Dr Ben Spencer

As I said, schools in both the independent and state sectors are concerned about the policy and the sudden movement of children, in the middle of the year, into the state sector, which will struggle to find them places. Those children may be studying for exams and have already experienced covid disruption, and the state schools that they move to might not have the right courses. I plead with the Minister to look at the data and do the analysis to see if the policy will make money or lose it, and to consider the impact on children. I go back to the brutal, bitter words of the consultation document that went out this summer: “The government understands that moving schools can be challenging.” If I were a child going through my GCSEs or A-levels, and was forced to move into the state sector because of this policy—the analysis of which I cannot see, because the Government have not done it or will not publish it—and I read those words, I would say, “Please delay this policy. Think again. Look at it, and try to mitigate the impact on children with special educational needs, on armed forces families, and of disruption during the school year. Please, if you are not going to stop it, at least delay it and do the working out.”