To think that having to have a DBS check to home educate is unfair.

[Grimed]

Baroness Garden is intending all homeschool parents to be DBS checked. I don't think this is fair. What makes Homeschool parents more likely to be abusive? Surely regular checks from the local LA should be enough? If the education system is failing so many children perhaps that is what's needs examining not parents. What's next? All pregnant women get DBS checked?

Ah sorry MissShapes the comment O meant was collapsed into a longer thread. It wasn't clear to me who said what.
Could have been Neverdropyourmooncup

This.

Some of the problems with making sure basic standards are being met :

What are the basic standards? Home educated children don't have to follow the NC ( just like children at private schools).

How/ who would measure them?

What would happen if a child is found not to reached the basic standards? Force them into school?

Currently, what happens when schooled children don't reach the level expected according to the NC? What consequences does that have for the child, their parents and teacher?

I think this might be the issue - they want to do checks of some sort but not actually have to pay for anything so are trying to find middle ground where it appears they are doing something (but stop short of offering funding)

Offrolling is also what I do on SIMS when a child moves to another school or I've had formal confirmation from the Children Missing from Education Unit at the Local Authority that they have given permission for a child to be removed from the register after enquiries have been conducted to try and ensure that they are not at risk.

It would be far easier to get that confirmation (it's a legal requirement = literally illegal to remove them from the register otherwise) if the LA were able to insist upon parents registering their children as EHE, rather than just hoping that the least likely to do it agree - and being able to insist upon further checks to ascertain whether the child is actually in a more dangerous situation at home without the interest of a DSL and a whole bunch of staff who, contrary to popular opinion, do really care for the welfare of children, would go further in protecting not just little ones, but teenagers.

It won't stop abuse completely - nothing ever will. But it could make a significant dent in it, not just by picking up on some that are currently in that awful situation with nobody looking out for them, but also in a deterrent; deterring people from saying 'I'm home educating, then' when they aren't actually doing it - because it would not be seen as a means of getting pesky teachers out of the way.

Schools can have a no notice inspection by Ofsted or by the LA that always involves checking the Single Central Record - many now pay extra to register staff, governor/trustee and volunteer DBS certificates with the Update Service so they are immediately made aware if somebody's record has information added to it that would affect their suitability to be around children, rather than having to wait to do it all again after three years (the safer recruitment/KCSIE timescale for repeating checks).

If there is a failure in the DBS/SCR processes, it could be the best school in the world in all other respects, but it would automatically become Inadequate and the LA/DfE can enforce a complete change of management or order them to close/join an academy trust.

Fail safeguarding = everything is failed.

How ridiculous! If home educators need a DBS check so should any parent. Home educated DC are not at a higher risk of abuse not that a DBS check would help with that anyway!

Home educated kids are not at a higher risk of abuse, but there is a higher risk that any abuse might go undetected. That's why additional measures should be in place to ensure that the children are safe.

I don't think DBS checks are the answer, though. I would favour regular checks undertaken by the local authority.

As mentioned higher up by @unlimiteddilutingjuice this is NOT a government proposal. The ONLY place it has been mentioned is in the House of Lords debate by the Liberal Democrat Baroness (Susan) Garden of Frognall, and as such it is hardly worth getting worked up about.

Her actual words were...
Every child is entitled to protection from exploitation. We would like any adult in charge of a child to have a DBS check. This should be no problem at all for caring parents or guardians, and it would bring them into line with all other adults who deal with children.
... and you could even read this as her wanting it to apply to all parents and guardians, not just those who home school. The government won't consider this a serious proposal just because a lunatic Lib Dem raises it in the Lords.

Incidentally, there are 4 levels of DBS check: Basic, Standard, Enhanced, and Enhanced with List Check. Only the first two need the subject to have been "caught" breaking a law, the last two also consider intelligence and reports that have not led to charges, and it is the last one that is required to work with children.

Also the DBS report is for an employer to decide whether to employ someone, so I suppose a home schooling parent can be DBS checked, receive the report and then decide whether they want to employ themselves!

Thanks jcyclops, then it’s a non story!

The system was moving in that direction before the Coalition government reined it in.

What people have not grasped on this thread is that a DBS check is going to show up everything. Not just violent and sex crime, but maybe a burglary or shoplifting or fraud. None of those latter convictions are relevant for child abuse and none of them are relevant for whether you should be able to home educate (though the sanctimonious will say nobody with those convictions should have children at all, I know).

