To think that Home Educated children should be inspected every year?

[jennymanara]

I think home education can work. I know a fair number of parents who are home educating from some who teach their kids to those who are unschoolers.
But I also think there are parents who home educate who are not up to the job and claim to be unschooling, but are in fact just educationally neglecting their children.
There should be an annual inspection of all kids being home schooled. This should check that children are actually getting some form of education, and not just left for example to play minesweeper all day, as one single mother I knew did with her teenage son.

@M3lon yep! and if your kid said what they really felt, in my case both of mine would recount horror stories from school if asked, I would almost bet my coffee machine the LA would be inclined to think that my kid has been told to say that. Or is parotting it.

Oh god...it would actually be a real mess...

DD is 8 and if you asked if she did maths she would probably say "no, I hate adding and multiplying" then tell you all about the formula she's working on the calculate the nth term in the fibonacci sequence, and if you were really really unlucky she would also play her composition based on pascals triangle on her violin. I mean if you think Vogon poetry is bad....

Mind you, that would probably ensure they didn't ask about anything else, or ever come back....

Given how many more children are being home educated I just don’t think they have the resources.

When Ds was initially HE we had an inspection yearly but as time went on it became a letter to ask how we were doing and then in the last couple of years not even the letter.

I know from talking to one of the inspectors that HE was going up dramatically.

I know in ds’s class in primary all those that had any form of SEN or just were a little bit young and didn’t get things straight away, were encouraged to go elsewhere if they didn’t like how they were treating our children.

Chances are with only a handful of inspectors there are too many children to deal with on a more timely basis

Lmao have her do it, she sounds great!

But the real question is - how is she at rote learning off a white board and text book?

eyeroll

I'm afraid we are one of the real invisibles (assuming you don't count, doctors, dentists, sports coaches, dozens of families we interact with and her music centre) as DD has never been to school and isn't on any LA watch-lists yet.

Its not a very well kept secret though - when I caught up with her waiting to go off the diving board at the local pool, she'd already told 3 other kids, a bemused looking parent and a lifeguard all about her life as a HE child.

M3lon im concerned. You're really fitting the typecast of these HE weirdos that don't socialise and shy away from society.

@CoffeeBeam

Just watched it, the LA Officer was full of it. Stating that we can’t prove our education is suitable under the current system unless we are criminally prosecuted and fight in court. He’s only right in a scenario where the LA are being so bloody minded and stubborn that they refuse any submitted evidence of education and enforce a school attendance order anyway.

That their recommendation to the Government is a ‘light touch’ system where we are forced to register and LA officials have the right to enter our homes and speak to our children on a whim. Presumably this ‘light touch’ system would also remove the courts from the process of forcing children into a school. Because having even such threadbare and high stakes (for the parent) oversight is not in our best interests obviously. No right of appeal at all even at risk of a criminal record is apparently a good thing for us.

I had no idea that opening my home to be a council meeting resource and to force my kids to speak to a stranger was ‘light touch’ I’m so glad we have Local Authorites who don’t advocate a ‘heavy handed’ approach...

Meanwhile his claim that most workers carrying out home visits are highly trained is nonsense. When these roles come up it can be anything from a GCSE C in Maths and English, a teaching assistant with a couple years experience to a full blown qualified teacher and anything in between.

As someone who used to work for a LA with responsibility for HE children (but years ago now) I think we did have a good service to support HE parents. Yes, they were visited but rarely in the role of inspector. My Senior Teacher visited to offer advice and discuss curriculum objectives that might help. I’m afraid some parents were very woolly about what DC should be able to achieve but others were wonderful and the learning was very good. When parents needed guidance we could offer support of others and help with ideas for learning. If we were worried about children it was our duty to try and do something about it.

I now understand that many parents are far more resourceful about HE and find networks for themselves but I have no doubt that some parents deliberately hide children and this should not be allowed to happen.

We all know that abuses can happen and there is a role for the state in trying to prevent this. There is a massive issue with resources so I wouldn’t expect any resumption of the service we used to offer or any great effort to track down off the radar children any time soon. Most HE parents are left to get on with it. Most are 100% excellent but some are not. Their children need to be given a better deal.

@Minky3 I found it quite scary. I also noticed the term 'light-touch' to describe home inspection, and thought, gah, things have gotten very serious, very quickly.
Still makes no sense; he said the visits would be arranged, which I find pointless. So if I had my kids in a cage somewhere, I'll let them out just in time for the visit, appear normal, and okey dokey.
Again, they only seemed to recognise education as maths and English. Well, how do you really test that? We do a predominantly Charlotte Mason style here, so, I could ask my kids to recite a poem for them? Or play them a recording or video of an oral narration? Is that acceptable?

Does it mean families are going to have to change their learning style to create a paper trail that they can hand over as proof of education?

