To disagree with home ed

[Freshton]

Unless in extreme cases (ie SEN, extreme mental health or other complex needs) or parent is qualified teacher, I fundamentally disagree with home ed.

It's insular and doesn't prepare kids for the real world.

I've seen first hand some shocking examples that I can't go into for confidentiality reasons but common thread was parents arrogantly assumed they had same skills as teachers with masters degrees. Reality was kids were really behind, had no proper structure or routine.

It's worrying that so many people see home ed as a viable lifestyle choice. I know school system not perfect at all but isolating children at home or in small home ed group echo chambers isn't healthy.

That’s not the fault of the child with SEN.

@Luddite26 thank you for your kind words, Yes have read Eliza Fricker and Naomi Fisher's stuff, it's really helped but I still have a lot to get my head around in terms of accepting that what will work for my daughter looks very different to what I expected, at least for now while she is recovering. Yes, completely agree you find out who your friends are, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Still painful at the time though.

I think unfortunately two things can be simultaneously true:

A school can be failing a child, but the setup for home education can also be failing them. It’s not as simplistic as one is bad so the other one is a better option by default.

I think the Safeguarding issue isnot that HE is fundamentally unsafe but that claiming to be home educating can be deliberately used as a way for abusers to reduce the likelihood of discovery. Clearly this is not the case for the vast majority of HE families but unfortunately it can and does happen and I'm sure we are all aware of some of the high profile cases.
Of course being in school doesn't guarantee anything but I doubt very much that anyone has ever deliberately thought "I know, I will enrol my child in school because that will decrease the chances of anyone spotting that I am abusing them". But we do know that there is a small number of families where removing a child from mainstream education is done for that express purpose.
I don't know what the answer is. I wouldn't like to see freedom of choice taken away from lots of decent people because of the actions of a few bad ones, but at the same time I don't think that "it's only a small minority" is a good enough reason to ignore the issue when the outcomes can be so serious.

To put a different spin

Trans women aren't all rapists using women clothes in order to target women in places they are vulnerable
But some rapists have decided to say they are trans to give them access to women only spaces.

Because a few people will break the law we should make it illegal to be trans or trans people should have to wear a warning badge and carry documentation in public and can be searched at any time. Trans people caught without the documents will be fined and possibly imprisoned

Trans people are being checked and harassed by the trans police meanwhile the actual rapists have given up the trans angle as it no longer effective and found a different point of weakness

Is that proportionate ? Is that effective and reducing rape ?

Or

Most dogs don't bite but some dogs are dangerous and have bitten people.

So this means all dogs should be muzzled (every breed) just in case. Someone caught with an unmuzzled dog will be fined and baned from having any pets. The pets will be removed and put in cages.
The dog wardens will be so busy patrolling and checking dogs on the avenue that they can't respond to actual calls of concern about a rabid dog in West street because they aren't due to check West street for 3 weeks.

Is that proportionate? Is that effective at finding and dealing with dangerous dogs

Errr....ok...
Not sure where you got the idea that I would favour anything remotely equivalent to making trans people wear badges or draconian anti dog measures from my post, particularly as I explicitly stated I wouldn't want to see freedom of choice restricted, but whatever...
You have chosen to give extreme examples of "solutions" that obviously are totally disproportionate but using the same examples don't you think it is reasonable that women who have been raped by trans women or people savaged by dogs are at least entitled to a discussion about those issues and a rational attempt to find genuinely proportionate responses to the risks? Or are they just supposed to suck it up because it's rare and they were unlucky?
On a risk assessment matrix the overall risk is a function of both likelihood and severity and something very unlikely but but potentially catastrophic will generally still score significantly. There are loads of examples from safety critical industries where a lot of resources go into the prevention of potentially disastrous occurrences even though the likelihood is extremely low and others where a lower level response is deemed appropriate. But low incidence alone doesn't mean low risk.
If we use your dog example, the options for responding for dog attacks are not either the extensive measures you suggest in your post or do absolutely nothing are they? There is middle ground. Look at past events, identify patterns and additional risk factors, implement targeted responses. Ban some dogs. Require some to be muzzled. I don't know what that would look like in the context of safeguarding children withdrawn from school as it is not a subject I'm knowledgeable about but maybe there is some level of oversight that could be implemented that would help identify high risk situations without placing an excessive burden on the majority?

I am aware of one case - Sara Sharif, who was known to social services since birth, and who died in August, when she would have been out of school for six weeks had she been attending. One case is too many of course, but home education wasn’t the biggest issue here, services meant to protect her failed her.

I don’t know of any more, but I am happy to be corrected and would like to learn more if there are?

Don't be ridiculous

The victims should obviously be supported and the rapists should be punished. If someone is known to be a rapist they should be under monitor and steps taken to remove the chance or them raping someone

Just like if someone is at risk of abuse social services should step in to protect that child. The cases of children removed from school to be abused were children already known to social services and the risks were known to school. Their is already safeguarding in place for when this happens - but schools have to fill the box asking for concerns and social services have to do their job. In the case of Sara death this is where it failed - social services knew she was at risk, they knew the history and reports had been made by school. They left her in a dangerous environment. The process of safeguarding already exists but has to followed.

In relation to the dog example. Yes if unlimited resources people can still check dogs street by street and respond to emergencies but their isn't unlimited resources - resources are very limited so a one person can not be in two places doing two separate tasks at the same time.

