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?

Where is the evidence of this?

HE parents by default tend to be dedicated parents going above and beyond the call of duty.

Of course. Everyone agrees with this. The problem is with no oversight (and again the UK is atypical here, at least within Europe) you have no idea what proportion of HE parents are well-intentioned and which are fundies teaching their kids to expect the Rapture / menstruating women are unclean / whatever other flavour of religious nuttery you like, or are beating their kids black and blue on a daily basis.

You know nothing about HE.

They still go to the GP
They still attend dentist
They still attend the opticians.

There is huge network of HE families who organise educational trips out and socialising.

The only difference they are not sat in a box which only teaches to a specific way.

And I’ll remind you - Sara was only taken out of school very shortly before she died. She had years in the school system - the teachers were aware of the bruising round her neck & chin and did not report it properly.

SS were also aware she was living with a violent monster who was already known to the police for assaulting women AND kids. Sara actually had a child protection order placed on her at birth BECAUSE of her dad.

She could have been in school and he murdered her any night of the week / this poor mite had had years of abuse inflicted on her. All under the watch of school & SS.

Keir is finger pointing because YET again the authorities which you are so keen on - failed to protect ANOTHER child known to them

What the proportion of families with children in school are fundies teaching kids about rapture, unclean women,, religious buttery or meeting their kids ?

This is also an unknown - maybe a novel idea but maybe we need a social services system that is fit for purpose

@Ludovico in what way did school not report it correctly?

There are always some families schools get concerned over if they suddenly decide to homeschool, especially if there were previous safeguarding concerns. There are children who disappear from all systems, so no eyes on at all. This obviously doesn't apply to all HE children.

@Ludovico You are talking about a certain type of HE family and ignoring the rest. There are parents who HE because getting their kids up and out to school on time is too difficult for them. If they HE they can let their older child lie in bed all day instead.
Some HE kids are not seen by Drs, opticians and dentists and do not attend HE classes. Some HE children also attend illegal schools with no oversight.
HE families do not consist of only one type of family, there are lots of different type of families HE, some who are brilliant at it, some who are okay, and some who are terrible.

You're the one who included the philosophical belief in a list of "red flags". You could have just said isolation, but you chose to conflate a belief (which has nothing to do with isolating children, by the way) with the potential for abuse.

This
Trying to blame the rise in home education because of the failures in the whole system.
Vile abusive parents are abusing and murdering children.
Underfunded services are failing children.
Let's argue about home education instead of abusive parents.

@Changeagain3 We are spending more on SS and SEN than ever before. The issue is two fold. Getting qualified and experienced staff is very difficult so we use more and more very expensive providers. More and more children receive an EHCP than ever before with an increasing amount of children having very complex needs. This is very costly.

Some philosophical beliefs do put children at greater risk of abuse. For example, children whose parents follow certain types of Christianity who believe in spare the rod, spoil the child.

Home educator (not through choice) and absolutely welcome all and any checks to make sure that all children are protected. Any child pulled out of school who already has SS involvement should be very carefully monitored.

However, one of the reasons my home-educated child isn't in school was safeguarding failures in the school. So many services let poor Sara down including her school(s).

But they all need to tarred with the same brush because of a minority?

The focus on this is absolutely bizarre.

A man beat his child to death after years of abuse - both were known to SS. The school were aware of the abuse and failed to act properly. The police were aware of what a monster he was.

Yet your focus is on HE families or the very small minority that don’t do it justice because ‘they don’t get dressed or do school work.

Start a new thread about HE snd why you don’t like but don’t tie the two together as they are both completely different and distracts from the utter failures of the state AGAIN.

Tell me what would have saved this child? SS were already aware, the teachers were already aware. What would have stopped her from being battered to death?

Agreed. Was just making the point that there is an assumption amongst many that HE parents have radical views or religious beliefs. As per the post I quoted.

Again, describing safeguarding intended to protect vulnerable children as "tarring families with the same brush" is very revealing of your mindset.

SS were already aware, the teachers were already aware. What would have stopped her from being battered to death?

Given that the abuse ramped up massively after she was withdrawn it is entirely likely she would have died months or years earlier without school. I don't understand why this is not obvious.

I think everyone on here realises that many kids are HE for good reasons, or at least are being failed by the school system. Again, with no oversight, there is no way to tease out the proportion of thriving on HE vs HE is the best of a bad lot vs HE is covering up educational neglect vs HE is covering up physical and emotional neglect. Good policy needs good data.

How could you possibly claim that ALL children who are HE go to the GP, Dentist and Opticians? You don't know that.

The problem is data can be used for good or for bad. If you have an agenda you can gather data that will show what you want it to show this is biased

An example you want to show home ed is bad you test children who are home educating due to needs being unsent at school. Children removed from education because school wasn't meeting their needs. You give them and the top class in school children the same test.

This will show they are years behind their peers. It misses the data that shows they were years behind peers while attending school.

Or your pro home ed and you test the lowest set in school against the home ed kids taking GCSE early.

These 2 examples will show very different data.

Of course. But with no data at all you are flying blind.

@Ludovico I think HE should have better oversight. Not all families need it, but not all schools need oversight from OFSTED either.

In our home ed group who we meet weekly I can think of several parents who would be able to identify safeguarding risks, off the top of my head; one nurse, one former social worker and one teacher. Home ed parents also have jobs and are professionals! The kids aren't invisible and get to spend time around other adults and families regularly. We all speak to each others children and any concerns would probably be seen easily. Home ed children often go to after school clubs like swimming lessons, gymnastics etc along side school kids and have friends who go to school too. So much stereotyping on this thread, it's super sad. We barely ever spend time actually inside at home so to be called invisible or missing, at risk etc is so frustrating.

Do all schooled children go to doctor , dentist, opticians regularly and as they should?

We don't even know exactly how many children are being HE. Any numbers are best guesses.

You are flying blind with badly collected biased data too. You just don't realise it.

@Fern95 Do you accept that lots of HE parents do not go to HE groups?