The Government has published its draft legislative programme for education. Central to the Education and Skills Bill will be new powers for the secretary of state to ensure local authorities intervene early where there is cause for concern about underperforming schools. Other proposals within the Bill include:

* strengthening Children’s Trusts to take more responsibility for improving children’s lives, by joining up local services with a particular focus on supporting children with additional needs;
* streamlining arrangements for 14-19 education and training, including transferring funding and responsibility for 16-19 education from the Learning and Skills Council to local authorities;
* strengthening the accountability of schools to parents, giving them a bigger say on how to raise standards and whether new schools are needed in an area;
* setting out how pupils who are falling behind will receive targeted support to help them keep up, including, where appropriate, one to one tuition;
* improving parental access to information from their child’s school – about the school in general and on their child’s progress, behaviour and attendance.

www.CommonsLeader.gov.uk