I feel like theyre talking a lot, but not saying much. If that makes sense? It's very vague, and only those in the know need to know.

A family member of mine is a solicitor that specialises in education law (working on behalf of families with SEN). I'm going to ask her what her thoughts are.

I imagine the law will have to be changed a lot around this, as it's going to affect civil liberties etc. Assuming HE folk are allowed them.

You don’t have to have the inspectors in your home.

I used to hire a room in the local library to meet.

Also the ruling is that we give our child an education. It doesn’t specify in what. I could have taught Ds to be a concert pianist and ignored anything to do with Maths and English and I would have been within the ruling.

Didn’t watch the programme but I think from what has been discussed the LA Official doesn’t know what he is talking about.

I pulled Ds out of school because he wasn’t getting an education. I would have been interested to find out what exactly this LA official thinks schools actually teach someone who is severely dyslexic.

I did put Ds back into school for senior school but pulled him out again as I could see all the hard work we had put in was going to waste as he wasn’t getting anything from the lessons.

@BubblesBuddy - its nice to hear something nice about the LA lol. I can't actually speak on it from experience; I've not had much interaction with my local one.
If LA visits and whatnot were to be like you described, I can't see much wrong with it. A bit like Health Visitors for older kids? But in education etc.

Olivers mummy - the video they did say it'd be in the home. I know you can atm meet somewhere else, with or without the kids if you want. Im just going off what the dude on the topic show said today.
I think it'll eve ntually be mandatory t o be at home or place of residence the way this is going.

"Abused children being wrongfully classed as home educated children"

This sounds like no true scotsman. HE children can also be abused children.

On that victori a thin g today, the HE mom was asked what they do everyday. She said stuff like skating, forest school, parkour, some really awesome stuff.
Sounds like fun, but depending in the age of the child, its hardly a full education.

jennymanara

At least the child was doing something.

Ds did absolutely nothing in school because he couldn’t read or write anything and when it came to homework it was a case of either complete the written work or stay in every break or lunch to complete it.

So would spend the breaks staring at a blank piece of paper

I sent my Ds to school at 4 years old a happy child with not a care in the world, looking forward to meeting new friends and being at school.

3 years later he was a shadow of his former self, depressed and crying with frustration..

It took a lot of hard work and time to get him back to anything like what he used to be

Maybe this child had suffered at the hands of the schools curriculum and was learning to live life again.

Nothing wrong with learning Parkour, forest school and skating.

Probably more practical than what is taught in school.

Reading and writing and Maths will come in time.

@jennymanara - dunno, how would you balance it in terms of kids who don’t exercise or eat unhealthily or have poor mental health?

I think this is a good reason to have a general well-being check for school and home-ed kids alike. Schools are under a lot of pressure and it may not be in their interest to identify kids whose needs are not being met (eg SEN, bullying, kids who aren’t being stretched). Independent well-being check may be helpful

Home education IS the default setting. You have to apply to enter your children into school.

If you don't apply to put your child in school, you just carry on as you were before your child reached school age.

"5 children previously known to the authorities have been neglected or abused"
So they were previously known to the authorities...who presumably didn't act on the powers they have.
A very small number compared to the 238 rapes committed on school premises last year, or the 5000 reported acts of violence. Schools aren't inspected annually. Parents of children committing violent acts and sexual crimes at school aren't inspected at all.
But home educators have to be? What nonsense.

I'm aware HE children can be abused, as I went on to say.

I'll try to simplify it. Any child in any environment can be abused. We all know this, doesn't matter what social class, creed, education etc everyone can be vulnerable. There is no way to prevent this happening as abuse is well hidden, safeguarding is there but misses a great deal, even in children who are regularly seen.

There are children being classed as home educated by the government because they have not been registered at a school, when in reality they are not being home educated and are being abused, neglected, sent to illegal schools etc. The "invisible" children, if you will.

What I'm trying to say is that they use the term "home educated" to apply to any child not in mainstream school whether their family is already known to LAs and or very visible in communities or not. So good law abiding families who do send reports, recieve visits etc and or generally aren't hidden at all, are being thrown in with families who aren't taking care of their children's rights on the technicality that "home educated" is applied to any child not in school.

Perhaps we need a change in law that dictates all homes be regularly monitored and inspected to be certain that absolutely no one is missed. I can't see a register of the people who are already following the law and working in the best interests of their children, finding the ones who aren't. The register would just cause the abusive families to stop engaging with every other service (if they do use them), such as GPs, dentists, children's centres and the like. To avoid being found out.

It is such a tricky situation and the only way to efficiently police it would be to strip back the human rights act.

@jennymanara

The parent did also say she uses a tutor for Maths (and I think English).

