I'm a radical unschooler AMA

[OutOfControlSpirals]

I'm a radical unschooling mum, which basically means I've taken the principals of unschooling, where a child is free to learn what they want, when they want, and applied it to every aspect of our lives. So my children have the same freedoms that I do when it comes to eating/sleeping/learning etc.

I think some people having a harder life than others is an acceptable cost of allowing for non-conformity to mainstream culture.

Resistance to state monitoring is:

Liberal principles/ civil liberties

Lack of trust of State officials (and that increases as the number of reluctant home educators increases, whose children have suffered bullying, lack of SEN provision, failing education, off rolling in schools. Along the lines of "who the hell are you to come and judge me for what I am doing my best to provide, when State education provision let down and damaged my child beyond tolerance?").

The fact that the legal duty to ensure children receive an education lies with their parents, not with the State.

Trusting the wider community to report where there are concerns (which indeed happens for home ed children, at up to twice the rate of the general population, although they are so very much less likely to be placed under child protection order afterwards, showing that there is over reporting not under).

Knowing that monitoring will do huge damage to children who are already damaged by the school system (anxiety over a stranger coming to judge their learning, with the power to put them back into the school system that so signally failed them), many children with SEN (where their needs and capabilities are highly unlikely to be understood by a total stranger, and we all know how hard it is to get an EHCP to lay that stuff out clearly), and children whose families have perfectly valid ways of life, but don't match up with whatever the LA official seems to be acceptable. There are plenty of good reasons to keep the State at arm's length.

So the basic objection to state monitoring is that parents should be able to do what they want when HE, and the state should keep its nose out.

@ommmward I absolutely agree that state run care/Foster often fails kids and there are indeed horrendous stories from those environments - it is recognised and they are trying to do something about it (don't know how the increasing cutbacks will help but that's a seperate issue.

I do question the statement that children are more likely to be abused by non blood relative. The stats are quite clear that most physical and emotional abuse to children are caused by parents. Most children are killed by someone they know and about half by their own parents.

And the whole point with poor Jordan is that he was known to the authorities at school but fell off the radar when he was removed from school www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/legal-loophole-means-authorities-were-14904910

Maybe they should have gone a knocking knowing there were concerns when he was in school but it's rescources again, its the parents civil liberties, we're leaving to the parents to make the best decision for their child? As far as I can tell he had bad teeth, lice, poor language and toilet training. Something that would have been followed up in school but not something that would have hit the high notes in an over stretched social services to go do homechecks when no further concerns were raised.

If they'd HAD to check him then maybe it would be a different outcome? Not saying would but may be. He did not see anyone in authority since he left school.

It's an extreme example, of course HE are not generally like this. I just feel its examples like this that foster the suspicion especially when HE refuse to be regulated.

I have no problem with anyone coming to my house any time. Equally I work with a lot of very different people so I know that for some that is really scary even, they do not have good experiences with authority or there may be cultural suspicions even.

My field is animal welfare but by the nature of what I do the welfare of the person is often a greater part (children and adults). Sometimes by me checking on the animal I come across situations that I can then take to the authorities for kids and adults - and have done so many times. It's not all the state "getting involved", most of the time it's about getting help. One of the things that keeps me going is the knowledge of the ones that I have been instrumental in helping. There have been two people I can say with absolute certainty that is is clear they would have died if they had not gotten that help - which came from me knocking on the door after a random complaint about their animals. Sometimes you just need someone coming over to chat.

Maybe regulations could be similar to HV visits, have a chat, see the child, see the house, see if can help in any way, see you next year.

This is kind of OT now from the original thread but as I said above, some of the things OP said were the kind of things that make people nervous about is that child getting what it needs and deserves. It's lack of knowledge of what HE can be (I admit I'm still not convinced by unschooling apart from the more structured version I feel most of us do anyway) and some HE saying they don't want any checks doesn't really assist, it just fosters those suspicions if that makes sense?

To my mind anyway, everyone's got their own take on it

On a personal level I am against monitoring as my child was totally failed by mainstream. He was actually assaulted by a HT in the end; the catalyst for removal. When we decided to remove him they could barely disguise their delight, we all knew all avenues had been exhausted. I engaged with the LA and had a contact there, recieved the annual visit etc but still they managed to lose my son for almost three years. One year we just didn't receive the appointment letter, or the next, or the next. I didn't contact them. I was interested to see how long it would go on for and the visits were of no particular use to us. I then received a letter inviting me to apply for a secondary school place for my son now that he was reaching the end of year 6, he was 14... A few weeks later I received a terse letter telling me the LA had been informed that my child was now "recently" HE and I needed to contact them to arrange a visit. We had been HE for over five years. I contacted them at this point and they admitted they had no clue who my son was or where his information was. They must have done a search because suddenly our flustered contact got in touch to arrange an urgent visit. Monitoring? Safe Guarding? Don't make me laugh.

No system is perfect @hollygibney, I'm sorry for your experience. Complain, if not satisfied, take it higher. Go to ombudsman.

Just because mistakes are made it doesn't mean that no one should be checked. So much is a postcode lottery or even down to the individual officer - and increasing cutbacks, I can't say this enough. Councils and the Government need to K ow where they are failing so they can try to improve. It's never going to be perfect, it's not possible with the number of variables, but it doesn't mean you can't try.

Children educated at home are twice as likely to be known by social services and four times more likely as young adults to be out of work, education or training than those who go to school..

www.theguardian.com/education/2009/oct/13/home-education-badman-inquiry

That's why I said "on a personal level". The entire system is not fit for purpose. I know plenty of Home Ed families who relate similar experiences to the ours.

