Dear Ms Longfield
Your Dispatches program on channel 4, Monday 4th Feb was not a true representation of Home Educated children. Here I am referring mostly to the programme and in part to your comment here.
Aside from one case, it was a representation of children where school was failing them and their parents felt they had no other option than to help them at home (with, as of yet, no community to support them) and a child being kept home by neglecting or abusive parents.
By misrepresenting Home Education and it's communities, you are falsely supporting your agenda to bring about legislation for registering all Home Edded children and most concerning of all, it appears your aim to ensure the government controls what is taught to them.
Your use of language and emphasis in the programme and also in your Twitter comment, appears designed to cause the viewer to side with the false/negative implications/accusations contained within. Take for example your spoken comments, with words you strongly emphasised in brackets "parents can (simply) email a plan to the council....and they have (every right) to refuse a home visit" it is clear to me you are inferring that the viewer should find this extremely worrying.
In your written comments, 6th para. Using the phrase 'In fact' when it's based on your very limited research that you say 'suggests' is another example of your misleading propaganda which your programme and your comment is framed by.
In the programme you began a section with "Home Education is illegal in Germany". Why is that relevant? If you must refer to it perhaps bear in mind that just maybe it's illegality in Germany has it's roots in the history of controlling the mindset and actions of the people 'for the good of the nation' by owning the children's minds, Hitler Youth being a historical example.
I would find laughable the comments repeatedly made, 'these children are disadvantaged, how will they pass exams, get a job, compete with others in the work place' if it weren't so serious an allegation that was being promoted as foregone conclusion and tarring the majority of the Home Education community as disabling their children at best and abusing them at worst.
Some of your figures appear to be woefully inaccurate due to lack of any real footfall research. According to your figures only just 263 out of 11,000 exam age home educated children sat Year 11 exams last year. If this is true of the group you studied, it most certainly does not reflect the true number taking GCSE's etc.
Our two sons, home educated throughout their lives until 16, achieved A-B in 10 subjects, Maths/English/Sciences, plus others at C grade, evenly between them. We may have taken more if finances had allowed, but choosing not to has not disadvantaged them at all. They went on to achieve Distinction**- Distinction in college courses, one also worked with a charity funded course in London to alongside disadvantaged young people in music to help improve the course, and the other gained an award for film making from the UAL examining board. One has been full time employed in a professional highly sought after position for the last two years and the other is in his second A level year having gained three A's and a B in his AS levels last year.
I won't list any more of their achievements because they are mentioned for no other reason than to show that your program is not in any way a representation of HE. Our sons are by no means alone in being successful, well rounded home educated children/adults. Of those I know, virtually all have gone on to succeed in the traditional sense. To me the most important aspect of that success is that they realise they have value/worth, resilience, that they are loved and matter, that their happiness matters and eventually that they can be positive contributors in society whether that be a rocket scientist or a refuse collector.
You stated in the programme that "the freedom to create their own curriculum is one of the (your?) biggest criticisms of the whole system". I certainly do not want any 'body' being in control of what Home Edders teach because we tailor what and how anything is taught according to the learning style/interests of the child. Most of us would say that is one of the greatest benefits and I'm certain such interference would in the majority of cases cause disruption and limitation in their education.
In your written comments in the penultimate para. you state you want 'education officers to visit at least once per term to assess the suitability of their education, and their welfare' The one home visit that we accepted, in order to to be accepted for funding for three GCSE's each, was a pleasant exchange and the report was very positive. However the abundant grammar/spelling inaccuracies in it meant that I had to return it to be corrected before I could sign it as acceptable to me.
Why would you think any team/person who has to fit in yet something else in their overwhelming workload is in a suitable position in your words in the programme with your emphasis, to "(judge)" the "success, or (otherwise)" of a teaching method/curriculum that the official visitor has little actual experience of. It seems to me that this is most likely why you are negative about parents forming their own curriculum, you cannot make accurate judgments if you haven't dictated it in the first place. This is not an acceptable reason to make parents conform to governing bodies curriculum, it does not place the needs of the individual child first. I doubt mine would have achieved the musicianship skills they both have if I had been forever trying to jump through hoops to satisfy imposed curriculum. The framework you are attempting to impose is the straight jacket that the majority of Elective Home Educators chose either not to put on, or to throw off by removing their child from the school system.
I know personally, and know of, many traditionally schooled children who have been, and in other cases are continuing to be, 'failed' in the school/further education system. They still struggle with self esteem issues/confidence etc and achieved little or low GCSE results and have little sense of being able to problem solve. They often struggle to think independently, most of this is because earlier building blocks were missed, but the curriculum was so tightly adhered to that it served itself and ticked government boxes rather than meeting the pupils needs.
