very important thing you can do to protect your family

[ommmward]

write to your MP and ask them to sign Early Day Motion 1785

Mr Ed Balls wants to give LA officials the power to enter private homes without any reason to think anything is amiss and to force children to submit to an interview on their own with LA staff. These are powers that even the police and social services don't have!!!!

He wants to do it because he is concerned that not having your child in an institutional setting (that's school now, but he could easily extend these plans to those who don't use nurseries or child minders) might be a cover for abuse. His planned legislation is a sledgehammer to crack a nut- he doesn't have evidence that HE is being used as a cover for abuse and it will cost a great deal of our tax money to have LA staff coming to do welfare checks - but he hasn't even done an impact assessment!

So please write to your MP, tell them the planned EHE legislation is disproportionate, uncosted, and has no evidentiary basis, and please would they sign the EDM 1785 or, failing that, 1784 (less good wording IMO)

If you don't HE you probably think this has nothing to do with you. But those with children not in child care are next in line for such heavy-handed state intrusion. We will support you when that time comes. Will you take 5 minures writing an email to support us HEers now?

Piscesmoon. A proportion of the homne education community is extremely politically active - but really what is the point of engaging with the government when what you say is ignored.

The public consultation on this matter doesn't close until October. Why then is drafting new legislation already under discussion. How can the government claim to listen to the public when they have not waited to hear what the public have to say about this before moving ahead with it. It makes a mockery of the democratic process, and EVERY person in the country should be taking note of this because whatever they think about home education because along with other government plans it shows a total disregard for the opinions of the people of the UK.

I don't know how many times I've typed this on other threads but her goes again. ABetaDad, schools are providing a service to parents who delegate their educational responsibilities to their children. At all times the parent's remain legally responsible for theit child receiving an education so they need to have feedback about how the school is meeting this role. Local authorities are accountable to the parent's, and State schools need to show that they are providing value for tax money.

Home educating parents are there and don't need feedback from a government body to tell them if they are meeting their responsibilities.

It is true that a small number of parents do fail there children. However to single out home educators is a strange proposal. The report itself stated that Badman found no evidence that home educated children were at increased risk of abuse, but he believes that just in case it ever happened we should make x, y and z changes. What a phenomonal waste of public money. Surely any national legislative changes should be evidence based and not a reaction to media pressure to be seen to be doing something about certain high profile cases?

If its the children's rights aspect that is concerning people, then I propose that every single child in the UK is visited to check thier home environment and to ask them if they are happy with their parents educational provision. Not doing this leaves under-fives vunerable and many school children are abused or leave school without satisfactory levels of literacy and numeracy.

If home educated children express a desire to be at state or private school this will be taken into account. If state school children want to be home educated or move to a private school this will be taken into account. If private school children want to be home educated or move to a state school. It is important that children are consulted on their place of education.

The government want all children to have a certain standard of education. If a child is attending a school that is not achieving an outstanding grade at OFSTED inspections then parents will have to outline how they are supporting their child, because all children deserve the best possible education and parents are responsible for this. If a child is not achieving the grades expected by a child of their age then parents will need to show how they plan to support their child to achieve these grades. If by the next annual visit no progress has been made towards raising the child's standard then the parent will be issued a home education order to see if home education suits their child better than schooling.

Parents of under-fives will be expected to show how they work with the Early Years Foundation Stage goals if their child is not in full time childcare provision or not achieving as expected. This annual visit will also show that these children are not hidden away at home for the rest of the year to hide abuse or neglect.

Does that sound as reasonable as monitoring home educators just in case they aren't fullfilling their parental responsibility to educate their child?

anastaisia - I freely admit, I am not a HE expert but surely there is some kind of legal responsibility to provide a child with a certain level of education?

I do not agree with the new law being brought in to let LEA officials into the home but some kind of agreed basis on which the home education environemnt can be fairly assessed needs to be in place. My sister is simply not giving her son a good education and no one seems to care. He is not being educated at all as far as I can see and he has been in a sort of legalised truancy since 14 even though she says he is doing HE.

I am not against HE at all, in fact I know someone that very successfully did HE all 5 of her children. I disagree with this part of what you said though:

"Home educating parents are there and don't need feedback from a government body to tell them if they are meeting their responsibilities."

Whatever the arguements, I do not agree that some offical from the LEA can just come into your house and interview your child. No way.

