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?

The school monitoring her injuries didn't make a difference. I don't see what difference a council worker intermittently monitoring her injuries would make.
Social services should have intervened well before she was removed from school.

The school reported their concerns multiple times, including when she was removed.

In many cases, even before school age, children are failed, slipping through the cracks. Police attended, but were told child was in care. No-one followed up to check where he was or if he was safe. Poor baby, he was already dead by this point. Severe neglect. Who should have been looking out for him and all the other small children. who might not even be able to talk!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c704pl9nnzzo

Another sad case (child at school)

https://news.sky.com/story/daniel-pelka-starving-boy-4-ate-from-bin-10443828

I don't know why people have children when they hate them so much or lack the basic sense to keep them alive and well.

It's shocking to the core, whether they are in or out of the school system.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/22/concerns-raised-about-boy-who-died-of-scurvy-a-year-before-his-death-leaked-report

(child with SEND, out of school, HE).

No there shouldn’t be over sight if we want to HE our kids. I don’t HE by the way.

The vast majority of these abused children are already known to SS and are in school/nursery. so you’d be making it harder for normal families to HE.

The Government already have huge control over our children - having to check if we can HE our own children is an insidious over reach of autonomy of our own kids. The government do not own our children - we do. which is ironic as we could potentially go to prison for taking your child on holiday during term time.

People are so quick to sign theirs and other peoples rights away to the government it’s odd

This was my experience for the year I homeschooled too. No calls or visits. Just an email to which I replied with details of visits to the natural history museum/Egyptian project we were doing. They could care less.

Please don't blame schools.
The threshold for SS involvement is much higher than it used to be - despite all the 'Lessons will be learned' and services apparently talking to each other.
I have a child in my class who I am constantly raising concerns about - and often feeding and taking clean / warm clothes, PE / swimming kits etc for....
I swear the RSPCA are more concerned about the family dog than SS are about the children.

Surely if there are already multiple concerns, the response when the child is withdrawn should be to trigger an kn depth investigation / set the threshold for removal, not put your hands up and go meh what can you do.

I imagine being at school prolonged this poor girl's life a while and at least gave her eight hours a day of warmth and safety while she was there.

I don't think they're going to have to, no.

The resources aren't there, and the state has a strong vested interest in not drawing attention to how many DC are being homeschooled because the education system is failing them. So I can't see it happening.

It should absolutely have flagged up an instant response from social services when the school informed them she’d been removed.

They should have a lot of questions to answer about what they did to check on her after she’d been withdrawn in the (presuming there will be one) enquiry.

Her school did everything they could.

I met a home schooler through one of DS hobbies, I don't think she was an active child abuser but the woman was definitely batshit and doing illegal stuff (like driving around in an uninsured, un-MOTed car with no driving license because she doesn't 'believe' in those things).

She was a single mam and was very 'self proclaimed Hippy' and told me all about how the have no rules and routines and sleep in past noon and then watch daytime tv together. That the child gets his socialization from this once a week hobby class and she doesn't believe in exams so doesn't teach anything... It is insane to think how thats allowed.

Seemed no one cared though, no one acknowledged it (except one parent who once gave me a look and said 'shes a bit odd right?') it felt very surreal.

But the school did report her bruises to social services. It was SS who let her down, even before she went to school and before her father met her stepmother, SS were involved in her life and didn't protect her.
I know people who love, protect and home school their children would probably object to the interference if more checks were made but it needs to be done to help protect the vulnerable.

Homeschooled children need to be visited at least quarterly and the meeting should include an interview held separately from their caregiver. This should also include check ups with family members living outside home and very short notice visits. A year is far too long.

Other things should be checked also such as frequency of dental visits and attendance of clubs. Essentially a holistic eye on the child.

but it needs to be done to help protect the vulnerable.

HE having more checks or not is an entirely separate debate to this case.

It shouldn’t have mattered if this wee girl was in school, being HE’ed, doing Forrest school or whatever - she should have been receiving very regular checks from SS based on her family’s past history, not to mention the recent bruising on her.

They should have been checking on her in school holidays and periodically at weekends even when she was at school. She should have been a child who had very very regular contact with a social worker.

It shouldn’t have mattered where she was meant to be getting educated. The monitoring of the family should have been in place already.

