of what is going on with their child at school. Concomitant with that, they should be involved in some form of the home-school agreement so that they are providing their side of the bargain, particularly when the child might occasionally be resident with that parent.