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Home edders- anyone with positive experiences of dealing with your LEA?

20 replies

CitizenPrecious · 23/01/2010 13:49

I have just started home edding my twins. We're between schools- ie we have de-regged them from their last school and we're waiting for them to move up the list for the new school- no idea how long it's going to take. A few weeks in and we're all finding it really positive- in fact it's better than I'd dared hope, for the whole family- so far, at any rate.

We're doing some daily reading and writing and odd maths activities- this is all pretty informal and done on a sort of ad hoc basis, but we are doing it (I have had a look at the National Curriculum stuff but must admit have found it pretty off putting and baffling- has been on my to-do list for weeks ) Rest of the time, we're on outings and playing and generally just messing about...

I emailed the LEA to let them know I'd taken the dcs out and they've sent me back a form for us to fill in asking what we're doing, and saying that someone will visit for an Informal Chat.

Now, they seem positive and helpful, as far as I can tell, and my hunch is to co-operate until something goes wrong...has anyone else had good experiences with their LEA?

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ommmward · 23/01/2010 15:16

response mostly copied from another recent thread:

The Informal Chatter will be some ex-teacher or ex-ofsted inspector subcontracted by the LA to inspect your provision and pronounce judgement on it. You are under no obligation whatever to accept the visit.

You are in a complete lottery. The "consultant" may be very supportive, or they may be a complete horror. They may offer you helpful advice, or they may be there with their ticky box checklist being Mrs/Mr Judgeypants.

In your position, I would either

write to the LA and say "thank you for offering a visit. We will be delighted to receive one once we are satisfied that such a visit will be of benefit to our family. Please let us know the relevant qualifications and experience of the consultant in home educating."

Or
"thank you for offering a visit. In accordance with current law relating to home education, and the 2007 EHE guidelines, we prefer not to receive a visit at this time. Please keep all future contact with us in writing. We will be delighted to provide information about the education we are providing once we have fully settled into home education, as is recommended under paragraph 3.11 of the guidelines ahed.pbworks.com/f/7373-dcsf-elective-home-education.pdf" Ball back in their court. They may well want to get an impression of the kind of HE you do and, once you've got well established - 3 months? 6 months? - then it is reasonable for them to ask for evidence that you are providing an education, and at that stage, look through the guidelines and think about the kind of evidence you want to provide.
go for it. Have the visit. I'd say, if you're planning to get them back in school asap, then you might well want advice about keeping in line with what their peers are doing, although you could receive that advice in writing rather than in person if you preferred. And, honestly, the people best placed to advise you are other HEers, not LA staffers or subcontractors.

Why the hard line advice? The discredited Badman report, plus current DCSF and ministerial attempts to pass illiberal, disproportionate and discriminatory legislation. Time for us all to show the State agents that we know exactly what legal powers they have and don't have, and they need to LEARN TO USE THEIR EXISTING POWERS rather than demanding more, or pretending that they have more powers than they do to interfere in perfectly well functioning family lives.

You might be interested to know that Education Otherwise, the biggest HE charity, have just announced that, if the government get the current education bill through government, they will NOT be cooperating with the LAs in helping to train staff to police the new regime. They have also just turned down an offer of a meeting with Vernon Coaker, the relevant minister. In other words, we are living in "interesting times", when the previously good relations between home educators and the state have turned distinctly sour. You are unlikely to find many home educators advising you to invite state employees to come into your home and judge your educational provision at this point in time.