Sara, Heidi, Victoria, Abiyah, Daniel, Dylan, Logan, Peter, Dennis, Maria, Khyra Jasmine, Carly, Tyra and all those children whose names we may never know.

You were failed, by your parents and by the people who should have protected you.

https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2007/01/10/what-have-we-learned-child-death-scandals-since-1944/

''Lord Laming said at the time of the Climbié inquiry (2003) that Victoria’s death would mark a “turning point in ensuring proper protection of children in this country”

'12 key occasions were identified where services could have successfully intervened to prevent Victoria coming to further harm. In each case the opportunity was missed.'

Sadly, lessons do not seem to have be learned. .

Agree 100% She was vulnerable and SS knew this.

Serious question op. How does the risk of abuse increase because a child is of education age? Before a child turns 5 there is no compulsory nursery to make sure a child is seen and safe. Health visitors and childcare are optional. You are kind of conflating home education with an opportunity to abuse but then ignoring the fact that families with kids under 5 are not subject to any compulsory oversight for safeguarding. If oversight is introduced for home ed families then it should be introduced for all families with children otherwise it will be discriminatory right? Not sure who is going to do this and where the money will come from though?

Home educators hate this idea, as the last thing they want is oversight. They want to do their own thing. But I agree with you , OP.

I briefly homeschooled. The writing level of some of the posters on home ed pages was shocking. I know at least one parent where there were clear safeguarding concerns and the child was removed from school by the parents.

The level of education most home ed kids I know are getting is not impressive ( with one exception). It’s probably ok for younger primary school aged children, and I can see the benefit for kids who are miserable at school and don’t fit in, but i don’t think it’s better than school for kids outside of this. I think it’s a lifestyle that suits parents more than the kids.

And as for parents wanting to keep their kids from ‘indoctrination’ at school, home educated kids are the most politically indoctrinated kids I know. They are exposed to a much narrower range of ideas and views than school kids are.

school is opt in not the other way round. Sara was abused for years at school so maybe we should do check before children can attend as they were not safeguarding her. Sara was also known to SS. Home education is not the problem or the reason for her death.

There should be more checks but it would be very expensive to administer.

anyone can murder a child under the age of CSA and nobody would notice. A baby, toddler or pre schooler are more vulnerable than school age children. HV are an optional health service. We cannot live in a society where we have the assumption all parents are abusive and must present their children for observation to prove otherwise.

I was off work (my sister had died suddenly, not exactly a predictable event or one for which I could manage to work from home), so didn't process the removal of a child immediately and without question as the Law states. The child was taken to hospital just before my return with something connected to both why we'd been concerned and exactly why this concern had led to the stepfather and mother deciding they'd be homeschooled with immediate effect.

You would not believe the scale of rage that descended upon us (me in particular) within six minutes of my return to work - from the stepfather as he'd realised the kid was still on our roll and we had therefore been notified of the admission to hospital - and the DSL had shared information. It was one of those calls where you have to hold the phone three foot away from your ear to avoid deafness and about 30 different people in different organisations were all copied into a barrage of furious emails.

Personally, I'd think that somebody asking how I'd like it if he were to track down where I lived and burn my house down and the Police could do nothing because he was A SOVRING CITISIN OF THE LAND [sic] was both fairly disproportionate and a pretty damn good reason to say that the kid needed more eyes on them, not fewer, but the Law says differently.

I hope the kid's alright, they were sweet and appeared to love school (although even if they'd been a right pain in the backside and hated school, I'd still hope they were alright), but to be honest, I doubt it. Legally, we can't do anything more, though.

You don't "own" your children, FFS they aren't possessions . You have a duty of care. The government has a duty to intervene if you can't or won't provide that care.

why do you think families home educate????

True. We have spent 8 years being gaslit about DS needs and a singular failure and disregard for the law in terms of provision for SEND.

SEND children are being failed by LA's and schools are too often complicit for various reasons. Resulting in more HE. It is known that having SEND poses an increased risk for abuse. Not laying this on the HE doorstep (we HE'd for some time),all the families I know of care meticulously for their children and YP but it does have the potential ingredients for a perfect storm.

You chose to , you could have written a report instead.