Pre-schoolers do not see health visitors except for a couple of checks, or GPs unless they are ill.

And as for the 5 minutes, you know full well it's nothing to do with the time it takes (and actually it takes much longer AND you need photo ID). It is the fact that it will show up old spent convictions which are nobody else's business and have no bearing on the ability of someone to home educate. If the checks only showed violent and sexual crime, there might be more benefit, but even then, thy only show that you've been caught.

2 years home educating. We have never submitted anything, never been asked to prove work. Genuinely zero contact from the LA except 2 emails sent to everyone on their list about some holiday thing and an inappropriate college course. I would actually like more contact, but they're just not interested.

I agree more protection is needed for children who may fall off the grid, I don't think dbs checks are the way forward.

Basic standards - a reasonable level of literacy, numeracy, scientific understanding and so on appropriate to their age (and any SN). Reasonable should broadly correlate to being on a trajectory to be able to get through their GCSEs, but not so prescriptive as to say, for example, that they have to study Soviet Russia in history.

In person assessments annually by a qualified teacher (perhaps more often when the child is first home educated). If they're not reaching a basic standard in HE then clearly it's not working well enough for that child and an alternative approach - a school place - should be required at that moment.

Some children are failed at school, some children are failed in HE. Two wrongs don't make a right, and it doesn't give parents the right to fail their HE child.

HE can be done right, but sometimes it's used as an excuse for letting the child leave education altogether (e.g. gypsy & traveller children who are invariably registered as home educated from age 11, and learn nothing from their often illiterate parents), for full time religious instruction instead of the broad and balanced curriculum they should be getting (e.g. yeshiva, where the pupils are invariably registered as home educated), or letting the child do whatever the hell they feel like ("unschooling" - don't enjoy maths? Sure you don't need to do it...)

Home education can be done well or it can be done badly. If you're worried that your child isn't reaching basic standards of literacy and numeracy, or that your 12 year old thinks the world is flat, or doesn't know what photosynthesis is... then you probably shouldn't be home educating in the first place.

NotMyCircusNotMyCircus - the problem with basic standards is something like reading could legitimately be taught at a later age (as it is in other countries) so you might not meet the basic standard at 5 but exceed it at 8. It would be very difficult without being prescriptive. It also means what happens to the many children in school not meeting the basic standards? Do they automatically get sent to a better school? My son didnt meet the basic standards until about year 5. No SEN just a bit of a late bloomer. If I had home taught him he'd have been sent to school at that point

great post

Because if children are in school there is more chance someone will pick up on abuse, I suppose.

Personally I think it’s sensible, it’s likely a child of a parent with serious crimes will need the balance and routine of school.

however most parents homeschooling won’t have serious criminal convictions and will be centring their child’s needs and learning.

my experience of home schooling is well rounded children, well socialised and academically achieving in line with interests/future careers.

Yes but how will a DBS check help?

Surely abusive parents are already on authorities' radar if they've committed previous abuse. If they haven't committed or been caught committing previous abuse, it won't show up on a check.

Makes me laugh really.

My kids were unsafe in school because their SEN needs were not being met.

We were desperate for help and were abandoned by the 'state' and left to get on with it. No school to meet need, inadequate mental health care, no access to autism support.

No one in the LA has ONCE checked on my children which is astounding since my eldest was trying to kill himself when he came out of school at 10 years old as he was so traumatised.

This and the planned Bill which will criminalise parents who refuse to send children to school where they are unsafe is massively missing the point that SEN funding is woeful and is pushing families with vulnerable children into home education.

We are the one of the wealthiest economies yet we fail to educate our most vulnerable children then attempt to criminalise parents left with the fall out.

Disgraceful.

Not even that. It's up to an employer whether they employ people with a criminal record, the DBS just shows if they have one.

The only time I can see it being of use is to if someone has a conviction for running an illegal school.

It's the other way round. Abusive parents may be more likely to take their children out of school, and use the excuse of home schooling to cover for it.

If a child is being kept out of sight of opthers in this way then I don't think that additional checks are unwarranted.

It's more that they've thought it through in more detail to you, and understand that people take their childrn out of school for various reasons, some of which need to be checked on.

I really don't see how DBS checks will help. It only shows past crimes and even then, some people are never caught.

There should be proper checks for home educated children. Abusive parents may take their children out of formal education to disguise abuse.