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?

Do you believe schools are giving all children the education they need ?
Breadth isn't always a good thing when children can't master the basics and are being taught harder and harder concepts and haven't grasped the foundation knowledge.

In fact a HV once said to me I am more worried about homes where no mess appears to be allowed. It suggests a kind of over controlled environment where children can't be children. Of course there's a happy medium, Social workers are trained to think about these things (I've been looking at SW books at work today at a University where students on various courses are trained on child protection). Some of the accounts were off the chart (child eating from dog's bowl, child playing with a bleach bottle and unattended, dog sh*t everywhere and a crawling baby!). I think we can all agree there needs to be some basic hygiene and safety.

Sadly, in Sara's case the home environment was apparently normal as far as housekeeping was concerned. Just not in any other way.

Abuse and neglect can be insidious and well hidden when perpetrators wish it.

That's why you'd need an army of well qualified social workers to check safeguarding, and by all accounts people are leaving the profession in droves.
The government needs to look at LA's closely and fund them properly to ensure, as much as possible, that children are kept safe.

There are scales of hoarding with photos to rate the hoarding. Not being able to see a kitchen worktop would not be an issue. I am talking about things piled up so high there are corridors of belongings between rooms. Or not being able to reach the bathroom sink or bath.

Buy it would just be the same of the kids went school

To be honest it just costs to much to tackle child abuse and no one wants to pay. Police, social services and education need a huge investment - the bank is empty.

Expecting adequate safeguarding with the resourcing available is akin to expecting a to be able to cook Christmas dinner when you have only a tin of beans in the cupboard.

There are also very few places to take children who are removed from their parents and the cost so much money.

The same can be said with school kids.

What you’re suggesting is that patents are vetted before they educate their own children. If they have SS involvement already then yes. Buy not if there is no evidence. The state do not own our children.

It’s the minority that abuse children - inside and out side of the school setting.

I taught kids in and out of schools for 10 years. So I think I have a pretty good grasp of what schools can actually do

I agree.

It's completely banned in Germany.

And what about those that don't? Should they just be forgotten about?

All of this.
Child placements are largely run by business for profit. The cost is prohibitive.
I worked in CP and home education was always a red flag for me especially when other indicators are there also.

I seem to remember in the awful case of Khyra Ishaq in Birmingham, the abuse got even worse , when she was removed from school .

A beautiful child is born and immediately put on the child protection register because her father is known to be abusive to women and children.
Child is murdered age 10 after years of abuse.
Experts, whose jobs to protect children are now pointing the finger at the system of . EHE in Britain.
Surely being in danger from birth shows the problem was the father.
Why was he allowed near her.

I know a man who had his 3 children taken off him because of physical abuse in 2011. By 2018 he was with another woman - a teacher - she has had 2 children with him but they have her name to keep SS out of it.
When I reported them SS in the area this lovely couple live in were not interested because his historic abuse from 7 years earlier was in another part of the country.
Why would a teacher have babies with a man who had 3 children took off him and she knows full well covering his tracks.

Actually normally I'm a bit dubious about additional state intervention but apparently the government said it would introduce a new duty so that parents need local authority consent to home-school children if the child is subject to a protection plan.

This seems a sensible middle ground. The threshold for a Child Protection Plan is pretty high.

@Ludovico if you were a teacher what do you think the school should have done that it didn't? They did report.

@ThePoshUns my DH has a client that is involved with foster placements, they make a fortune. It is so wrong. Again I was talking to someone involved with a state Special school. The difference in the amount it 'costs' to educate a child with SEN in an independent special school compared to a state special school is phenomenal. The money is going to the wrong people.

I don't quite know myself where the line should be, but I've also seen some toddlers parented dubiously and I wouldn't agree to mandatory childcare from birth. There is a balance of family rights that really is more important than some posters are making out.

In the end it comes down to money.

I was in education for 32 yrs. As Social Services; Education; Education Welfare Services; Local Authority budgets were cut year on year - even BEFORE 14 years of Tory Austerity, I witnessed the paring back of essential services so that everyone had to try to do more and more with less and less.

I would say there is zero chance of adequate monitoring for at-risk Home Educated children now or in the near future. Also factor in the impact of losses like Sure Start Centres; Library closures; Youth Provision.

We absolutely need good Local Authority provision and a web of well-funded social care to get anywhere near where we were before the "No Such Thing As Society" mantra enabled the privileged very few to steal what was there for everybody. Oh, and don't forget the stealth privatisation of the NHS. The personal is very political, unfortunately. We have been robbed.

I agree this is sensible.

Hitler banned home education so that he could have maximal control of German youth through the education system. Not exactly an argument for banning parental choice, is it?

@GlovesScarfAndBoots And illegal in other countries like France and Sweden.

The local authority is ultimately responsible for overseeing the child's education if home-schooled. The parent should submit a lessons schedule with targets to be achieved.

Both Sweden and France don't start mandatory school till age 6

The curriculum is also very different

Sweden have alternative schools which are all about individual learning

Maternelle is compulsory from age 3 in France

I was a teacher and we had a pupil who ran away from home ran to school. She had a broken bottle and threatened to cut herself. She was known to social services. Obviously we spoke to them above this. Their action was to close the case.

All of these countries do not allow HE.

1. Germany
2. Sweden
3. Norway (for children under the age of 12)
4. Austria (for children over the age of 15)
5. Greece
6. France
7. Finland
8. Belgium
9. Italy
10. Portugal
11. Czech Republic

Home ed is legal in France but is not common. A degree of oversight us involved. If the child attends school it is mandatory from 3.

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F23429?lang=en

Hillarious
State the country's in you have parents with additional needs children being forced to home ed
Ya think they care?