The Relaxation of School Reporting Requirements (Wales) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2021

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend a number of regulations so as to relax a number of requirements on schools as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The School Governors’ Annual Reports (Wales) Regulations 2011 (“the Annual Report Regulations”) set out the information that must be published by a school governing body in an annual report. Therefore, regulation 2(2) of these Regulations inserts a new regulation into the Annual Report Regulations the effect of which is that the following information for the 2020-2021 school year is not required to be published in any governors’ annual report—

(a) paragraph 6 of Schedule 2 to the Annual Report Regulations (the summary of secondary school performance),

(b) paragraph 7 of Schedule 2 to the Annual Report Regulations (the numbers of authorised and unauthorised pupil absences), and

(c) paragraph 8(b) of Schedule 2 to the Annual Report Regulations (further information relating to authorised and unauthorised pupils absences).

A consequential amendment is also made to regulation 5(2)(a) of the Annual Report Regulations in relation to the requirements of the short form of the annual report.

The Head Teacher’s Report to Parents and Adult Pupils (Wales) Regulations 2011 (“the Reporting Regulations”) make provision as to the report the head teacher of a maintained school is required to send to parents and adult pupils each school year and the additional information a parent may request from the head teacher. Not all children have attended school throughout the year and many pupils and teachers have worked and studied remotely for extended periods of time. This presents challenges for teachers in respect of the full content that would ordinarily be included in the report to parents and adult pupils. Therefore regulation 3 of these Regulations inserts a new provision into the Reporting Regulations the effect of which is to amend the obligations on the head teachers, in respect of the specified content of reports, so that they are obligated to use their reasonable endeavours to comply with those obligations.

The School Information (Wales) Regulations 2011 (“the School Information Regulations”) prescribe the school information that must be published by local authorities and schools in a school prospectus. Not all children have attended school throughout the year and many pupils and teachers have worked and studied remotely for extended periods of time. It is likely that will have a negative impact on the quality of some of the data regulated by the School Information Regulations. It is considered that the data on pupil absences is particularly affected and should not therefore be published in a school prospectus. Therefore, regulation 4 of these Regulations inserts a provision into the School Information Regulations the effect of which is to disapply the obligation on a school governing body to include in any school prospectus the data set out in paragraph 30 of Schedule 3 to those Regulations (data relating to pupil absences) in respect of the 2020-2021 school year.

The School Performance Information (Wales) Regulations 2011 (“the School Performance Regulations”) regulate the transfer of information relating to the educational performance of pupils from head teachers to school governing bodies, local authorities and the Welsh Ministers. As noted above not all children have attended school throughout the year and many pupils and teachers have worked and studied remotely for extended periods of time. It is likely that will have a negative impact on the quality of some of the data regulated by the School Performance Regulations. Many schools will not have completed the foundation phase and key stage assessments and the collection of this data by Welsh Ministers, via local authorities, will not take place for the 2020-2021 school year. Therefore, regulation 5 of these Regulations inserts a provision into the School Performance Regulations the effect of which is to disapply the obligations on a school to supply the prescribed information relating to the 2020-2021 school year to local authorities, and on local authorities to supply that information to the Welsh Ministers.

The Welsh Ministers’ Code of Practice on the carrying out of Regulatory Impact Assessments was considered in relation to these Regulations. As a result, it was not considered necessary to carry out a regulatory impact assessment as to the likely costs and benefits of complying with these Regulations.