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?

Which is why you hire independent experts to collect and crunch the data. Or is the point that all data is forever hopelessly corrupt so no point in ever bothering with it?

Because the vast majority of people are good. Parents generally love their children and do not abuse them. When their child is sick they worry and take them to GP and other HC appointments.

I considered HE after Covid and joined many groups - which I’m still apart of and they are normal people.

Normal people do not use HE as a way to hide abuse. Abusive people do. Abusive people also send their kids to school.

This case highlights the systemic failures yet again but the finger pointing is at the HE community.

It’s been in the news today that they are looking in to why the teachers didn’t report Sara’s abuse properly and if it was down to fear of being accused of Islamophobia. This again is another excuse.

And some HE groups are so distrustful of outside authorities that they do not report abuse.
I reported quite serious neglect. I discussed it with a friend first who advised me not to tell any HE parents as I would be ostracised. I did report it. The mother complained to anyone listening about how SS were interfering, but everyone knew what the issues were.

Once again. I am sure most HE parents are doing a grand job. How do we ID the ones who aren't attending the weekly groups and enrichment activities, who might need support from an outside agency?

Where are these independent experts, that won't be swayed by an agenda (by the government funding their data)
Where have they been trained to full understand home education, SEND, cultural differences (and where the line blues between cultural different but acceptable norms and unacceptable practices), how have they been trained to understand the differences between children in recovery from school trauma and those in a traumatic situation.

Seems like this is a very unique and skilled position. I don't think there is any or many people trained across the board and to a high enough level to manage all of those criteria

@Ludovico FFS you come across here as hopefully naïve. Nearly all parents whose kids are taken away by SS also love their children.
Children can be badly neglected but the parents simply see it as normal busy parents struggling. The idea that it is always sadistic and deliberate abuse is simply not true.

Maybe start with the families who have been reported to SS while at school and who are known to be violet and the children have protection orders.
If they disappear they should be followed up and checked on by social services.

If we can safeguard children known to be at risk then that should be where we start

@Changeagain3 this is what worries me too. What constitutes a good education is SO subjective. Even in the HE community, there is such a huge spectrum of approaches. Who wouldn’t get to deem it ‘suitable’ or not? Who will be qualified to decide this? It is so open to misjudgment…. one random person coming along who knows nothing at all about your child and their personalities, likes, dislikes, passions, style of learning etc and thinks an education is best done sat at a table with a pen in hand. It would require so serious training for someone to be allowed to do this role. It is so open to misunderstanding and misinterpretation.

Surely the starting point should be to promote child safety? Children in school get some sort of oversight, however faulty. Those who are HE will not if the parent does not choose to take them to the GP, outside classes etc. So the state should organise a regular review of HE children away from the parent. To identify the hopefully low percentage who are using HE to abuse their child.

When one of my DSs was younger he had a few accidents (scooted into a lamppost, fell while he was scrambling around some rocks in the park etc). A&E questioned both me and him quite closely (and separately) and so they should. We should accept a reasonable level of scrutiny to keep children safe in the same way we accept DBS checks IMO.

This 100%

But if the child experienced more extreme views at home; would a school environment not help with letting them experience a broader range of views?

The point being the support isn't there for families known to SS. You can not get extra resources when the resources we have now aren't even protecting the known risk children.

Why would diluting that resource further to HE families not a risk be sensible at this time.
Ie how would checking up on HE families protect children who are already known to be at risk.

It wouldn't because HE in it self isn't a risk.

If I saw a possible at risk child at swimming pool and raised a safeguarding risk correctly. SS need to be able to step up and do their job correctly (meaning they have to be fully resourced ) to offer protection to that child.

Safeguarding is everyone responsibility. But if the SS support and systems are not adequate - abuse continues as evident by Sara.

The threshold for removing children due to neglect is very high apparently. I remember someone on here once said the level of neglect isn’t a toothpaste stained jumper or washing lying around a messy house and a hole in socks….. she said it’s kids playing in a house with dog shit everywhere.

I can’t remember what else’s she said but I can remember that, so it’s not something the average person would view as in anyway acceptable.

