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?

I’m not suggesting that your HE system is illegal or should be made illegal. It’s a forum for random strangers to share their opinions and I stand by mine - that the combination of social services that are slow, understaffed and/or unwilling to react (possibly all three) and the ability of parents to remove the children from schools leave children that are victims of abuse virtually helpless.

The OP’s question was about more oversight and yes I think there should be more oversight.

I believe one of the reasons why access to HE is so severely restricted in my country is the lack of funding for this extra oversight.

I don’t know, I don’t assume that all HE children are in high income families with access to so many great resources. Unless of course these resources are free?

I posted in this thread after reading one of the links another PP posted that listed many high profile cases of children tortured to death by family members, children who “fell through the cracks” and were literally out of sight. The stories are truly tragic and shocked me. If extra oversight could prevent deaths like those I think it would be a positive step.

Did you read the numerous and higher % of links about children abused and killed by family that attended school and the cases like Sara where the child risk of harm was known and SS did nothing to protect them

But none of the high profile kids were home educated.
Daniel Pelka - school child. Star Hobson - under 5. Arthur L - schoolchild although died at home during lockdown. Sara - schoolchild for 5 years, taken out of school in April. She died in summer holidays, would most likely died even if still at school as clearly something caused the things to escalate.

A slightly different take but I had to remove my child from school and home educate to safeguard him. Being ND he was utterly overwhelmed by a school environment which was central to his poor mental health. A combination of abysmally awful school support and anxiety. I felt cornered into deregistering to safeguard my son. Thankfully home education was an essential life line, offering recovery and a child centred education in a popular home ed area. A few years later and he’s on an engineering apprenticeship in the workplace and thriving.

Exactly that. My son was abused at school and so was my friend's son (no SEN). Hers is past teen years but got very very close to killing himself.

Also.. baby is born and we trust parents to look after them, up until 5. There are no compulsory checks anywhere, right? No one to 'keep an eye on them'.
So, we allow vulnerable babies to exist without any checks at all (nursery isn't compulsory, neither is health visitor check at 2yo, in my area they don't even bother with them), then suddenly at age 5 they need daily safeguarding.
What's the change?
Surely child is more vulnerable to abuse when young and parent is sleep deprived bc said child never sleeps? Or when permanently colicky? Or when having three under 5 and you try to get out of the house without losing your mind?
From memory all the articles will say something like.. if you feel angry, put the baby down, go outside, don't pick them up until calm. What if mother won't/can't do that? Where is the safeguarding?

Now on the other hand if quality of home ed was what's the focus is on, fine. Entirely different matter.

I read that she was on an at risk register from birth? As I understand it, the courts gave custody to someone known to have been violent and then it took years with her in school for abuse to be noticed. She was only out of school for a short while and I think was killed during the school holidays? This was a failure of social services but instead of more money going to social services so they can follow through on known abuse cases, it will go on a register of low risk families. In any case already today where a child is withdrawn from school and the school has had suspicions of abuse, they notify social services. How does a list make a difference? Keeping a child in school doesn’t keep them safe from harm. This child was on an actual at risk list and in school for years! The tragedy is known cases of abuse are not being properly monitored.

At one of the meetings, the mum basically ranted and raved she didn't even 'want the little fuckers' she hated them, they ruined her life. Stormed out of the room screaming about how much she hated these kids they were in another room in the same corridor and heard her. She refused to take them home and walked out.

They were finally placed with one of the children's paternal relatives. They were dressed properly in clean clothes, had shoes that fit, were getting breakfast each day and sleeping well. I was gutted when they moved schools to their new area, but it was for best for them. I still think about them now and wonder how they are doing.

So, if SS won't even deal with cases like this, even if some children were identified as 'at risk' from home ed, what is actually going to change?
I guarantee that LA will not receive extra funding to monitor register so funds will come from SS budgets which means even less money for serious cases like Sara.

I’m sorry your son had to endure this. Sadly it is becoming an all too common occurrence.