We all know that much of the education system is over loaded and under funded and teachers are often over worked and demoralised, this all feeds into the daily education of the pupils. There are many wonderful, excellent, hard working teachers and support staff that care about their pupils, but many have been struggling, or have become cynical and overwhelmed by the constant government dictates which start off with the right idea, but without the money, manpower and true wisdom/experience, haven't a hoping of working on the ground level. There are also those teachers who are outright bullies, or control 'freaks' or think the institution is what matters rather than the children who they consider are there to serve said institution and I've witnessed those firsthand.
Regarding safety. It is very clear to anyone who bothers to look that there is NO evidence that true Home Educated children are any more at risk of abuse than traditionally schooled children. If a parent is the type to inflict serious harm then this will happen regardless of their education setting. I won't cite all the heartbreaking cases of school children who have died either through abuse or suicide and were 'failed' by those around them, they are far too numerous and other comments on this thread evidence that for some school was not a safe place for their children. On your 'Children's Commissioner England FB page, there are many comments in the second post down (because you turned off people's ability to review the programme) that also evidence the lack of safety in school for many children.
Yes by all means respond to those who want a suitable education for their children, but are not in school for good reason, give them support before or when the school system is causing them to fail or worse driving them to ill health/suicide, but don't try to impose what you believe is the right way for all children to be taught. The education system does not have the finances, nor the human resource wisdom, nor the time etc to ensure a good education and positive welfare of a huge number of those already in the school system. It is grossly ignorant to think that by checking or controlling all Electively Home Educating families and what is taught/how it's taught that government will do a better job than they who have a vested interest in it's success.
I hope this helps you to see that although you may be well meaning, your only real concern should be a potentially worrying group of children being 'off rolled' who are in most cases failed by schools and whose parents are opting to call themselves Home Educators rather than be in trouble with the local authorities or put their children into yet another school which will fail to meet their needs. Many of these parents will go on to find a way forward and their children will do better working at home than they did in the school system, because if a child is unhappy, bullied, forced to conform to ways that do not meet their needs etc, they are likely to fail exams in school and also be disadvantaged mentally/emotionally, often for their lives. It's the remainder that perhaps need alternative systems of help (rather than hindrance by trying to teach them by ineffective methods) put into place. I understand why you find this group to be of concern.
Using the group of children who have either been off rolled, or whose parents did not choose Home Education but could see that it was that or their child would be seriously damaged or die, to work towards any kind of legislation to register all home educated children, or give government bodies new powers, let alone attempt to control what is taught is completely inappropriate to say the least.
I have found the main reason that most of us do not want to engage with any governing body, (aside from our choice not to pass on our right to provide an appropriate education for our children to an overall failing system) is because there is a perception among us that there can be a tendency for governing bodies to think you 'know better' and should be in charge. Your programme and comments bear this out and has been evidenced in your somewhat arrogant and blinkered presumptions about Home education overall.
Para. 6 "92% of councils in England do not feel they have adequate powers to assure the suitability of education"
Let me pose some questions What if the apparent agenda to impose government ideals which are not tailored to the individual child, along with what would currently in most cases be unwelcome visits, was dropped? What if there was a desire in 'you' to be willing to learn from 'us' without agenda and judgement or sense of entitlement? What if you would see it as a privilege to be invited into our educating methods/experiences and experience thinking outside of your own parameters? What if you took the time to truly learn about Home Education in it's fulness? What if you recognised and acknowledged that the school system may not be the best place for many children? What if you learned enough to understand that the suitability of an education varies from child to child and that for some a morning playing in a certain way can allow more learning than two weeks of timetabled, structured, book based, class based lessons with all of the distractions and struggles a child is encountering in them. What if you took a humble approach?
Perhaps a register would not be so unwelcome then, (although that would not ensure that the extremely small percentage of abusive parents would register) perhaps you'd think about how to help those who take a considerable financial burden off the government funded school system and not hinder them. And while the massive machine of the school systems problems are being gradually improved as constraints allow, perhaps you would implement true support methods to those who are struggling to know how to access HE support and not just follow the often punitive path systems governing bodies lay out to adhere to.
Overall, I perceive the Dispatches program has been a massive scaremongering, grossly unjust tactic to attempt to control the Home Education Community. Your written comments are no less so, although you do refer more to the actual group that you studied in the majority, those who the school system has 'let down'. I wish to clarify that phrase by saying that the teachers etc trying to implement the many governing systems/dictates for the most part cannot possibly do all that is being asked of them without it affecting their own health and well being and consequently the education and well being of the children in their care. I believe that is the crux of your problem.
With regards.