To think that radicalisation and home education is a red herring and Nicky Morgan wants an excuse to boss home ed parents about

[ReallyTired]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-35144063

If parents are going to radicalise their children then it will happen regardless whether they attend school or are home educated. Children who attend school still learn about the world from their parents. Lots of children who attend state schools get indoctrinated by their parents.

I feel that the parents of children who have been found attending illegal schools should be barred from home education. Someone whose judgement is so poor to use an unregistered school with a narrow curriculum and lack of health and safety is unfit to become a home educator. Their children certainly need to be kept track of.

Leave true home educators alone. They are not responsible for the troubles in Syria.

sorry, that was to Irene

I don't think that there has to be a standardised curriculum. But if a home educating parent is able to understand that education doesn't have to include this, then why couldn't an inspecting board understand this? Why couldn't you have home educators on the regulatory authority, if you really think that only those who have home educated can possibly understand home education? (Although that's an attitude I don't understand - surely the whole premise of home education is that it doesn't require any special qualifications.)

Surely even the most ardent home educator has to accept that the children of abusive parents are less likely to have their abuse picked up on and less likely to receive a good education if they're home educated in a system with few safeguards? I can't understand why people are so defensive. If you know you are giving your child a good education, what's the problem?

I do agree that the reason home education is so unregulated is likely to be budgetary, and that it would cost an awful lot to have effective oversight. I also think that that means it's a bit naïve to think that the government are desperate to bring it under their control - clearly it suits them very well to have some children off their books, and not to have to be accountable for another part of the educational sector. But for me that does not change the fact that having an unregulated home educational sector leaves children at risk.

I think that home education is the right choice for some people and absolutely support the option being there. BUT I also think that at the end of the day the children's right to an education is what comes first. I think that that right is so important that we can't just assume that it's being fulfilled in every case with no actual basis for thinking this. And I refuse to accept that the inconvenience or embarrassment to home educating parents of checks and accountability outweighs the right of children to have their right to an education enforced by the state.

There were a couple of young men talking on the news who'd been subjected to these dodgy unregistered schools for years. They felt badly cheated and let down by their failed excuse for an education - in many ways the worst of both worlds because they didn't learn anything of value in the outside world but didn't have any free time either.

Surely even the most ardent home educator has to accept that the children of abusive parents are less likely to have their abuse picked up on and less likely to receive a good education if they're home educated in a system with few safeguards? I can't understand why people are so defensive. If you know you are giving your child a good education, what's the problem?

I assume though that abusive parents don't want the bother of their kids around all day when they could send them to school instead, so why would they choose to pretend to home ed in the first place? I believe that home ed has been used on one occasion as a reason abusive parents stopped sending their child to school once abuse/injuries had been noticed, but I don't believe a single case has ever been found where abused children were home educated originally.

you have it the wrong way round. Schools are providing an education on behalf on the parents - because the law states that it is the parents responsibility to provide a suitable education. So the only person to be accountable under law is the parents. Your health care clinic analogy would only apply if a parent was attempting to set up a school and provide education to children other than their own.

I'm afraid that I feel like you are mixed up. Parents have a RESPONSIBILITY to educate their children; children have a RIGHT to education. So I don't accept that parents have a higher degree of responsibility if they educate other people's children than if they educate their own. Children have a right to the same level of education, no matter whether it is being provided by their parents, someone else's parents, a school, whatever. And yes, parents are liable to make sure their children are receiving a decent education. For children in school, there is a system of accountability for parents: if their kids are enrolled in school but don't show up, parents are prosecuted. What you're proposing is that there should be no similar system of accountability for home educating parents. To me, it is completely failing children to say that they have a right to education, but that no one will step in and enforce this right if parents fail to do so.

I assume though that abusive parents don't want the bother of their kids around all day when they could send them to school instead, so why would they choose to pretend to home ed in the first place?

Can you not see that your hunch about abusive parents might not be the best safeguarding method?

Snappy BaDGER
Cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan has hust been prosecuted for hiding his dd away for 30 years. with no schooling etc
There was a prolific poster that used to be on the HE board, always on how wonderful HE was and how well her children were doing, One post she let slip that she suffred badly from depression and often had black dog moments. How is that fare on the children, not to have some relief from living with a parent with those problems, she soon had the post deleted when other posters picked up on that. My dh suffers from depression so i do understand about depression. I

Look at all the Tachers who abuse children in their care, why have pitch forks out when it comes to parents, whilst you close your eyes to your colleagues?

Good god, howtorebuild, talk about paranoid. OK:

1. No one has their pitchforks out. No one is saying that having inspections for HE would mean that most HE-ers would have to do anything different. I accept the proposition that the vast majority of HE-ers are proving an education that is adequate or better. Regulation would not affect those parents, but the ones who are not providing an adequate education. If there's no regulation, there's no way of identifying children who are being failed.