Tbh before changes are made to schools or HE it needs to go more basic than that.

If a child of 10 was in the radar before she was born, has been in care twice, has been through the family courts several times, and is placed with a father who is known to be violent then it shouldn’t matter if she goes to school, is HE, goes to Forrest school or dances in the woods for fairy lessons - that child should be so firmly on SS’s radar that regular visits with a trusted social worker should be common place.

Having extra occasional checks on children isn’t going to prevent things like this when social services are dismissing concerns after a 6 week investigation and when family courts are giving custody to known violent men.

It needs to go back to the very basics of children having a right to be safe.

None of this parental rights - I don’t have rights to my children I have responsibilities to them. If parents fail in those responsibilities, as Sara’s father did multiple times, then socials services should step in properly, as they did in two occasions previously, and remove the child. As they did for her sibling.

Everything else is pissing in the wind of the system fails when the danger is already known.

*6 day investigation

I think even children at school will follow their parents views especially if the views are extreme and vital part of that life.

If anything, I think sometimes these children are more at risk as if they do activities or behave in away that is against the family view they can become targets

That is never ok but until SS can actually support fully children at risk this is the situation

I know the threshold is very high. But I have been in hoarders houses who minimise it as just a bit of a mess. Or mums who do not feed their children enough as they are worried about them getting fat describing this as making sure they do not overeat.

I agree op. I know someone who home schools four children with no oversight. They have a lot of fairly kooky beliefs like anti vax, etc. and are not well educated themselves. It concerns me that people can just educate their kids with no oversight. I don't think it's in the bed interest of the child.

There are lots of parents HE who have a low level of educational attainment themselves.

And?

Who decides how much hoarding is too much though? I’ve got friends who have pristine houses and others where it’s chaotic and cluttered and messy, to the point you can’t see the kitchen worktop. The kids are grown up now and have had a wonderful happy life. Their hosue being cluttered means they get to go away on trips often so my friend isn’t as bothered how the hosue is as she’s too busy having a good time and taking here kids here
there any everywhere.

Not everyone lives the same way and it could be argued an immaculate house is a hosue where there is no joy as the kids aren’t allowed to make any mess. They said on the news last night that the hosue in this tragic was well kept.

The not feeding them enough is horrendous and that does physical cause harm to the kid of course and needs intervention

I think there are several issues here

SS are not always effective at identifying and protecting at risk children (in any environment including schools) with awful consequences

In addition; all children has a right to an education. As part of this; and where they are able to; gaining qualifications will help that child to access further education and employment

I would guess that many home educated children receive a good quality of education and for some children; home education might offer the best outcomes for their needs.

There should be more support for home educated families; particularly to enable children to access exams so that they can gain the qualifications they will need

In a school environment; education is monitored and inspected; with attention paid to whether children are making progress

A proportionate and fair system of ensuring that all children are receiving a good education; regardless of setting would be in the best interests of all children.

In addition; it could also help to highlight where children have been withdrawn from school not with the intention of providing a warm and caring education; but instead as a cover for abuse

Just this week the ONS released a report saying that on the Autumn school census date there were 39,400 kids classed as "Children Missing Education", up from 33,000 the previous year.

86% had been absent for more than 2 weeks.

https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-missing-education

That excludes the number of children the local authorities know are home educated or at private school.

Perhaps even many. Particularly for secondary children, imo HE cannot give children the breadth of education they need. We are failing children by not ensuring any education outside the home and no supervision.

In fact the opposite. LA's making parents join long wait times for tribunals even though it is obvious that professional reports and advice should lawfully be added to EHCPs, and that some children do just need a specialist school or specialist provision. The wait for justice is for both children in school and HE children where EOTIS is requested, in many many cases LA's flout the law with impunity as there is no oversight for them.If I was in government that's where I would spend my money, on making sure accountability to the law was happening.

After 8 years of fighting, I would say my view of how both 2 schools and the LA have behaved over many years amounts to institutional abuse. Their actions have at times almost broken us as a family.

That's why I am laughing hollowly at the thought of HE families with SEN children being 'supported'. It's a cruel irony.