I'm glad you agree the reaction is not at all proportional to the possible outcomes. LAs having access to children wont stop child abuse, school children are still abused despite being seen reguarly.

The thing is, there are already adaquate laws to protect children. What isn't adaquate is the funding, staffing and training. Many LA staff dealing with home educators don't even seem to be aware of the actual laws, so had can they use them effectively. Cases where there are welfare concerns SHOULD be being dealt with by social services - and they do have the power to see a child whether the parent is home educating or not. If communication between these 'department's is not working that needs to be looked into. New laws wont help with all of this.

If the LA is concerned that a child is not being educated they can ask the parent to show that they are, in court if needed. Failings within the system can't be blamed on home educatino being 'unregulated'

I'm a massive supporter of HE and was involved in the consultation process due to my experience in child protection.
I am in agreement with some of the proposals and in mahoosive agreement with some of the others.
However the OP does not fairly represent what is being suggested and unfortunately anyone who does write to their MP complaining about this won't get the desired effect.

The governemt are proposing ( I'm paraphrasing here and anyone contacting their MP should read both Badman's report and Ed Balls response first):

1. That all HE'd children should be registered.
2. That the LA will be able to decide which families are suitable to HE and which are not. It's not clear whether the burden of proof will remain with the parents or the LA.
3. That all HE'd children should receive regular visits from the LA and where it is suspected that a child may not be able to speak freely in front of their parents that the rep from the LA speak to the child with another trusted adult present.
4. That there should be some assessment of the qualitry of the education received.

For what it's worth. I'm in favour of registration. I think once the gov know the numbers they'll have to stop viewing the HE community as some sort of fringe element.
I'm undecided about two until I know about burdens pf proof and who will regulate the decisions? The courts? A tribunal?
Providing the person speaking with the child is not hostile to HE per se and the trusted indv is of the child's choosing I have no problem with pont three.
I totally disagree with four. The gov wants to impose it stupid national curicculm on everyone and has no idea how HE works. Nanny state. Bleugh.

mahoosive disagreement.

And if people write to their MPs saying that they object to Ed Balls wanting "to force children to submit to an interview on their own with LA staff.", the MP will just write back saying "Thank you for your letter. I am happy to be able to reassure you that there is no such provision in the proposed legislation". And there you are back to square one. You are giving them a let-out by not quoting the proposals accurately and they will be able to discount all such letters. There will then be a statement saying something like "A number of concerns were raised by HE parents and other interested parties, but these were largely based in insufficient understanding of the proposals and we were able to offer reassurance and clarification where necessary."

I know these things - I used to write garbage like that for a living.

nothing to hide, nothing to fear, right?

'For what it's worth. I'm in favour of registration. I think once the gov know the numbers they'll have to stop viewing the HE community as some sort of fringe element.'

This is my point-it should be a completely normal educational choice for parents and should come into the mainstream and away from being what looks like a secret cult to the outsider. It should be open and not secret.

'Home educating parents are there and don't need feedback from a government body to tell them if they are meeting their responsibilities.'

I find this peculiar. The child is at the centre of education-feedback to the parent is secondary. Of course the parent knows what they are doing but they are not always the best judges of whether they are providing a good enough education.
The child comes first in my view.

From Litchicks list -
Point 1 -I agree with totally.
Point 2-in theory, but more work would need to be done on how the conclusion is reached.
Point 3-I think the DC should have a voice. In school they get asked questions with no teacher present-they are free to say whatever they like-HE DCs should have the same freedom.
Point 4-another tricky one-I would be very much against the national curriculum.

Points 2 and 4 are the ones that the HE community need to come to an arrangement with and the LEA need to appoint people who are sympathetic to HE-if they have people who see it as 'school in the home' they are onto a non starter.

Actually I think they could start by listening to the teenage DCs who are HEd-I always find the ones that I have heard speak, quite refreshing-they are articulate, friendly and thoughtful and don't have axes to grind in the way that the adults do.

Nothing to hide, nothing to fear...

Imagine proving you have nothing to hide.

I don't get it piscesmoon, you've had this discussion enough times that it always comes to the same points. But perhaps you can tell me how we can engage with the government and come to an 'arrangement' when the outcomes of the review are obviously pre-determined? How could they be ready to move on to drafting legislation otherwise?

