Guest post: "Home education is a contentious issue. I know there will be parents who may be upset by my Dispatches documentary"

[NiamhMumsnet]

Last night on Channel 4, my Dispatches documentary explored the fast-growing world of home education. It’s a contentious issue, and I know there will be parents who may be upset by it. They feel protective of their right to home school - parents, like Marcello, who appeared in my film and who educates his son at home, who make a philosophical decision to home educate and who put a lot of thought and dedication into providing their children with a high-quality education. These are the traditional home educators and I am not suggesting that they shouldn’t have a right to do so.

But this is not the experience of a large majority of the group of children without a school. I am worried about families who have ended up home educating for other reasons, and whose children are not receiving the good education in school that all children deserve. Many of these families embark on home education as a last resort or stop-gap until things settle and another school is found.

Take 12-year-old Lily, who I met while making the documentary. Lily is autistic and has been to 11 schools in eight years. Her mother, Mandy, says she was told Lily was ‘uneducatable’. As a result, Lily is now being taught at home. Lily is an amazing child - smart, ambitious and clearly capable of doing very well academically - yet she’s been told that no school can teach her.

I also met Sam, who removed her 12-year-old son Baillie after trouble at school. Their relationship with the school broke down and they were made to feel like Baillie was a ‘burden’ and ‘annoying’. Sam is clearly a loving parent, but she admitted to me that she had huge doubts about her ability to be able to educate Baillie in a way that a school could. She was receiving no support at all.

Part of the reason there is so little help is that we don’t even know how many children are home educated, why they have been taken out of school or even if they are safe. Our Dispatches film found that 92% of councils in England do not feel they have adequate powers to assure the suitability of education children who are home-schooled receive, and 93% of councils say they don’t feel confident that they are aware of everyone who is currently being home educated in their area.

Thousands could also be ending up without a school because of ‘off-rolling’. Often these children have special educational needs. In fact, our research for Dispatches suggests one in five children who are home-educated have SEN.

Sadly too, there are some families who are very aware of the lax rules around home education, which are used as a cover to stay out of sight from the authorities – something we know can have tragic consequences for children.

I think there is now an overwhelming case for all parents who are home educating their children to have to register their children with their local authority. They should also be asked why they are home educating and whether they intend for the child to re-enter mainstream education at some point.

On off-rolling, I hope Ofsted will come down hard on schools who are letting down some of the most vulnerable children. There should be financial penalties too for schools who are gaming the system. And school policies also need to acknowledge that poor behavior may be linked to additional needs, such as SEND, and make sure that all children with additional needs receive appropriate support.

Parents who are home educating have told me that they need more support, so within three days of a decision being taken for a child to be withdrawn from school to be home educated, a local authority should visit the child and family to provide advice and support on alternative options, including other schools the child could attend. There should be another visit a few weeks later to see how the family is managing.

I would also like council education officers visiting each child being home educated at least once per term to assess the suitability of their education and their welfare.

Some children have very positive experiences of home education. Others have told us they feel lonely and depressed, left alone for long periods in unstructured days. They miss their friends at school and can become isolated. These are the ‘off the grid’ children I am worried about. They have the right to a good education and childhood, and the system needs to change to make sure they do.

[MaybeDoctor]

Fuzzy
The problem is that 1) the policy wheels turn slowly and 2) what is recorded at local government level often does not have any impact at a central government level. It is collected locally, held locally and used locally. So those seeking change need to engage with all aspects and levels of government. The Children's Commissioner is independent of government and speaks for children, so engaging with Anne Longfield on these topics is potentially useful - even if you didn't like the film or may be repeating what has already been contributed to a consultation.

If the DfE were obliged to produce official statistics each year on the numbers of children being home educated and the reasons why, then that might lead to greater policy interest and action. However, to do so would need an official data collection mechanism i.e. a register or census, similar to the school census each year.

[BojanaMumsnet]

[quote zzzzz]@BojanaMumsnet are you saying you posted her OP without her understanding that MN was forum for back and forth discussion? [/quote]

HI,

We don't always ask guest post authors to respond to questions - usually this will depend on what the topic is and who the author is. In this case though we should realised that the topic would generate lots of questions and agreed to get answers in advance.

[MaybeDoctor]

The UPN follows children throughout their school career. Assigning it earlier than the start of school-based education would mean that some information would be available on those who have periods of home education but also have some contact with the school system.