The media and government should be reporting that home education is SAFETY NET for children in the UK.

of course home education is NOT a safety net
how on earth can that be

This is very true, but I believe after the horrific cruelty and death of Daniel Pelka, there was some legislation introduced so that a mandatory reporting system was put in place for school staff who notice any signs of abuse or neglect?
Not that if makes any difference if social workers are going to ignore bruises and close their files, but it is there, which is why removing vulnerable children from school should not be allowed.

How on earth do you know anything about our education system when you’re not even British or live here?

I suggest you go back and read the full thread to see how exactly HERE in the uk home education IS a safety net.

It is a safety net for some kids. It is a licence for abuse and indoctrination for others. Without some kind of oversight you can't tell the proportions of each group or ID the latter to offer support.

you have me confused with another poster
i am british
i do live here

are you arguing with all posters or just taking it out on me?

If a child is being bullied in school, it is.

Also, what about things like "Everyone's Invited" which showed a huge amount of peer on peer sexual abuse in schools? I actually know a mum who's planning to home educate her daughter because of her own horrific experiences of sexual abuse in the school system.

A home educated child with a loving safe family (which the vast majority of children do have) is almost certainly at lower risk of abuse overall than a child in school. This should be acknowledged in any conversation about safeguarding.

I believe safeguarding was in place way before than that.
And let's say we identify the rare home ed chold who might be suffering abuse and make them go to school. What actually changed for them?
School will keep making referral after referral but now SS have even less funding (bc they also oversee HE register), ao child will be identified but still abused.
I don't see anything working any better without much much higher funding so SW don't have 30 cases each on the go.

I have few friends with SEN who's children are on s47 because of 'neglect'. They aren't neglected but must be put on it in order to help them get SEN school space/residential space.
This is because 'disability SW teams' who are meant to help those kids and give families things like respite are long gone.
So in order to get funding they go through s47.
Major time suck for SW. This should be completely sorted elsewhere (education dept of LA), but they don't have budgets either.
Another friend has an education lawyer on monthly retainer. She has spent at least 100k on fighting for help for her SEN child, who also has a major school trauma. Situation is that he attempted suicide several times and threatened family with knife. He desperately needs residential but no says LA. Child is tutored at home, paid by LA.

I have friends who home educate. I have friends who removed their children from formal education to 'un-school' them.. I don't have a problem with EHE per se.

I work with children . I get referrals from home edders because they have concerns about their children, and then they are very anxious and quite defensive about me coming to see the child at home. Usually I'd see the child at school. If their home is their school, then it makes sense to see them there.
We have had several letters from parents telling us they do not give consent for us to share our data about their child with any other services.

We're trained to be professionally curious re safeguarding, not judgemental, but these cases make me wonder why people do what they do and what they are hiding.

Some of our kids get an annual review from education. It's really helpful, actually, if we can share our findings with education. It means that more support can be offered to the 7yo who we've found can't write their own name, doesn't have appropriate letter formation etc but somehow, for their annual review has produced an entire page of writing...

our ehcp annual reviews are telephone calls, i wonder if these will need to be changed to face to face

I apologise for confusing you and no if you read back through the thread you will see that I most certainly am not ‘arguing’ with ‘all posters’, quite the contrary, but I am frustrated by the ridiculous, unfounded, sweeping statements from people who know absolutely nothing about HE and by the scapegoating that is happening here.

HE is not the issue in Sara’s case, nor is it a safeguarding concern in general. It is easier though for the government to distract people from their failings by making people THINK that HE children are at higher risk when they are proven not to be. The courts and social services are the ones we should be concerned about. They’re the ones we should be monitoring more closely as they are clearly failing far too many children.

To take it back to the thread title, they’re the ones who should accept more scrutiny and accountability.