Contactpoint is the way the govenment have chosen to move forward with registration of children. People may have objections to this, but at least it is fair in that every child is included in it. Why would home educators need ADDITIONAL registration to partake in a 'completely normal educational choice'?

The feedback comment is to do with inspections. That is what OFSTED do. They don't inspect the education that each individual school child receives. They inspect the school's provision and give feedback to the public on this. The public do not need feedback on home-educated childrens education, the same way that OFSTED don't publish detailed reports on each child.

And as I said a few posts ago; if these changes go ahead and are intended to give children a voice and be free to disclose abuse or express preferences on their educational provision, then I believe they should be applied to every child. Why limit it to home educated children when school children are not usually consulted about if they go to school, and their homes aren't checked out by anyone.

I saw that in the paper yesterday Ommmmward - and couldn't even begin to understand the grounds for taking the children away. Deeply scary stuff.

I also think that registration of all HE children, in itself, is not a bad thing thought it depends on the way this is run and how much information will be required. I do object very strongly to points 2 and 4 and feel ambiguous about 3 as I have little faith that this would be in any way useful and could be open to LEA officers wrongly accusing parents of abuse/neglect just to meet some target or other.

Yes, Contactpoint is solmething I object to also and good point about HE children having to be registered twice. When do you think the govt will announce that people will have to pay to register their child (or be fined...)?

I won't do it. I don't think this is an attack on HE. It's an attempt to protect children from falling through the cracks.

I've seen the results of far too many forced marriages and education cut short in order to think this is solely an attack on Home Educators.

the intent may be good, but its misguided at least. And likely to be far less efficient than simply investing in the current systems would have been.

I agree that it is very wrong if it is pre determined-I find that annoying. My DSs school consulted the parents on a change in the school hours after they had made the decision, so I can see where you are coming from.
I think we will have to disagree on the Ofsted-I think the purpose is to check that the individual DC is getting a good education provided by the school, and if the school isn't providing it they have to change. Feedback to parents is secondary. In fact now the DCs get a letter from the inspectors telling them what they think-and so they should-education is about the child and not the parent. It is only fair to ask the DC what they think.

I think you should send them to catholic school

I think the intent is very good, but I would say that it is misguided because there hasn't been enough consultation. Both sides need to talk and compromise-outright hostility will get you nowhere-it all comes down to talk in the end, so better sooner than later.

But if the school isn't providing an education that suits a certain child, then the parent would be responsible for
a. going to the school and asking them to do things differently,
b. arranging extra support
or
c. changing schools to another school that better supported their DC.

They would use information provided by OFSTED reports to make decisions like this. But the OFSTED report wouldn't tell them how their specific DC would react to the school. You often see parents on here saying they choose the satisfactory school not the outstanding one, because they felt their child would be happier/acheive more/get support there.

The OFSTED report also informs the LA of the schools provision because they are responsible for that. So they need to know. But the same for home ed would be the parent asking someone of their OWN choice to come and tell them what they thought of their educational provision - not an outside organisation doing it. Because both the LA and OFSTED are government organsations working with State provision.

litchick - helpful summary

"1. That all HE'd children should be registered"

I disagree with this because the LA would then have the power to decide who gets to be registered or not - they'll have right of refusal. And then we'll be at the mercy of some LA staffer's prejudices. I'm not in personal danger, btw, I've got lots of the right sorts of qualifications, including a postgrad teaching qualification (not PGCE), the right sort of accent (yah), I'm white, in a stable relationship etc etc etc. But anyone whose circumstances or education the LA don't like can have their application for registration rejected. To hell with that! The outcomes for HEed children from poorer backgrounds where the parents have few if any qualifications are so so so much better than the outcomes, statistically, for those children in schools (cf Paula Rothermal) but what are the chances of some ex-OFSTED inspector having read that research? And those are the kinds od families where some prejudiced LA inspector may well be refusing registration

I would be completely happy to be required to inform the LA that I intend to HE or that I am HEing, but there's no way some LA numpty should have right of refusal. If there's reason to suppose I'm not capable of providing an education, they can take me to court and see if their arguments persuade "a reasonable person".

"2. That the LA will be able to decide which families are suitable to HE and which are not. It's not clear whether the burden of proof will remain with the parents or the LA."

See my concerns above

"3. That all HE'd children should receive regular visits from the LA and where it is suspected that a child may not be able to speak freely in front of their parents that the rep from the LA speak to the child with another trusted adult present."