[littlewhitething]

My. Eldest daughter was home educated for 4 years by me until we moved to France and she entered the system there. She had no special needs, but the local schools were so bad I wouldn't have sent a dog to them; private schools were beyond my pocket. That was the 80's. In 2005 we returned to the UK and my two younger daughters were also home educated for 18 months as we had no stable accommodation. None of them seem to have lost out due to this.

[Oliversmumsarmy]

Known by social services" should have been more clearly defined

Didn't watch all of the programme but saw this reference. Apparently programme says "10%" of HE children are known to SS.

Conversation with SS was that if you take your DC to a dr, hospital appointment etc where they ask what school your DC goes to and you reply you HE.

This is a Red Flag.

If you haven't given all the vaccinations.
or I presume a list of any other "not the norm" stuff

This is a Red Flag.

2 Red Flags even if they are perfectly within your rights to do = a referral to SS.

I think a lot of issues stem back to primary schools.

When I was at school many years ago (1960s baby boomer with 56 made up of 3 classes of 2 years together) the point of primary school was to teach you the basics.
How to read, write, 12x table and basic Maths. Secondary was to expand your knowledge.

I only knew of one HE family growing up.

Ds (Summer born so almost a year younger than a lot of his peers) I had to in year 3, pull him out of school because he couldn't read or write.
Ds is dyslexic. Apparently there were no SEN children in the school so the HT got rid of all SEN provisions.

Ds and others were managed out of the school.

As someone has said up thread no parent just gets up one morning and decides school isn't working and just leaves. For a lot there is months if not years of trying to make school work and a lot of beating your head against a brick wall before you get to that stage.

[Mishappening]

There needs to be a complete overhaul of our education system. It has become data- and test-driven, and some children are destroyed by this - some cope. But coping is not enough; being at school should be a fulfilling and positive experience, not something that has to be "coped with."

And teachers are being driven into the ground.

Why would parents want to send their children into this mess? - especially if those children have special needs that are not being met.

The mental health of children and young people is recognised as deteriorating - it is impossible to ignore the possibility of a causal relationship between this decline and the way that our schools are run.

There are many parents who look at this minefield and say "Not for my children." And who can blame them? They then devote their lives to ensuring their children get a good, broad, child-orientated education. The Dispatches programme implied that only children with special needs are home educated, and that what they were thriving was second rate or worse, which was a very unbalanced view.

Media chaps and journalists really get my goat - do they really believe that we are fooled by their biased nonsense? We are capable of watching balanced programmes - we do not need sensationalist unbalanced programmes to hold our attention.

What our children's commissioner should be doing is banging together the heads of those in the education department who are condemning our children to such a narrow education, data- and test-stress; and that destroys the enthusiasm of the teachers.

[Mishappening]

receiving, not thriving.

[MamaHechtick]

I home educate my two children, they are 5 and 6.

Both attended nursery school in a private school setting. We had hoped for them to continue there but when the time came we were unable to afford this.
My youngest DC has never been flagged as having any special needs, but I was told by his nursery teacher who had seen him 4 days a week for 2.5 years that he needed to be in a small class, ideally around 15 pupils. She stated he absolutely would not cope in a large class or school. The time came when we tried to get into a small school and were rejected.
I now pay a private tutor to teach my children 4 days a week 1-2-1 for two hours, this isn't cheap but is cheaper than funding private school or moving house right now.

The tutor has also recently said to me I made the right decision that my youngest son was not ready for school (mentally) and would not cope. She is a previous reception teacher with almost 20 years experience.

My decision wasn't made lightly. It was made in the absolute best interests of my son's education, not a whim, not because I want to hide my children, but because the very people you employ to teach children were telling me that my child was going to mentally struggle.

My children aren't hidden and they aren't lacking any education, as I said they are seen 4 days a week by a teacher, they are seen by doctors, they are seen by dentists and other members of our community.
My children aren't skipping school, I've done this because I care so much for their education I want them to have the best I can afford.

They have structure and they have routine. They have also been vaccinated as well as even having extra vaccinations that we've had to pay for.

You've made this programme to blame home educators rather than a failing school system.
If you went to our local home education group you'd find a quarter of the parents there are ex teachers who left the profession and took their own children with them out of school! Why is that? If the very people who are supposed to be delivering what the government have decided is an education are leaving and taking their own children with them what message does that give to the rest of us.
My children's tutor left her own school last summer, why? Because of the enormous pressure on teachers, because she felt, and these are her words, that teaching wasn't about the children anymore!

