THE future of rural schools near Wellington could be under threat from new Government legislation, local MP Gideon Amos fears.

Mr Amos said more than 300 people from the constituency had signed a petition calling for the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to be withdrawn.

The Bill represents a significant reform package, addressing both children’s social care and educational standards, with implications for public authorities, schools, and families throughout England.

Mr Amos said he was also concerned about its possible effects on children being educated at home, often while parents are trying to find a school their child can attend.

He told a Parliamentary debate: “My concerns are about rural schools and rural environments, where the limited resources mean that the Bill’s more onerous requirements on schools could drive some smaller rural schools out of the system and lead to them being closed.

“Rural areas have fewer and smaller schools, and rural schools have fewer administrative resources to deal with the new administrative burdens such as supporting staff to meet the new qualified teacher status requirements, dealing with increased monitoring, handling fluctuating pupil numbers, and budgets, and so on.

“There are significant risks to small rural schools that may well lead to even more pupils ending up in home education settings as a result of the lack of choice and lack of diversity of supply in rural environments.

“If pupils and families do end up home educating, they will find the environment is even harsher and the support from the Government is even more non-existent than it was before, and the general environment is less and less helpful.

“At the heart of this debate is a fallacy, that children are more at risk in home educating families than they are at school.

“In fact, the figures show the exact opposite.”