I would also question exactly how many of those home ed people surveyed in that report actually have SEN that contribute to their situation, SEN that present as high functioning (as my son does to any onlooker) undiagnosed or otherwise. Such children are highly represented in the Home Ed community because they're too high functioning to be awarded a vanishingly rare special school place and too low functioning to manage in mainstream and certainly unlikely to manage in an employment placement without huge support.

I could say exactly the same about my HE grin

the difference is I do know all about HE, and there is absolutely no way anything done in the name of HE comes close to comparing.

Whereas you know nothing at all about what we do.

Pages and pages of posts but the OP (as far as I can tell) never answered the many questions about qualifications

@crunchymint the downright lies about home ed and abuse by badman in 2009 led to a select committee enquiry that also condemned his report. That was part of what sent home educators off to do the FOI requests to see if his claims were really true. They weren't. The whole thing was a smear campaign. Look up Badman review on Wikipedia: there's a little factual summary there.

Yes I have read the criticisms of Badman. Because somehow the fact that he only got 90 out of 150 LEAs to respond to his surveys means that it is invalid research. And yet HE advocates routinely trot out surveys of extremely small self selected sample sizes to prove how wonderful HE.

I do think HE can work well. And I think it can be a total disaster. And I do think it needs more oversight.

Do you think ALL abuse happens within the home? Do you imagine all abuse within the home is dealt with by school?

Of course not and I didn't say otherwise. Safeguarding is just that. It safeguards against it but school teachers don't go home with pupils. We have to rely on what we see and what pupils/other pupils report to us. In a school such as the one I work at currently, our safeguarding team deal with around 90 referals from staff per week. That's a lot due to the nature of the school and some will be repeats because several teachers will have spotted the same issue, but potentially that's a lot of students getting support.
The old saying "no one knows what goes on behind closed doors" is very pertinent here. A child at home with an abusive parent each and every day is considerably more vulnerable than a child who has an abusive parent but attends school each day.

In addition there are online adults who were HE and abused who say they did not understand as children that they were being abused. So how could they reach out and get help? Whereas schools do teach kids what abuse is.

Unless you HE, you do not know "all about HE". I HE and have done for years and I do not know "all about HE". What a silly thing to say. I note too that you've not responded to NewElthamMum and her very knowledgeable posts detailing her work and 18 years experience with Home Ed families. TBH Claire I am getting rather a Walter Mitty vibe from your posts.

Again from personal experience and a knowledge that the law in Scotland is different from in run, but I would not let a representative of the council education department over my door. My children were so badly treated by them, we were told so many lies by them that I cannot countenance any kind of meeting. Some of my kids have aspergers, dyspraxia, disgraphia and other stuff, I was actually told by the LA head of learning support that "all these syndromes and -exias are caused by a combination of poor parenting and social deprivation". There is no way that I would allow these people to monitor my children.

Add that to my own experience of school outlined above and I think it becomes somewhat obvious why some home edders don't want LA monitoring.

What's the alternative then less? Should society continue to do what it does now with HE and allow parents to just get on with it as they see fit? Should parents have so much autonomy over their children that they can choose to educate or not, abuse or not, without any external checking from anyone?

And there are different models of how to monitor used by different states in the US.

That's what happens here, anyway. I have been home ending for 15 years and have HE'D 4 kids, the council have never, ever looked near us. Just as well really. My kids still see the GP when needed, the dentist, the optician.... they are part of the community and are seen by many people. Some of them have seen OTs, speech therapists, psychologists etc. They don't need someone from the council who has no clue about them or their needs and no clue how HE works coming to "inspect" them and their work to see if it meets whatever standards are fashionable.

The vast majority of children are part of their community. It is not only schools or local authorities who are able to look out for their welfare.

I know in Washington state they require you to either have a degree or to take a short homeschooling course before you do it.

I think something like that is fine because it’s not imposing any kind of ideological or curricular control (although as I said I’d not be adverse to requiring basic literacy and numeracy is covered).

But telling people they need to teach some unified set of cultural values that may be antagonistic to their own culture and community I think is - frankly illiberal in the extreme and not in tune with “British values” as I understand them.

the council have never, ever looked near us

In 15 years. Imagine if you weren't the decent caring parent I'm sure you are. Would that still be ok? To have gone 15 years with no checks as to what kind of education or life you were giving to your children?

But telling people they need to teach some unified set of cultural values that may be antagonistic to their own culture and community I think is - frankly illiberal in the extreme and not in tune with “British values” as I understand them*

You see this is what schools do. They teach about all kinds of cultures, all sorts of people, all kinds of religions and they do so to bring wider awareness of OTHER communities and to give pupils the benefit to reflect on their own lives and choices. Can you not see the potential harm from parents teaching only their view of the world?

I can see many potential harms and I think they are worth risking in order to allow people the freedom to live according to their own cultural and community standards assuming those standards don’t involve actively interfering with or engaging in violence against other groups in society.

As I say, it would be most unusual for children to have contact with no one other than their parents. GPS, dentists, health visitors, opticians, even the general public can all make safeguarding inquiries and report any concerns that they might have to SS or even the education department of their local council if they have concerns.

It is also my very strongly held belief that, given the state of my local schools, our council would be better spending it's limited time and money sorting out the education provided there, at the tax payers expense, than trying to force standards higher than those met by said schools on home educators.