If the parent had said ‘Ah well we spend 5 hours a day studying books etc on Maths, English, Geography, History, Two Languages, 3 Sciences etc etc’ Then someone could just as easily say

‘Well it sounds like they never exercise, play sport or see friends they are being deliberately isolated!’

It is easy to pick fault with any other persons idea of a suitable education; ultimately a suitable education is likely to involve some form of balance. Every persons idea of what that ideal balance looks like will be different except the best people qualified to judge the right balance for a given child is the parent or guardian. Anyone else is making a judgment whilst being ignorant of a significant amount of contextual information.

This would not be so bad if professionals with expertise the parent lacks wanted to provide support for the education taking place and could help improve aspects of the education. This is not the case however most LA officials are working to the basis of:

‘Do you agree with all the education the parent is providing? If yes leave them alone for now; if no begin school attendance enforcement.’

Our HE children are completely invisible to the LA - and long may this continue.

However, they see the extended family and friends almost daily, two martial arts classes per week, attend cubs including multiple nights away, attend forest schools, horse-riding, ballet, gymnastics, street dance, maths club, science club, RSPB wildlife explorers, The Wildlife Trust Watch group, English Heritage, Young Archaeologists Club, multiple swimming and other social meet ups and have just returned from a week long Home Education Festival. They are also registered and see when required, GP's, Dentists and opticians.

I think a single investigation from the LA to show we have a house full of resources and are very active in the local, national and international home education community have full and multiple plans for our children's happiness for their whole life in place would suffice for us to be left alone for good

On the other hand if the public would like to waste their tax money on investigating us and the 99% of HE families who are like us then go for it

All the legislative requirements for LA's to step in and hold parents to account for failing to provide an education are there and frequently used.

The reality is that in every single serious case review involving a Home Educated child the children were already known to all the relevant services and it was their failings that contributed to the situation and not the home education.

I fully accept that some children are being failed by Home Education - I know some of them but they are dwarfed by the 100,000's of children being failed by state education - I know many many of them and count myself as one.

However it all comes down to fairness and doing what is best for the children - I am sure we can all agree on that so I would suggest the following.

That the same type and level of inspection is carried out in schools - looking at every single child in this intense way then it could be determined how many would do better if offered the type of education most home educated children received - and that may well include your child. If someone you have never met before looked at your child for a single hour and then told you that your child would benefit from Home education, would prefer home education and given an informed choice would choose home education would you do everything in your power to ensure they got that choice?? Because legally you as the parent - and no one else - have the duty to ensure your child is receiving a full time education appropriate for their age, aptitude and ability and if the school you are choosing to send them to is not doing that then YOU are responsible for providing the alternative - that is the law!!!!

But in all honesty people should think about that with an open mind - your child may well actually do better in life and be happier of you Home Educated them - should we send inspectors into your home to determine this and then force you to comply???

How would you feel if this was being suggested???

Just because the state is providing something does not mean it is the best for your child and just as greater proportion of children in school would benefit from Home Education as children being Home Educated would benefit from going to school.

Brilliant post! @Basecamp65

Yabu
Many people who home Ed are doing it because the school system is not set up to help children with SEN to thrive.
We home educate my ASD step daughter (12) and to an outsider it may not look like adequate provision but my DH has a degree from Oxford uni, I am a fully qualified teacher and we both fully understand DSD’s anxiety issues and her auto didactic tendencies very well and we believe that she will learn more at home than while in fight/flight/freeze mode at secondary school.

We have been forced into this situation and would not have chosen it but in the end we realised that DSD’s mental health was more important than ticking societal norm boxes.

PS I am deeply unimpressed by secondary schools in the UK in general and think we need a new model altogether for more sensitive children to reach their full potentials.

We were just sent a form annually. It asked what resources we were using, basically, and generic questions on the future of H.ed, for dc.
I managed about 3 sides of A4 paper and as for what we were facilitating ito subject, they weren't interested.
very little academic work was done for one dc as they weren't the academic type and showed no interest i maths and English.
History and geography on her terms, not a curriculum, and lots of art and what many would term extra curricular, but her curricular.

I'd quite like to 'inspect' random schools with a big old clipboard, take copious notes then hold up a sign saying:

"Have you considered teaching kids who are at the same ability and level in a given subject together, instead of teaching kids who are the same age together regardless of their abilities or progress?"

I think its a really good idea....and I don't honestly know why schools don't do it.

I haven't read the full thread, but I completely agree with you op.xone parents are hugely capable of home educating their children, others simply are not. I find it concerning that in this day and age, parents can simply decide to home school and that's it. Thr childs welfare or education isn't routinely checked.

It doesn't matter if the checks save one in a hundred kids and the other 99 are doing brilliantly. . That one kid who may be being failed, abused, whatever, is worth saving and any decent person would welcome a checking system for that reason alone.