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?

Nope, it's to strip funding because no govt will increase budget to compensate.
Not like 'needs' will just dissapear.

I am really sorry , sadly you are not alone.

But funding has been increasing for years. There is not a lack of funding. It is how it is being used.

The rising funding is not even enough to cover the deficit that most of LA are in.

https://ifs.org.uk/publications/spending-special-educational-needs-england-something-has-change

Some LAs are supposedly rationing EHCPs and at least one is proposing to fine schools thousands of pounds for every child they exclude because they have no money. Absolute disaster for schools and for children. Why spend thousands of pounds to try and help support a child if you are then potentially going to have to pay a fine probably equivalent to that cost if you have to exclude

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjdneg0m59yo#:~:text=A%20council%20is%20planning%20to,a%20massive%20overspend%20in%20education.

School cannot remove a child. They can only report. Which her school did but the concerns were not taken further/acted upon.

My school has this week reported concerns to the relevant authorities. We have been told that the child has not been flagged as a cause for concern previously by anyone (she’s new to our school) and our concerns aren’t sufficient to warrant immediate intervention so they can’t do anything. All we can do is encourage parents to seek help if we believe they are ‘struggling’. We have potentially sent a child home into an unsafe situation and there is absolutely nothing we can do. We can’t refuse allow the parent to leave with her. We can’t keep her ourselves over the weekend. We have reported and been told no action is necessary.

All we can do is cross fingers over the weekend. It’s horrible.

But again, she is now on their system. If she were being ‘HE’ then there would still be no record at all.

It's not just schools who can report. Anyone can make report safeguarding concerns to SS.

But has your experience shows nothing is done when reports are made from schools

She was removed 4 months before she died.

@Userdfgh if you are genuine can you really not see the damage you potentially inflicted on many children. The same children you say you care so much about. Thankfully though a SW can’t order a child back to a specific school so you either a troll or just have an agenda,

Maybe not... But how do women work in that system? Four hours a day and not starting until they're eight?

There are nurseries of course and afterschool care. But it's voluntary. So if child wants/needs to go home, they go home. If they want to stay, they stay.
Another difference is when child is sick, they stay home. And if certain % of kids is sick in the school, the whole school has a few days/week off.

Not a troll but you're correct I don't have the power to order a child to attend a specific school and if you read my post correctly I didn't say that, but the courts do and their decisions are based on evidence supplied by people like me. If the local authority is not satisfied that the parents are providing a suitable education to a child of compulsory school age and it is appropriate for the child to attend school, they can apply for a School Attendance Order under Section 437(3) Education Act 1996.
The order will require the child's parents to register the child at a named school. I only ever used it once.
I don't know what damage you think a visit from me would inflict on a child but my role was only ever to get the best outcome for the families I visited. If you read my previous posts you'll see that most families had one very friendly visit and never saw me again. Most of my time was spent working with people who needed me. I appreciate people start spiralling when they hear the dreaded phrase 'social worker' and many have a bad experience BUT I was employed by the LEA not Social Services. There are many different types of social worker and I did not have any powers as regards safeguarding and child protection. Often I found myself arguing with them to take on cases; successfully arguing with CAMHS to get kids bumped up the waiting list; negotiating with schools to take kids back because the schools had told families to home educate; successfully advocating for specialist SEN provision and assisting families with accessing funding and support; getting kids into specialist hospital education units; working with youth offending services and behavioural units. So yes, you are also correct in thinking I had an agenda, just not the one lots of people here think I had. If I'm honest I'm not sure I even know what agenda people think I have.
Home education is a minefield and a nightmare for some families and it leaves them isolated and vulnerable. If some people have to 'endure' a visit they don't want or need in order for me to identify children and families that do need and want support then I'm fine with that.

We already have a system for this - Children's Services. The problem is they are not properly funded so aren't able to do their job properly. This is where the focus needs to be.

I probably would have said the same in the past. Now I know better.

I wanted my DC to be safe at school. Did the Head of her school and the attendance officer at the LA? Well, they certainly acted as if they couldn't give a damn. I had to deregister in the end. If the LA suggested they inspect me in order 'to keep my child safe' I'd laugh in their face.

Fair enough. I'm not sure how all of that is funded, as it sounds far more expensive than the UK system. I wonder if the childcare is paid or free?

