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Education and Inspections Bill

moved Amendment No. 119: Page 71, line 3, leave out ““normal school hours”” and insert ““school sessions”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 119, I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 120 to 122, 128 and 131. The amendments remove an ambiguity in the Bill, which uses the phrase ““normal school hours”” to refer to the time when a child is at school. The phrase is ambiguous. Section 32 of the Education Act 2002 allows school governing bodies to set the times of school sessions rather than school hours. The Education (School Day and School Year) (England) Regulations 1999 require that, "““every day on which a school meets shall be divided into two sessions which shall be separated by a break in the middle of the day””." Furthermore, many schools permit pupils to leave the premises in the lunch break. The key question, therefore, is whether the, "““break in the middle of the day””," is part of normal school hours. If it is not, there will be several adverse consequences, most notably on the ability of a school to place a child in detention over lunchtime and on the ability to ensure that parents supervise their children in the first five days of an exclusion. The amendments would remove this ambiguity. Amendments Nos. 119 to 121 would replace the phrase ““normal school hours”” with ““school sessions”” in Clauses 88 and 89. Amendment No. 122 would ensure that lunchtime detention does not require24 hours’ notice to the parent or for the pupil to be under 18. Amendment No. 128 would ensure that, where a parent is supervising a pupil under Clause 100, the pupil cannot roam the streets in the lunch break. Finally, Amendment No. 131 to Clause 104 would ensure that the police can take into custody excluded children whom they find in a public place in the lunch break. I hope the Minister can accept the amendments, which seek to provide further clarity. I beg to move.