But instead of looking at that sinking ship you'd rather blame the rest of us that abandoned it to save our children and imply that we're the ones who don't care.

[Dragonbait]

We took our daughter out of school in December 18 months before her GCSE's. Hardest decision ever made but given she was planning on jumping off a nearby railway bridge it was a decision that had to be made. My daughter has ASD. The struggle of attending school was exacerbated by her being sexually assaulted at school and the school doing nothing about it. The school has a support unit that my daughter was in full time for 4 months. Her grades were good - even though she was largely self teaching - she was happy - she'd stopped being sick all the time - she'd stopped picking herself so deeply that we were back and fore to the doctors for antibiotics. Then new term started and she was told you have to be back into all lessons. The problems came back, her attendance dropped and her grades plummeted. I still don't understand why the school were so unwilling to compromise in any way. It's cost us £2000 for online schooling. This certainly isn't a choice. It's ironic that you're worried about children's safety at home when our children are often so at risk at school.

[friendlyflicka]

Isn't the point about the number of GCSEs taken by HE children a reason to make it easier for HE to be entered for public exams without their parents having to make the costs and make all the arrangements themselves?

I thought they chose an odd selection of families. Not that the families themselves were odd. I fail to understand why they chose a mother who had problems with discipline (totally understand this btw) and who was being falsely accused of munchausens. If she was being accurately diagnosed with this condition, It would add fuel to one argument. But she wasn't - so it was a total red herring and her presence was no representative of anything.

And the footage of dyslexic mother was just patronising and cruel and nasty and unnecessary.

I am very pro-school if possible. I felt this was a pointless documentary.

What was the point of driving to the house where that poor boy had been neglected? it was a real tabloid non-moment.

[DishingOutDone]

6timesthemess The programme was insulting to home educators who take home education seriously. You clearly picked the participants who either didn’t take things seriously or didn’t want to home educate in the first place.

Of the 4 families shown, three didn't want to home educate. That's what they were trying to say, they felt forced to. I wonder if they interviewed people like you who feel they have the handle on HE and have all the kids sat at the kitchen table doing maths by 8.30am every day, and then decided not to use that in the film in case it undermined the agenda the Commissioner and the producer already had.

[Blessthekids]

I do not HE. I watched the programme last night and I felt it really lacked balance and presented HE in a very poor light. It would have been nice to see her visit some of the HE groups that organise activities and events or parents who have a more structured approach and those who use online schools as the core. Instead they focused on an illegal school and families who struggle or appear to have no direction. I think the focus was very pro school. No real investigation on why schools are failing more and more kids. Wasted opportunity

[LouiseObrien]

If your primary concern was about families who have ended up home educating for other reasons why oh why did you make that documentary - it's not only home educators who feel insulted and concerned but 1000's of families who have been failed by the school system too. Are you listening to them...? If you claim to support those kids (our kids!) your documentary certainly didn't, which has left us all wondering, what were you trying to achieve??

[FuzzyShadowChatter]

But friendlyflicka, if they don't have at least one home educated kid playing video games when other kids are in school, is it really a home education documentary?

GPs and HVs can already report kids who aren't in school - as can anyone else, for that matter. Your education authority will have an Education Welfare Service or similar with contact details or if you call social services, they usually pass it on to the relevant department. Really, pretty much everyone I know - including myself - who never sent a kid to school ended up registered because a doctor, HV, or other similar professional reported us. When it is reported, we're doorstepped. I had two people at my door, no warning, and was asked about to confirm my child's home education status, about our provisions, and so on. Some voluntarily do it, though that's not really an option I've ever seen councils promote, but most are registered through removing their kids from school and being reported by others. I'm fine with being registered, but it's pretty much already mandatory for most people and with that comes giving reports, offers of education welfare and school nurse visits, and secondary school place offers even when you never applied for one which was odd the first time it happened to us. Those who get missed will be those much farther out of the loop that GPs and HVs aren't really going to solve it.

There really is no need to make things more complicated. Just like the documentary had all those stats, so does the government. They also already know the issues with funding and SEN provisions. They know that all the schools in my area, primary and secondary, have been rated as 'Requires Improvement' or 'Inadequate' for over a decade now - all that has happened is forced academisation which did nothing and some free schools which were also rated 3 or 4.