From my experience..
I applied for EHCP back in 2018. It was issued. Many mistakes, so me being naive thought they were oversight. Child stopped attending school after 3 months bc it didn't cater to them. LA has a duty to provide alternative education, which is what I requested (had engaged EP and paediatric services at this point). It took me 6 months to realise they are dragging their feet to save money.
Took 3 years to fight for the education, we 'won' home tutor which was going fantastically well. LA removed said tutor after a year and insisted school is the right place (not even assesed child by their EP). Child took a year to develop that trusting relationship and be able to leave house. They are so traumatised from their school time they won't even stay with close family, never mind make the way to school. I have EP paperwork (several) that my child needs EOTAS (home tutoring) but LA won't fund it. So home ed is the next thing for us.
In the meantime we had 5 unwarranted SS referrals. Always on one of kids birthdays and/or Christmas. The damage that this toxic dept inflicted on myself is immense. I was diagnosed with PTSD relating to LA.

I found SW reasonable. I also engage with Home ed dept who are also reasonable.
Do I trust them to not f**k me over again? Nope.
Hence the reason between not sharing data. The less I interact with EHCP dept, the better.

My apologies that I am not responding to everyone separately, but I followed the links kindly provided and one of the common denominators is that the abused children were out of sight - some, as it was pointed to me were under the school age. Some, like Daniel Pelka had an alarming absence rate at school which should be a huge red flag for a child that was starved! Sara was removed from school in April, died in August so 4 months out of sight.

It’s surprising that children under 5 have a possibility of no outside contact - what about routine health checks, vaccination schedules, etc? If a child misses these appointments - then surely more oversight is the answer?

If there are so many possibilities of having the child removed from public/social settings and out of sight, then more oversight is better than less oversight?
I understand the argument of lack of funding but any calls for more oversight should be followed by more funding, surely any remotely normal government understand that?

I also understand that the government don’t have any money, they have to come from taxpayers so in the only solution that works in the long run is to have more adults in the workforce and working FT, not fewer.

This thread has been an interesting insight and I think I understand better what the expression “I’m alright, Jack” means. I don’t know if throwing any money at the problem can fix the collective attitude of sacrificing the most vulnerable members of the society as long as my child/my workplace/my job is fine. I appreciate the lessons in cultural differences and I’m out.

The people who are saying it isn't homeschooling fault are missing the point.

It isn't that people think genuine homeschoolers are turning into abusers.

It's that abusers will misuse "homeschooling" to abuse.

We know that abusers will set up situations to be able to abuse in "peace". Like people who volunteer at scouts or church because it gives them the opportunity.
No one would deny that we should check volunteers at these places because the majority are doing it because they want to help and be a positive influence on the children.

In exactly the same way someone who wants to abuse their school aged child finds this one way to do it without being challenged or having the risk that their child discloses to an adult.
Isn't it easier if they know that no adults will see their child to raise concerns, or have the potential for their child to be able to disclose what they are doing away from them?
You must be able to see that.

Yes, it's a hassle. In the same way getting a dbs is a hassle.
For one volunteering thing I do, I have to take half a day off work to go to a place I rarely go, drive over an hour there, pay for parking (after driving round and round to try and find a rare space), drive back again - just to get my dbs because it has to be done during office hours at a certain place. And yes, I have got the update service, but they still need to see some ID in person.
But if I don't do it, I cannot do this volunteering - which incidentally doesn't benefit me or my children in any way, but benefits other peoples' children.
And I have 3 other current DBSes, one held by the same group but in a different capacity.

I know that I am no danger to the children, and I have in this role picked up safeguarding issues which have taken danger away from children. (or rather the children away from danger). So why should I have this hassle?
Because if it saves a child from abuse it is worth it.

The vast majority of people who volunteer with children are not abusers but you'd still expect them to get a DBS. And all a dbs says is "this person has not been caught at this moment in time". But we accept having to do it, because it protects children from a very small minority of people.
This is the same thing.

Abusers will always find a way. Look at the father in Sara case. Able to work out how to hide abuse. Do you think that those that will want to abuse will register?
Nope, they will avoid doctors, hospitals etc. If this is done on basis of 'anyone who pays council tax is deemed to reside at address' - they will just name themselves John Smith and pay the C tax that way. There will be loopholes always, and those that will want to evade them will find them. We will just tick another box and feel happy they are safe.
And what will we do with under 5s who are NOT on any register?

So you're saying we shouldn't bother with DBSes because "abusers will always find a way"?

I agree they will.
Doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make it harder.