If this was how it would be, it might be justifiable. But deciding to speak to the children alone will be at the discretion of the LA employee and they only need to be our ex-OFSTEDder who can't really see why any child would rather not go to school, thinking it important to get he children alone to encourage them to say something which can be construed as them wanting to be in school. People are very good at hearing what they want to hear.

Problems include:

• 77% of HE children in a recent daretoknowblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/results-of-poll.html poll said they do not want to meet LA staff. Similar responses were found in this survey, which I'd point you towards in particular, pisces. Are we going to disregard the preferences of 77% of HEed children here?

• what SEN training is the LA person going to get? How will they cope with children on the autistic spectrum, for example, or children with receptive language difficulties or communication disorders? Will the word of the parents be enough to explain that the child simply won't talk to the LA official, or simply won't be prepared to be alone with strangers? Parents of SN children, especially those who have taken them out of the education system which was failing them, are not confident about some LA staffer being competent to communicate fairly and effectively with their children. Nothing in the proposed legislation about this. Plus, a lot of HE families with SN children don't have diagnoses, often because the process of getting one is massively traumatic and the benefits of having one can be minimal if the child isn't in school. Will these families have to go through the hours of appointments and months of waiting lists to get the piece of paper which shows what they have known for years, purely in order to defend their child from some total stranger invading their home and expecting to see normal neurotypical behaviours?

1. That there should be some assessment of the quality of the education received.

I'll be perfectly h appy about this if the person doing the assessing is an expert in the style of educational provision the HE family is providing. But that's not going to happen, is it? Whether we are autonomous or waldorf-inspired or christian curriculum or whatever else, the chances of an LA employing anyone with any experience og HE, let alone someone with experience of any particular style of HE, is vanishingly small. Ex-teachers don't tend to have a clue, tbh.

daretoknowblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/results-of-poll.html poll broken link

grrr. poll

Loo, the current government are a bunch of totalitarian maniacs, incompetents and nest-feathering crooks. Why on earth do stupid people think they should be given any more power to meddle in our lives when they cannot be trusted not to lose confidential data, assess things accurately and actually have the best intrests of the populace (as opposed to their cronies' profits) at heart anyway.

betadad - there are alraedy requirements on LAs to assess the suitability of the educational provision. From the 2007 guidelines for LAs (which the LAs hate and mostly ignore chiz)

"3.6 Some parents may welcome the opportunity to discuss the provision that they are making
for the child?s education during a home visit but parents are not legally required to give
the local authority access to their home. They may choose to meet a local authority
representative at a mutually convenient and neutral location instead, with or without the
child being present, or choose not to meet at all. Where a parent elects not to allow access
to their home or their child, this does not of itself constitute a ground for concern about the
education provision being made. Where local authorities are not able to visit homes, they
should, in the vast majority of cases, be able to discuss and evaluate the parents? educational
provision by alternative means. If they choose not to meet, parents may be asked to provide
evidence that they are providing a suitable education. If a local authority asks parents for
information they are under no duty to comply although it would be sensible for them to do
so.[fn to case law] Parents might prefer, for example, to write a report, provide samples of work, have their
educational provision endorsed by a third party (such as an independent home tutor) or
provide evidence in some other appropriate form.

...

3.14 It is important to recognise that there are many, equally valid, approaches to educational
provision. Local authorities should, therefore, consider a wide range of information from
home educating parents, in a range of formats. The information may be in the form of
specific examples of learning e.g. pictures/paintings/models, diaries of educational activity,
projects, assessments, samples of work, books, educational visits etc.
3.15 In their consideration of parents? provision of education at home, local authorities may
reasonably expect the provision to include the following characteristics:
� consistent involvement of parents or other significant carers ? it is expected that parents
or significant carers would play a substantial role, although not necessarily constantly or
actively involved in providing education
� recognition of the child?s needs, attitudes and aspirations
� opportunities for the child to be stimulated by their learning experiences
� access to resources/materials required to provide home education for the child ? such as
paper and pens, books and libraries, arts and crafts materials, physical activity, ICT and the
opportunity for appropriate interaction with other children and other adults."

See, it's all there already, what they need to reassure themselves that an education is taking place, it's just that the LA officials want more P-O-W-E-R

SGB agree thoroughly.

as well as the Early Day Motion for MPs to sign there's a petition about this here for the general public to sign.