While I'm all about the data and have no issue with registration, I agree with the previous poster that if people think more registration and data collection through that and visits is going to bring any solutions to the problems in that documentary, it's dangerous because it will just make people more complacent and continue this cycle that has gone on longer than I've been a home educator of consultation-documentaries that flare the public-debating registration and what else to do about us-it either falls away when something else comes up or gets smacked down-nothing changes-repeat. While it is very unlike me, more data collection isn't going to help. Print what data we do have on how many people are already registered, put the stats we already have on how many kids leave particular schools which might actually bring some attention to off-rolling, and move on.

Honestly, I think colleges have done probably the most to help bridge the access gap for kids not in school, home educated or otherwise. I know several that are now offering things as early as Year 9, my teen has just been offered a taster day for my local one's 14-16 courses and I know several other teens that go to a college a city over from 13+. It's interesting to watch those changes, but none of them seem to be coming from the cycle of doom registration and gloom visits. It's coming from places that offer options and connections to the community.

[StarlightMcKenzee]

Why is there never any explanation as to what a register is supposed to do to help these families the CC says she wants to help!??

And surely the worst possible agency to have to register with or be visited by is the Local Authority who created the conditions that made Home Ed the only thing left a parent can do to protect their child. Putting them ‘back’ into the hands of the agency whose abuse led to school removal is insane and barbaric.

[StarlightMcKenzee]

Most kids are ‘known’ to social services. And almost all kids who haveever had a referral for s dusabiliy of some kind. Many Chikdtens Disabilities Teams Are run by social services, and many CAMHS referrals are triaged bybtgeur staff.

Also, many Home Ed kids get reported to social services by people who do not understand why they aren’t in school. ‘Known to social services’ was a deliberate quote to mislead. This Childtens Conditioner is extremely dangerous to the human rights and well-being of our children.

When she had done a good job, and registered and saved all the vulnerable children in school who are known but STILL invisible, then she can consider her role in saving speculative vulnerable children.

[StarlightMcKenzee]

What Is the Children’s Conditioner doing about this? Or is it a part of her conditioning role to make all kids receive this treatment?

johntomsett.com/2019/02/03/this-much-i-know-about-behaviour-management-flattening-the-grass-and-mary-myatt/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[TLCHomeED]

Not only was I hugely upset by the portal of home educated parents and the insinuation we are all neglectful child abusers or incapable of home education so was my son who only saw the trailer. He said that he has noticed I had recorded it and from the trailer it was obviously home ed. He is autistic and dyslexic and was forced out of school when his mental heath dererated due to not being able to get the right support. He has really flourished in home education but is now feeling that home education is looked on second class and not valid because of the trailer. The problem is lack of funding in schools which is damaging our children, this is what you should be concerned about. The documentary and your attitude to home education is a disgrace, and is actually damaging children not helping them.

[Snugglepumpkin]

Upset does not even begin to cover it.

I would like Anne Longfield to answer a couple of questions...

1.
Would you suggest that the government bring in a registration scheme & enforce frequent checks (for potentially decades) which are on a par with those required by families who have social services intervention on families for no other reason than that they contained a person of a different race or religion?

After all, just as it is not against the law to Electively Home Educate, it is not against the law to, for example, be Jewish.
Both are law abiding minority groups in this country.

I cannot see the difference between singling out EHE families for this treatment & singling out any other minority group.

1. 
   

Please show me this purported evidence that compulsory registration & forced compliance with frequent inspections is required, as I have not seen any, never mind 'overwhelming evidence' of anything which would lead to the people who sent the email below being suddenly capable of making any judgements about my EHE child's education or overseeing your CPP equivalency regime for EHE families.
After all, this was written by a 'professional'

"It is now twelve months since you submitted a report to [private company subcontracted to deal with EHE] regarding home education for [name of child].

I would therefore be grateful of you submitting a report on work undertaken by [name of child] during the last twelve months?

Yours sincereley"

I have removed the names, but apart from that the above is the entire email I received from an employee in an educational setting who deals with EHE. At this point in time she had worked in that same job for YEARS.
She was of course school educated.
Which is why this company now send out template letters as their staff lack the ability to compose simple requests for information independently.

You want this person, who cannot even write a letter to gain powers of entry into private homes that exceed that of a Social Worker?




Off rolling has NOTHING to do with EHE.
Those families are being failed by the school system as it is the LAs legal duty to provide each of those children whose parents do not want to be EHE with a suitable placement.