1. Teachers and schools ARE heavily regulated. And rightly so. No one is suggesting changing this or "closing their eyes". If you think there are safeguarding steps for schools that could be taken but aren't, then I wouldn't necessarily be against that. This is not an HE vs schools things, my point is simply that children shouldn't less safeguarding simply because they don't attend school.

I'd LOVE more scrutiny of HE, might actually get a place for my 6 year old at last! She's on the waiting list for 22 (yes TWENTY TWO) schools now. Unless I want her to learn Hebrew for 2 hours a day there is nothing for her. I'm not home edding by choice, but because the local authority cannot place her anywhere but a 'free school' which happens to be Jewish, nothing against Jews, but we aren't Jewish, she does not need to spend a third of the school day learning Hebrew, and then there's the small issue of my disliking free schools and esp those indoctrinating religion using state funds.

I can't understand why people are so defensive. If you know you are giving your child a good education, what's the problem?
Problem is, that so called authorities cannot be trusted.
Who where and how will be making decisions about it?
Will the parents have to fill in paperwork, submit lesson plans? Demonstrate "a lesson"? What about SEN?
The thing that they come up about "radicalisation" just gives a feeling that something unsavoury will be pushed through the back door.

Inspections for H.educators would defeat the object and philosophy for many parents, including us when we did it.
It is the parent's responsibility to ensure their children receive an education not the state.
The state are only allowed to step in if they feel the child isn't receiving a suitable education.
How on earth could an inspector know what they were looking for when suitable education could be anything.
As there is no need to follow a curriculum how could any inspector make recommendations.

If you havr that philosophy then you need more inspecting not less Newlife4me.

The state are only allowed to step in if they feel the child isn't receiving a suitable education.. But if you accept that the state has this responsibility, how do you suggest it is enforced? How can the state know whether a child's education is suitable? I dont understand how people can accept that education is fundamentally a right that every child has, accept that parents are legally bound to enforce that right, but not have a system in place for making sure that parents do in fact enforce that right. It's no good having a right if you have no way of enforcing it.

The state are only allowed to step in if they feel the child isn't receiving a suitable education.

but how does the state know if something is amiss with a child's wellbeing/education?

Legally the local authority are perfectly entitled to take legal action if they believe a child is not receiving a suitable education.

Just as a non resident parent or indeed any family member could bring a court case if they believed that.

The local authority already has the power to ask to meet with a HE family and ask about education.

If they don't see evidence of a suitable education or the family refuse the LA may begin proceedings.

Right, but how does the local authority know? It's good saying, oh but they could bring a lawsuit anytime, if they have no way of accessing the child or asking questions about the education. You can't just bring a lawsuit without evidence you know.

X post - but according to the article in the op, local authorities don't even have a register of all home educated children. So how can they request a meeting? And are they likely to request a meeting without a complaint?

Surely even the most ardent home educator has to accept that the children of abusive parents are less likely to have their abuse picked up on and less likely to receive a good education if they're home educated in a system with few safeguards? I can't understand why people are so defensive. If you know you are giving your child a good education, what's the problem?

This is not true.

Home educated children are far far more likely to be refered to social services for an assesment than a schooled children. As an aside they are also far less likely to end up with actual cp intervention

There already is provision that if somebody/anybody suspects a child is not receiving an education they can refer to the Education Welfare Officer (though most people tend to refer to Social Services and they get EWO involved). The EWO can then make informal enquiries about the child's education. If these enquiries are not satisfied, then the LA can enforce a Schools Attendance Order, forcing the child to go to school.

Similarly, if somebody suspects that a child's welfare is poor, they can get in touch with SS who will investigate.
Education and Welfare should never be conflated, but often are by know-nothings in power

The evidence of the last HE review showed that the majority of HE DC were de-registered ie they've been in the system and the LA knows about them.

Numbers of never registered DC are small and often in the sane family as a de- registered child so easy to find.

The fact is the LAs know they have HE children on their boroughs and they know where to find them. And legally they can visit them ... But they often don't bother.

bruffin

There is nothing that any inspector could have offered us as we were mainly autonomous, more or fewer inspections still wouldn't have made a difference.

Ok, if the law changed and H.edders had to follow a curriculum and meet pre determined benchmarks, then yes, maybe inspections would be necessary.
However, at present I can't see who would benefit from such an inspection especially children who were nervous due to bad experiences of school.

Inspectors belong in institutions where there are systems, policies and set procedures in place.

Problem is, that so called authorities cannot be trusted.

Would you go see a doctor, then, or better never to trust that authority?
What about police if you were robbed.
Can the binmen be trusted? What about the council planners?
Or the people who fix the streetlights.

Can't beat a bit of selective paranoia, I guess.

What authority do the binmen and street light fixers have over you? Or impact on your children? State Ed is an offering of the state, to facilitate a working population. But it is just an offering, one way of teaching kids.