Part 1: Skills and Education for Work Information about technical education and training Section 14: Information about technical education and training: access to English schools
This section amends section 42B of the Education Act 1997, inserted by section 2 of the Technical and Further Education Act 2017. This requires maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units in England to allow education and training providers to access their pupils in order to inform pupils directly about approved technical education qualifications or apprenticeships. In practice, this means providers informing pupils in the school year in which the majority reach the age of 13 to the year in which the majority reach the age of 18 (typically school years 8-13) about the courses and qualifications that they offer.
	Subsections (1), (2) and (3) modify section 42B to specify that schools must give access to pupils on at least two occasions during each of the first, second and third key phases of their education.
	Subsection (4) inserts new subsection (2A) which states that the school must ensure that all pupils meet, on at least two occasions, at least one provider during each of the first and second key phases of their education, or any other number of providers that is set out in secondary legislation. The encounters during the third key phase are optional for pupils to attend.
	Subsection (4) also requires schools to ask each provider to provide information to pupils that includes:
information about the provider and approved technical education qualifications or apprenticeships that the provider offers;
information about the careers to which those technical education qualifications or apprenticeships might lead;
a description of what learning or training with the provider is like; and
response to questions from pupils about the provider or approved technical education qualifications and apprenticeships.
	Subsection (4) also inserts new subsection (2B) which clarifies that access to providers must be for a reasonable period of time during the standard school day.
	Subsection (5) specifies additional content of the policy statement that schools must prepare, publish and follow, setting out the circumstances in which a provider will be allowed access to pupils. It requires schools to set out in their policy statement the times at which access is to be given. It also requires schools to explain in their policy statement how they will meet the new legal requirements imposed under subsection (2A).
	Subsection (6) gives the Secretary of State the power to set out further detail about the meetings with providers that all pupils must attend, as required by subsection (2A), in secondary legislation. For example, this could be further provision about the number and type of providers that pupils must meet.
	Subsection (7) defines the key phases of a pupil’s education in which each provider encounter must take place:
The first key phase is the school year in which the majority reach the age of 13 or 14 (typically school years 8 or 9).
The second key phase is the school year in which the majority reach the age of 15 or 16 (typically school years 10 or 11).
The third key phase is the school year in which the majority of pupils reach the age of 17 or 18 (typically school years 12 or 13).
The provider encounters are to be held between 1 September and 28 February if for pupils in school years 9, 11 or 13.