They should not be classed as EHE, they did not elect to do this & are a completely different problem which should be tackled separately.

[extrastrongmints]

Some background:

Anne Longfield was previously chief executive of the charity 4Children. Wikipedia states : "4Children began a period of rapid corporate growth under its Chief Executive Anne Longfield. However, this was not matched by growing revenues and the charity ran into financial trouble. It ceased operations and entered administration on 1 September 2016. Before its financial difficulties were publicly known, Longfield was appointed Children's Commissioner for England".
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4Children

Wikipedia also notes that "In 2015, shortly after starting her new role as children's Commissioner, Longfield was criticised for removing her Deputy, Sue Berelowitz, with an enhanced severance package, and then immediately hiring her back as a consultant. It transpired that this had taken place without securing the required approval from government ministers and was therefore an abuse of her powers. The arrangement was subsequently cancelled as a result of media attention and the organisation ordered to repay to HM Treasury £10,000 of misused public funds".
A freedom of information request available here shows that Longfield arranged for Berelowitz, who was on a salary of £99k per year, to receive severance pay of £134k but the following day to be rehired as a consultant "to be paid £960 a day for up to nine days a month until November, meaning she would earn almost twice as much as when she was a full-time employee for significantly less work" (source)

On 13 July 2017 Longfield wrote in her capacity as Children’s Commissioner for England to the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator. Her intervention is discussed here by Nando Sigona (Senior Lecturer and Birmingham Fellow in the School of Social Policy at the University of Birmingham) . Sigona writes:
"For the 3 Million Forum, a campaign group of EU nationals in Britain, Anne Longfield ‘is using the terrible plight of EU children and their families to twist public opinion against the EU blaming the Commission for a problem caused solely by Theresa May and her red line on the ECJ’. EU nationals also resent Ms Longfield’s appropriation of their campaign slogan ‘I’m not a bargaining chip’ against their interests. In fact, a number of EU parents pointed out that they know what is best for the future of their children and while current uncertainty is certainly a burden on them and their children, the prospect of diminished rights envisioned in the UK proposal is far more so".
He also notes that "shocked parents of EU children living in the UK took to Twitter to react angrily" to Longfield's intervention, describing it as "Unhelpful, patronising, misinformed, politically motivated, disgusting" and "a disgusting political lie".

[chl0e123]

I removed my lo from school over a year ago due to the lack of support with SEN, the SENCO has no power, the head rules and what they say go, the SENCO has to obey, and can only advise, they need more power in schools, to support children and parents. My daughter specifically struggled with mental maths and her teacher refused to use a different approach with her, or allow visuals, she said they HAVE to teach this way to all children and don't have time to address individual needs, then there was the Singapore maths 🙈 . I honestly would put my lo back in school if they addressed the fact that children with SEN should be taught differently than other children if they are struggling, using computers and visuals, until there are changes I am very happy to continue learning my daughter at home, especially when she is so much happier in herself, and has a better social life than me 😁

[Fanjango]

As a parent whose child failed to attend through anxiety and an admin/parent supporter for a local group I'm raging over this. So many are forced to home Ed after threats of prosecution when schools fail to properly support and attendance drops. So many unable to get a sen placement they desperately need. Many simply ignored or offrolled. To suggest those that have been so utterly failed then should face regulation? Despicable. The programme was bias and not representative of the people shown, some of them are devastated that they have been portrayed the way they have. It was merely a way to prove the need to regulate. Dispatches should be ashamed of allowing themselves to be used this way. #childcatcher

[agnurse]

Realistically, if you're trying to imply that parents are unqualified to educate their children, you're saying that pregnant women should be put into institutions and their children should be removed at birth and raised by the institution.

Children don't start learning just because someone puts them in a seat and gives them a formal class. They learn even before birth. Evidence is now showing that the first three years of life are critical in brain development, and that development of critical skills such as executive function are best built by the presence of a constant, responsive caregiver. You can Google The Brain Story if you don't believe me. Is the government requiring parents to put their children into a government-funded and accredited program at birth?

Keep in mind, too, that the education required by children is unlikely to be comprised of topics that the parents aren't able to teach, especially with modern technology. Here's a curious inconsistency. I have a master's degree in nursing and teach nursing for a living. I don't have an education background. I can (and have) taught and supervised students as they give a drug that has the potential to KILL if it's given incorrectly. Yet I can't walk into a Grade 1 classroom and teach health, because I'm not a "professional educator". Talk about irony.