This is the issue with checking in on every HE family more frequently. If you use all your resources checking in on families with no risks - you dilute the manpower to monitor the children known to be at risk. And more children like Sara fall through the cracks and that is a travesty

This article:
“Our analysis looks at the lives of 41 children who were subjected to horrific, and sometimes fatal, abuse while they were being electively home educated.”
It was dismissed when I posted it before because I don’t know the names and cases involved (which actually seems appropriate).

www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/may/15/vulnerable-children-in-england-safer-at-school-than-being-educated-at-home

I've got relevant professional experience but as I am sure you will understand I can't give details. No deaths, and I am being deliberately vague but I worked in theatres and ICU for many years and in different places and sadly encountered more than a few abused children in different situations in that time. Of course there are always multiple factors but being "off radar" was one of them in several ill/injured/neglected children I treated over my career. They do tend to stick in your memory.

Apologies, I was asking about the several high profile cases you mentioned. I wouldn’t expect you to talk about anything you experienced at work, that must have been awful for you.

Again, where have said this? I have at no point said that I think that every HE family should be checked frequently or even at all. In fact I have not offered any suggestions, merely asked a question. Is there something better than what currently happens - or doesn't happen as the case may be? I don't think there is anything intrinsically bad or unsafe about HE. I do think - no, I know - that a very small number of bad parents abuse it and maybe there are ways of better preventing that than we currently have? In the great scheme of things it wouldn't be at the top of my list of things that need to be tackled to improve the well being of children in this country as the numberscare indeed small, and greater benefit to more children could no doubt be achieved in other ways, but that doesn't mean it is an issue that isn't worth discussing - especially on a thread about HE on a discussion forum surely? What do you* *think could be done better to protect children whose parents deliberately remove them from school to disguise abuse, or don't you think it is an issue?

It was dismissed because the actual cases are children that were already known to social services and the risk wasn't home Ed it was that the services that should of protected them didn't do their job properly

I think that the services should be properly funded and that they should protect children known to be at risks and not leave them in dangerous environments.

I think that the government should not be creating polices to hide failures of their services by blaming other things. I think the government should not be creating policies that further reduce educational opportunities for disabled and SEN pupils. The answer to LA failure to provide what they are legally meant to isn't changing the law to let the LA off the hook - it would be holding the LA accountable so they don't continue to break the law.

You're wrong on that according to the article.

‘Of the 41 children, 21 had never attended school and only 17 were known to children’s services at the time. A total of 29 were seen as being home educated, while six children appeared to be missing from education and the remaining six lacked enough information to classify.’

It is concerning.

I followed a homeschooling and home education group on Facebook and what I have seen and read is shocking.

Parents are being encouraged to deregister their children by others, even though they have no idea or ability on how to educate their children.

Many people deregister and then turn to the group for help with what to do next. ‘I registered my 14 year old daughter today. Where should I look for resources to teach her?’ As though everyone assumes it’s as easy as that!

People constantly state ‘there is education’ in everything. Cooking is education. Minecraft is education. Visiting a museum is education. Gardening is education. While these are true to an extent, they are being passed off by some as all that is needed to say a child is being educated.

Some parents have deregistered children who were not engaging in school only to discover they won’t engage with anything at home either.

Others claim their child will only play on Roblox and clutch at straws for reassurance that this is still education.

Protecting vulnerable children doesn’t reduce the educational opportunities for disabled and SEN children.
Oversight to protect from physical, sexual abuse and just straightforward neglect is hardly a reduction in opportunity. Why would you want such children not to be protected - no-one is saying all HE children are at risk, it’s clearly a tiny minority but still so vulnerable.

Lol
The government bare targeting home Ed by creating a false image that home Ed children are more at risk, at the same time they are introducing legislation to make it harder to home Ed alongside other legislation making it harder for SEN children to be supported in school - despite the fact that many SEN families being forced to home Ed because the schools and LA have failed their children .

Do you see the correlation?

lol yourself

They’re not ‘targeting home Ed’ they’re trying to avoid children being neglected.
Its not just about SEN - there are religious, creationist, god knows what anti-vax nutcases, and as a previous poster described just ignorant people deregistering their children.
A tiny minority will abuse them, another probably less tiny minority will neglect their education.
Same for those in education.

Yes absolutely some children are failed by their LA, some children are failed by the familial adults in their lives. The LA’s are overstretched and underfunded but dumbly trusting ALL people who choose to take their children out of the system and make them less visible is a proven route to turning a blind eye to abuse.

agree its an awful thing to do

I agree governments should address the longstanding under resourcing of social services, schools and services for DC with additional needs. Which are shocking issues, rarely reported, and not a priority for most voters. Repeatedly mentioned in public enquiries after horrific cases where children were failed and murdered.

Much, much cheaper to do legislation.

Not familiar with the new legislation about services and obligations of local authorities for DC with additional needs, but being cynical imagine it’s to save money on services, and make it even harder for DC (via parents) to get access to the very limited services via legal action.

Doubt it is about ‘targeting home ed’, though, more likely that bit is seeking to reduce risk for the DC at risk.

Maybe they should focus some energy in not neglecting the children in their schools

How can you ever trust a LA who will ignore the needs of children they are responsible for in their own schools - how could we ever expect them to safeguard and protect other children in the LA of they can't even give basic protection within their school system

LAs get bugger all resources for schools and social services and don’t have much involvement in many. The primary problems are money and central government- set things like testing and the Michael Gove rote learning curriculum.

Maybe one shouldn’t preclude the other

And they literally don’t have the money to do everything you think they should be doing.
It often falls on individual teachers to try their best, many of whom spend their own money on food, stationary, sanitary goods - I even know one who has helped source mattresses after a vulnerable family were rehomed.

This binary blame game is so unhelpful.