A short commencement instrument now gives section 34 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 practical effect in England from 1 September 2026. The wider Act received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026, and section 78 provided that regulation-making powers in Parts 1 and 2 came into force on that date. The change for schools is that allergy safety now moves from a reserved legislative power to a substantive duty that must be met at the start of the autumn term. (legislation.gov.uk)
Section 34 inserts new sections 100A and 100B into the Children and Families Act 2014. New section 100A requires the arrangements already made for pupils with medical conditions to include an allergy safety policy, defined as a policy for the management of allergies affecting pupils at the school, including the management of pupils at risk of anaphylaxis. In plain terms, allergy management is no longer left to local practice alone; it becomes a named statutory element of school medical-conditions provision. (legislation.gov.uk)
The new duty is prescriptive about governance as well as content. The appropriate authority must review the school’s allergy safety policy at least once every year and make any changes it considers appropriate after that review. The policy must be publicised as a written document, made generally known within the school and to parents, brought to the attention of pupils, parents and all persons working at the school at least annually, and published on the school’s website. In meeting those duties, the appropriate authority must have particular regard to statutory guidance on allergy management issued under section 100(2). (legislation.gov.uk)
Scope is set by the existing section 100 framework in the Children and Families Act 2014. That duty applies to maintained schools, academy schools, alternative provision academies and pupil referral units in England, with responsibility resting respectively with governing bodies, proprietors and PRU management committees. The Department for Education’s statutory guidance, published on 6 July 2026, reflects that coverage and states that it is for local-authority-maintained schools, including special schools, PRUs and academies, including free schools and alternative provision academies, while excluding local-authority-maintained nursery schools and 16 to 19 academies. (legislation.gov.uk)
Section 34 also gives the Secretary of State room to go further. The Act allows regulations to prescribe matters that must be covered in an allergy safety policy and to impose duties on specified persons in connection with allergy management. The legislation identifies the likely areas as storage of and access to medicinal products and medical devices, risk identification and management, training for teaching staff, non-teaching staff and catering staff, and the recording and reporting of incidents. The Department for Education’s statutory guidance already points schools towards the shape of compliance, including staff training, Individual Healthcare Plans for pupils who need them, and learning from serious incidents and near misses; a policy template and an IHP template have been published alongside the guidance. (legislation.gov.uk)
For schools within scope, the compliance point is straightforward: a written allergy safety policy must be in place from 1 September 2026, with review, publication and staff-awareness arrangements ready for the new term. The more complex boundary sits outside the maintained school, academy and PRU sector. The Department for Education states that independent schools, including independent special schools, and non-local-authority-maintained special schools are not yet under a statutory requirement, although the government intends to introduce equivalent allergy safety requirements through the relevant regulatory standards. That leaves this commencement measure as both an immediate duty for mainstream state-funded settings and a clear signal of further regulatory change still to come. (gov.uk)