to think home ed families are going to have to accept more oversight?

[DrZaraCarmichael]

To try to prevent more cases like Sara Sharif. Taken out of school - where teachers were raising concerns - and then apparently fell off the radar.

Yes children's services have to look long and hard at themselves but taking a child out of school, especially when there has been previous SS involvement, has to raise a whole field of red flags surely??

I can see how families who are home educating for the right reasons and who have nothing to hide will see this as intrusive and unnecessary. But something has to change, right?

I doubt it. Who's going to do the over-seeing?

Has anyone got some popcorn handy?

I homeschooled for three years during that period We had three phone calls from the LEA.
I made an absolute point of taking them for eye test, dentists, vaccinations basically putting them in front of medical professionals so they were seen
But actually, nobody cared or joined up dots or asked me to take them to see anyone.
It was absolutely shocking. Especially so as they were being home educated for mental health issues.

Any safeguarding concerns and HE should be refused IMO

I think that if there are concerns about a child then home education should not be an option. Parents should have to request to home educate and there should be a safeguarding check before it is agreed. If anyone has concerns about the child's welfare or the parents ability to home educate then it should be stopped.

My ds hadn't been seen by anyone, medical practitioners, health visitors etc. until he was 5 because of how COVID changed all our services to telephone only. I could have murdered him and no one would have noticed.

I don't see how that is enforceable either though TBH. Absence rates in Scottish schools anyway are through the roof, someone who is determined to keep their child at home for whatever reason will just keep them at home and precious little will happen.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67226115

Whether it's the police, social services, the education department, something local run by the Council or a national thing for each country of the UK there has to be some sort of official body whose job it is to check up on these kids.

I don’t think it’s controversial to expect that home-schooled children should be afforded the same safeguarding protection as those in school? Of course there needs to be some oversight.

But the school didn't do anything to protect Sara...

She was being abused for years before she was taken out of school. Why did no one notice or try to help her? Why did teachers not notice her distress?

Before she was taken out, school noted bruises that warranted a social services referral - why did social services never follow up on that?

How many times do I have to attempt to explain this simple matter.

Sara Sharif was taken out of school to be abused. She wasn't taken out of school to be honest educated - that was a lie.

Leave the home schoolers alone and save your energy for the abusers

The teacher interviewed on the news says that the school DID raise concerns when they saw bruising on her face. Social services investigated, took no action, and told the school just to keep an eye on her.

Then her father removed her from school.

Home educated not honest educated

I hope so. If the process is above board, there should be no problem.

I completely agree, @Chowtime , there was no education going on in this situation.

But HOW are schools/social services/police supposed to determine which families are genuiely doing the best for their kids and educating tham at home, and which families are covering up abuse if they are not visiting children at home, seeing them, checking up on what sort of learning is going on, and looking out for signs of abuse?

Our local authority had a home Ed assessor who came out once a year. He spoke to both children and looked at their work. He then spoke to us about our plans for the next year. He offered advice but was happy with what he found. He wrote a report which presumably was kept on record and we received a copy. I'm in West Sussex, maybe other areas don't have this. I was more than happy to have this assessment.

I think home education should be monitored to ensure families and children and appropriately supported, but yes I also think there are probably cases whereby welfare checks etc should also be in place.

There are checks on children’s progress and wellbeing in schools, if you are choosing to home educate then it should be expected the same checks and balances should be in place.

Honestly, as a genuine home educating parent (which these parents were not), this story just reinforces my opinions about how schools are so overstretched and underfunded that they cannot safeguard children.

This was going on for years, this little girl must have been glaringly unhappy - for school not to have picked up on this sooner...they utterly failed in their duty of safeguarding Sara.

How do you tell the difference?

The thing with Sara Sharif is that she was withdrawn from school after her teachers had been raising the alarm about the bruising for a while. There's no way a family about whom concerns have already been raised should be allowed to disappear their child with no follow-up. It was appalling negligence on the part of social services.

There should indeed be more safeguarding checks on homeschooled children but, as said above, children in school aren't getting the safeguarding they should so I'd fix that before looking elsewhere.

I took my daughter out of school just as the last year of primary was about to start, dd wasn't even with me, the headteacher literally shrugged and took the letter I'd printed to verify I was taking her out and that was it, no exaggeration. I only had a visit from the LEA after I contacted them 2 months later as I was worried I'd heard nothing so wasn't sure it was even recorded that she'd left school. If I hadn't contacted them I don't know when I'd have had any follow-up.

I pulled dd out of school precisely because the self-proclaimed 'caring' school didn't seem to care about her but I was shocked to see they really didn't. Anything could have happened to her in that time and no-one even phoned to ask if everything was ok.

Sara Sharif was taken out of school to be abused. She wasn't taken out of school to be honest educated - that was a lie.

Leave the home schoolers alone and save your energy for the abusers

If there’s no oversight, how do you tell the difference?

Home ed children be checked on / in with regularly.

Id say at least once a month. A proper qualified person within child welfare and education. This should include a way for children to know how to alert for abuse just like women at midwife appointments.

Children should not be able to just disappear.

.

This case is really horrific. But isn’t it factual that vast majority of child neglect/abuse deaths involve children that are in school/nursery?

This has happened before - Dylan Seabridge (? Not sure of surname) in Wales. Absolutely there should be oversight.