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?

And what did the school do then?

If they had really cared for this child they would have followed up on what happened to her, pushed SS for action.

Suspicions should have been raised when she was withdrawn to 'home school'.

Home educating is a massive red herring in this case.

This is a child who was on social services radar before she was even born.

She was taken into care more than once before she even started school. A sibling was removed from the family permanently.

Her school made multiple reports to social services and were told to keep an eye on her. Her still being enrolled at school would not have save her because social services, the family court and the judge who’d been involved with decisions for the family multiple times were failing her.

We must not allow this case to turn into a school VS Home Ed debate. That will allow the real failings to be left aside and the focus put on an unnecessary debate.

If social services and the family courts had done their jobs properly then it wouldn’t have matter if Sara was still enrolled at school or not. She’d have been removed from a clearly unsafe setting and dangerous father.

I agree. I think any families thoroughly home educating their child won't worry but those who are hiding behind it it will offer a level of protection to the child.

Her school made multiple reports to SS.

They are not the ones that let this child down.

I would imagine so. I don't think anyone's claiming that social services are perfect, far from it. Every few years there's a case and there is much hand wringing and they promise to get it right next time, and then it happens again.

It's a massively complex area and we all know people working in safeguarding and child protection are overworked and underpaid. But checking up on children who are not coming into contact with schools is a quick win, imho.

That's not true. They reported to social services more than once. Teachers are not allowed to go round and remove kids from their home, it's social services that need to do that. The abuse got far, far worse in the 4 months after she was removed from school. They removed her after the school had reported them a couple of times. It's not true that the abuse was just as severe when she was still at school.

If you read the, very upsetting, report on Sara’s life on the BBC you’ll see that social services and the family courts are entirely to blame for the poor child being left in such a horrific setting for so long despite numerous reported issues

She was taken into care previously? Wow, if this is true why is this not being reported...

It is truly bizarre that this story is being used to try and paint a negative picture of home educators.

Gosh, rude!

The point is that as well as places where children afe educated, school is ALSO - meaning, in addition to - an independent pair of eyes for all sorts of things including safeguarding. It’s also where some children get to eat some food. Where teachers give them educational supplies, a shoulder to lean on, friends to confide in, a warm and dry place to be. This cannot be the case for home-schooled children.

This isn’t about you. Nobody is talking about you and your home schooled children. If you’ve nothing to worry about, wouldn’t you spare a thought for children who should be worried about?

As it happens I’m generally against schools being in loco parentis for anything, but in cases as severe as this schools are more than buildings with people in them. They’re places where, for the greatest part, normal and compassionate and kind humans co-exist for the majority of a child’s waking hours (during the school year) and where relationships are necessarily formed. The janitor or secretary or librarian could be the person who spots something, doesn’t have to be the teacher doing the education. Your response is narrow and small-minded.

If the school weren't able to do anything about what was happening to her, what on earth makes you think a home education officer would have any greater influence?

This case surely highlights the problem with underfunding, unstaffing and lack of power for social workers.

This. Most children who are abused go to school. Look at poor Arthur, and Star (though she was only a toddler). There is no oversight for toddlers pre-school, one child every week gets killed by their family - most are at school, mostly the abuse goes on and nothing is done. Schools and wider family may report incidents but nothing is done. I don't know that - even if HE children were monitored for safeguarding - it would improve anything. Broken systems everywhere. People (abusers) take advantage of the gaps. I would not be against it, I just don't think it would prove effective.

I mean FGS, if the LA didn't bother to follow up school concerns, even with Urfan's vast back catalogue of vile behaviour, what chance has any other vulnerable child got?

I find it strange when homeschoolers claim teachers didn't report the bruises so being in school wouldn't have helped, when it's been widely reported that they did.
Also the claim that the abuse was just as bad when she was at school as the 4 months after she was taken out. Odd but it keeps being trotted out.

its in the BBC’s report. She and her siblings were in care several times, one of her siblings was never returned to the family.

Obviously lots of details had to be held back until the trial was finished.

Her poor life was horrific. She was failed horrifically by social services and the family courts (the same judge dealt with the family several times).

It must not be allowed to turn into a debate about HE because this child was failed long before she was removed from school.

This - all day long!

Home schooling has very little to do with it. She was let down by social services.

Just like plenty of cases when children are in school, sometimes even with schools failing to safeguard as well.

The teachers did report though didn't they?
So what difference would it make if a home education officer reported bruises?

Arthur and Star were killed in 2020 which was lockdown.

Can you not? A young girl is dead because checks weren’t carried out. This isn’t entertainment.

I saw that Sara was taken off her mother to live with her father. Despite his history.

Family courts and social services seem willfully blind to abusive men , her mother had poor English and no money so could not properly represent herself against him .

I agree homeschooling in this case is a red herring, but it shows the dangers of letting children disappear.

Sara could not reach out for help, had she still been in school maybe she could have.

All children need someone outside of their families that they can speak to.

Your explanation makes no sense. You can’t separate abusers from non-abusers without proper, regular checks.

What do you think is written on your forehead that says you’re not an abuser?

I don't think they should have been allowed to home school in the first place with the father's history

All home schooling families should be visited annually and the children should have time with the assessor without the parents present for a few minutes. Anyone home schooling with additional needs or other complicating factors let's say should have the oversight increased. The money for this comes out of the money saved because they are not in school!

Oh ok, we'll just ask parents if they promise they're doing it for educational reasons rather than abuse then.