So yes, some pupils with less complex SEND wouldn't need EHCP-level support. But I'm also not sure how they would learn to read/write and do basic maths in 4 hours per day, with much less focus on these areas, and without additional support. I'm talking about pupils with cognition and learning needs here. Those with SEMH needs might find a less pressured system more manageable, which would be a real benefit.

I think it's a shame that genuinely alternative models aren't considered by government, as all indications seem that the systems need to change, not just tacking on ever-increasing EHCP funding to support children who could do well if they were in a school environment that was suitable.

Weirdly, SEN kids just learn to read/write as normal. I think bc starting age is higher everyone is just more ready.
Funding - not that well funded at all. State nurseries are very cheap, but not enough spaces. Private nurseries pricey but nowhere near as much as here. Difference is that lots of people have extended family atound so leave kids with grandparents/aunts etc.

I think we definitely need alternative models. Forest school, montessori, shorter days, later start age. For secondary - things like business management schools, IT schools etc, so kids who are not bothered about going to uni and are crazy about computers can get on with it.

And one thing that blew my mind..
In UK 30% of kids are always destined to fail their exams.
Why would you have a system that gets the whole country to compete against each other?
At home kids take final exams against set criteria and are marked against it. If everyone does well, everyone gets a good grade. Normally the distribution would be (we have grades 1-5) along grades 1-3, a few might get 4 and I don't know anyone who got 5 (fail).

SEN kids are also weirdly more integrated into day to day life. No crazy health and safety notices everywhere, less people knowing about autism, which means my child went and did absolutely everything with his siblings. Everyone just gets on with things, because it's a poorer country and no time to be philosophical about issues.

Reading about the high rates of school absence across the UK, I strongly believe it is correlated with the decrease of mental health and social work provision for young people and families, and potentially a lot of the cases fall off a radar - with Covid having escalated it further. The thresholds for referrals are ridiculously high in both services and not based on the child's immediate need but on services (limited) capacity - with 'no immediate risk school can monitor and take steps if necessary' approach for most. The responsibility and potential risk issues to deal with for staff working in schools are huge, and I would never ever dream about being a teacher, or social worker, right now - hats off to those who are.

I do feel for teachers. They are asked to be social worker, MH practitioner, therapist, SEN expert at same time as doing their daily job.
Classes of 30 are enormous anyway (why private is 18) and if you add even just 2 or 3 kids with varying needs, it's impossible.
Govt had now decided that SEN is too expensive so most autistic kids will end up back in mainstream in name of inclusion.
Even if you take Aspergers type ones, they struggle with noise/crowds/fast pace.
That's why it's important that option to home ed, and also to have flexibility to do as people see fit is there.

If the option for my child to have exactly what he needs was there (it isn't) and it was guaranteed he isn't abused in specialist setting (as many are), I would send him.
But there isn't and won't be because it costs a lot.
My son's placement in semi-suitable school (not what he needs but if school was flexible could have possibly worked) was £45,000. Before therapy costs and faxi (another £30-40k on top). It was an hour each way. Now how many parents would send their 5yo in a random taxi for 2 hours each day, with no chaperone? Why do SEN kids have to do it?
And Sara's dad was a potential taxi driver for SEN kids.

Also, if education is that important, why are schools allowed to exclude? Talking mainly about pre-GCSE, where schools exclude bc child isn't getting good grades and school don't want their results spoiled? Why do schools dictate which GCSE's subject will kids take (this one does latin, that one only functional level english).
Where do those kids go?

At that late stage they usually, in my experience, go to PRUs.

i was talking more about well behaved but academically weak kids.

the will have to accept more oversight
and should know why
in other countries home schooling is simply not allowed

Schools aren't allowed to off roll kids to improve their results and would get into trouble with ofsted if they did that. Latin might not be the best choice for someone who needed functional English

Doesn't mean it doesn't go on
https://www.servicestoschools.org.uk/Article/72081
Maybe not the best example with latin, but maybe..
this child is predicted D in geography (even thought they love subject), bs this child is predicted A (not much interest in subject but can ace it).

Schools aren't allowed to off roll children, but they most certainly do. I consider than my daughter was off rolled, I complained to the governors, they bounced my complaint back to the school, I complained to ofsted and as far as I know nothing came of it. Anyway I wouldn't send her back there even if you threaten to lock me up and throw away the key.