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.

Wimbledon I get your point, although since mother and child were already failed by social services and school would a HE inspection have helped? What is the dc doing now? Gcses don't have a time limit - dc could sit them at any age; they still have a future.

GCSEs are much more difficult to do when working full time to make a living and having to pay to study. Much easier to do when you are a child and not having to make a living, and education is free.

100% . I have a relative who has ‘home educated’. Meaning the child has done what they liked all day with a bit of racist/misogynist brainwashing throw in. It’s totally appalling that this is allowed to go on.

Jenny Er...obviously, but if the dc is still at home, uneducated and still a carer then they are possibly not able to make a living at present. And you don't always have to pay to study.

Saraclara - again, I could be wrong, often am. This was just over a year ago. I remember the frenzy. I'm still friends with someone who was a teacher at that school that corroborates that what I said happened and that I'm not just mental. Maybe it's different in other parts of the country? This was an academy school, does that make a difference? Maybe your schools are fortunately 10000000% better than the one's I've had the misfortune of working in/experiencing. I dunno. I can only recount what I experienced first hand.

I agree with your OP. Because I believe that children are not the property of parents. They are their own people and we as society as a whole have a duty to ensure they're ok, and that they're learning the things they'll need to be useful happy citizens in the future.

The recent rise in religious people home educating (or in illegal "schools") in order to keep them away from people who don't share their values worries me a great deal. Those kids are not getting the start in life they deserve.

I think the question raised is 'who should inspect the home-ed family?' The parent is responsible for the child's education by law therefore it makes sense that schools are inspected so that a parent is given information about the education provided at their child's school in order to be able to fulfil their duty to ensure their child is recieving a suitable education. But if the parent's don't delegate their responsibility then it should be assumed that the child is recieving a suitable education unless there is information to suggest this is not the case. It is the same for other parental responsibilities - not to neglect our children, to bring them up in a stable environment, feed and clothe them properly etc. We don't have yearly inspections for those things so why for education?

We need to remember home educated children are not 'hidden'. They are registered at birth, see midwives, health visitors, nurses, doctors, dentists, sometimes camhs, play leaders, teachers, tutors, other parents etc. just like any other child. While any abuse case where the child has been home educated is always highlighted we need to remember that the vast, vast amount of abuse cases involve children who are NOT home educated - they attend nursery or school and are known to doctors, nurses, health visitors and often social services.

∆ yes

I homeschooled my son for 3 years and we were inspected by the LEA every six months...I thought that was normal?

I used to work for a large LA about 10- 20 years ago and we went out annually to visit- more often if concerns.

It was very challenging- no-one really wanted to do the visits. Lots of CP issues. They ended up getting 1 person who did them all.

Yachiru, I've been retired for two years, and have been OFSTEDed around ten times. I've watched how the inspection system has changed radically since my first one, 30 years ago.

I honestly don't see how anyone could have got a heads up under the new system. The standard period is three years, so maybe your school got a bit panicky when it came to nearly three years since the last one?

But I can guarantee that no school gets more than half a day's notice, and schools are no longer inspected in areas.

So the inspector goes in and reports that the child is not up to the required standard. Then what happens? Does the parent get fined? Does a qualified teacher get provided? Does the dc get allocated a school to go to? (Unlikely to be a place available anyway!)

People keep bringing up that no one inspects whether parents are feeding or clothing their kids okay. The developmental checks carried out on young children are actually a way of checking whether there are any major issues with children. So a child vastly under or over weight is picked up. Of course no one checks whether your child is fed 5 portions of fruit and veg today. But schools do education work on healthy eating and very young children are given free fruit. So the state is already involved in these issues.

@Singlenotsingle Ultimately it would mean forcing a child to return to school. But there would have to be a process first where the parent is given advice of how to rectify things and a timescale to do it in.

The parents I see HE really badly tend to really under value education. They say things like - most of what kids learn at school is a waste of time anyway. Or, they can always learn that stuff when they are older if they want. Normally the parents have had bad educational experiences themselves. For example the friend of a friend who told me that they do not know how to do fractions, and their kid does not need to know how to do them - because you never use this stuff in real life anyway.

I remember being taught something called quadratic equations. I can't even remember what they are, never mind how to do them.

No you have not used them, but in plenty of jobs people do. School teaches the basis of lots of subjects, and those interested and with aptitude go and develop and deepen their knowledge more.
Although being honest, quadratic equations are pretty basic maths that is used a lot. It is not particularly specialist knowledge.

Ahhh I'm not even meaning to be confrontational, I can't help myself.
Healthy eating at my kid's last school: 'mum, are meatballs bad? Is cheese? Ms X said salad is the best option'. This was taught to my then six year old whilst the expert was eating (banned) peanut M&Ms in the classroom.
I wouldn't necessarily agree that a teacher is an expert in all subjects either. However, I do agree with jennymanara that a good teacher should inspire kids to go on to further study their interests.
Maybe another type of register/survey should be conducted (and considered) into why homeschoolers have lost faith in formal education. Perhaps look at ehat they can do differently in schools.

My

@yachini I am not claiming that healthy eating is always well taught. But the state clearly does think they have a role in influencing what kids eat.

In the past SEN was rarely picked up by schools. It may be that some HE parents who do not value education, have an undiagnosed SEN and therefore had a very poor educational experience.

I also see some HE parents talking about things they do that are pretty routine these days in schools. Some still look back to what it was like when they were at school, and don't realise how much some things have changed.

I know a lot of lefty parents and there has been a real trend for more and more to HE and in particular unschool. Unschooling is an educational philosophy, but few seem to understand it or have read much about it beyond a couple of blog posts.

My neighbour home "educates" her 6 year old. She also has a 3 year old who doesn't go to any kind of preschool and twins who aren't 1 yet. She confessed to me the other day she isn't getting any educating done, I actually feel really sorry for her in a way (but more sorry for the child, who looks bored and lonely a lot of the time). She never gets a break and she seems unable to work out how to get to a place where she can do stuff with the eldest. She was a highly qualified professional before she quit work to have her first DC, so she must value education she just was unrealistic in what she could manage. No one has inspected her or offered any advice to her.

No I totally disagree. The minute you let the government start measuring things it all goes to pot... and no I'm not home educating my children. I'm a teacher who frequently despairs at what passes for an education these days (exam factory for 5 year olds).

Genuinely, I am unsure of HE children pose a bigger risk of being vulnerable to abuse. I’d have to look at statistics i.e. how many students are HE? and what percentage of HE children are subjects of serious case reviews or similar.

OP - ODFOD.

I agree. While education neglect is terrible. Homeschooling is a know tool used by abusive parents to hide the child and therefore the abuse.

Home schooling families should be subjected to a preplanned and random visits. Their aim should not only be to confirm that things are ok in the family but also help identify educational defects and provide support/resources to home schooling parents.

What about the fact that most child deaths from abuse are in the under 5s? Where are the compulsory visits by health visitors every year from birth till school age?

I absolutely agree that all children should be seen at least annually by a “safeguarding professional”. I would expect all children not already regularly seen by someone with safeguarding expertise (eg children not in nursery / preschool etc) to be visited at least annually by a health visitor. This would definitely help to stop under 5s slipping through the gaps

I think a lot of people have missed the point here

Yes, there are failings in the state school system but this isn’t a race to the bottom. Just because one aspect of education isn’t perfect it doesn’t mean that we should ignore everything else.

It would just be an annual light touch exercise to ensure

1. All children are getting some form of education (perhaps by an interview with the child)
2. That there are no signs of abuse (child isn’t abnormally thin / dirty etc)