Shouldn't we get funding for Home Education?!! Anyone up for a campaign?

[mummybiz]

What's everyones opinion on the fact that we don't send our children to school or we take out children out of school so the LEA saves a minimum of £3000 per year and far more at secondary level but we get no help at all with funding ? If money was available would the fact that getting funding from an LEA or direct from government mean contact with the "authorities" or providing proof that the money had been spent on the childs education put you off applying if it was available?
There was talk of giving parents a voucher which they could take to any school which represented the LEA spending for that pupil and parents would be free to top up if they wanted private ed etc. This has been put to oneside due to cuts but we are still saving the government thousands and yet paying taxes etc which fund education.
I think we should campaign for some of the money which would have been spent on our children if they were in school to be given either direct to parents or to a central elective home education body formed by home ed parents to distribute to families - I'll start a campaign if anyone is interested?

I don't agree that a child who is registered for an online school which they " attend " online for part of a day or even the whole day or a child who attends a set up like heroes is should be classed as not home educated. Is one form of home education ie the one in which the home ed family has the minmal contact with LEA etc to be lauded above any other form - the language you use saying the setup up in staffs doesn't "threaten " home educators is again very defensive. It can appear that home educators have developed an almost cult like idea of what is "real" home education and what is something else. Confessing to having been a primary teacher to some home edders is immediately met with "well you can forget everything you've learnt - it's not relevant" - why should that be the case? Shouldn't a home ed parent bring all their experiences in to play to provide the kind of education they want for their child?

Would this campaign also force leas to fund equipmwnt for children with severe disabilities? Cos right now, you opt out of school and they tell you you have opted out of physio, wheelchairs, OT, communication devices, cd fkr blind children etc etc?

And since when do school kids get 3k? Its more like 1.3k a year.

mummybiz, I haven't really followed the whole of this argument, being fairly new to the home ed. environment, but I do agree that there are many ways to home educate.

I've worked in primary schools and secondary schools and, although I really don't want DS to get stuck in that environment, I for one certainly don't dismiss what I've learned as irrelevant. I've had the privilege watching lots of children and young people tackle all sorts of tasks in many different ways, and I'm fairly sure that all my experience of what works/doesn't work will be useful.

Riveninside, that's really shocking! I'll certainly join a campaign that says equipment for disabled children should be based on their needs, not on how they are educated!

(sorry, not just equipment - resources in general, including physio etc.)

Its why we cannot HE number 4. A communivation device is 17k and is provided via school only. That said, school is respite!

Riveniniside, I am so very seriously shocked that these things are provided only via the school That's so unfair!

If the "funding" is done by providing learning facilities which people can choose to use, then that leaves the control in the hands of the family, and that sounds like what is happening in Staffs. The problem comes with the strings which would be sure to follow if the money was given to the families and not to a "school".

If an online state school existed and was funded, again that would be fine - we paid for an online independent school, and would have been happy to have had a state alternative if one had existed. But again that would be the school which was funded, and not us given money to pay fees.

If you want to campaign for something which would make a difference to more families, you could try to get them to overturn the change to benefits which forces parents to be available for work once their child turns 7 (IIRC) as that is a big isue for many families.

1. I would like to see college places given on merit (for the 14-16 age group) rather upon, who got kicked out of school. I find it incredibly frustrating that we reward bad behavior in this country, at the expense of those who would jump at opportunity. Children who have been thrown out of school, should have to apply for these places, alongside any other child, who wants that college place, and they should be awarded on merit. Home educated children in this age bracket, repeatedly miss out on college places due to lack of funding, given to more 'needy' cases.

1. I would like to see children with SEn able to access services equal to those in public education. IF their families so desire it for them.

1. I would like to see access to exams/centers.

1. I do not want you campaigning for funding on my behalf. This has nothing to do with fear, but rather freedom. It is not your job nor your responsibility to fight for something I do not want.

Nor is it your place to determine what I need, nor the price I should have to pay in order to have it.

Which is the lesser of two evils? That you currently enjoy the same levels of freedom to home educate as the rest of the community? Or that my freedoms become diminished, so you can have your cake and eat it too?

Primum Non Nocere

If you want to campaign for something which would make a difference to more families, you could try to get them to overturn the change to benefits which forces parents to be available for work once their child turns 7 (IIRC) as that is a big isue for many families.

This is something well worth campaigning for.

Not every child who fails to complete school at secondary age has been "kicked out" because they can't behave - the family I was referring to had medical issues which meant a lot of school had been missed - so again the almost blind panic of a home ed parent daring to suggest that they personally would like to approach home ed in a different way causes a misinterpretation of a post !
Saying "I don't want you campaigning on my behalf for funding" once again shows that some home edders seem to view all home ed parents as one collective and insular group - this fails to take into account that some newcomers to home education may see the future in a different light and may be interested in taking a new approach negotiated with LEAs government and or private businesses to enable funding for the set up of a learning environment which is not a school !!
Mammasez says " It is not your place to determine what I need or the price I should pay for it" - I never said anything about determining what is right for you... I am looking to find more parents who have the same outlook (and I have people already interested) - again - why the insistence that home education has to be with minimal outside contact - this is the very reason newcomers to home education find it very hard to get information and find support particularly local support. By becoming less insular you will attract greater numbers to your cause and your ability to resist any measures you don't want will be all the greater.

I am trying to limit the damage for home educating single parents who will shortly not be eligible for Income Support once their youngest child is 5 (April 2012 latest likely date) I'm talking to lobbyists and people in parliament.

I am also pushing for clarification on the Alternative Provision funding as to where it can be used for SEN support and under 16s college places when children are home educated and over the years I've lobbied against the move to controlled assessments for GCSEs and worked with the Independent Schools Council and I spoke at their Annual Conference a couple of years ago, trying to open up private schools exam centre facilities for home educated young people.

In the past a local friend of mine has got Youth Opportunities funding for the local teens in the home education group to do a whole slew of activities ( over £20K worth of funding over the years)

I'm working to raise awareness of flexischooling options because I know that not everyone is willing or able to home educate full-time.

I've met and talked with council employees and civil servants in many areas of the country including my own in Sheffield.

Having said all that, I don't think there will be "funding for home education" in my lifetime, so I'm reading all these posts in a seen-it-all-before kind of way. I don't see how there possibly could be. It doesn't fit with any political party's agenda, there's no money (when a friend of mine did a survey a couple of years ago the average spend per child from the local authority - and this included staff costs at the council - was £200 ) and apart from a very very few people who make a fuss for a little while, there's no sustained and determined call for it (in the same way as there is a sustained and determined call for freedom, by contrast)

Home educators can get funding as a community group. They can join in with Free Schools. They can flexischool (ie get free childcare/part time school) Increasingly they will be able to get placed paid at college when they are 14. In time there may be greater clarity over SEN funding where children are home educated. But money to parents, nope. It's not going to happen.

Disclaimer: I never HEd, but did consider it when my DC1 was in infant school. But at that time Education Otherwise was just beginning, so there would have been little support and a lot of bureaucracy to cope with.

Although your suggestions might have some merit, mummybiz, I also think you are proposing them way too soon. Home Edders have fought a long battle (for around 40 years) to get to where they are now and, from some posts I've read in this section, there is still some way to go in respect of some local authorities/members of the public/even police officers patrolling shopping centres on schooldays.

If LEAs back in the 1970s and for some decades since, hadn't taken the attitude that they did, financial resources could have been diverted to providing facilities to support home educators. And LEAs could have learned a lot from that ? most especially cascading ideas down to schools about how to engage children in learning when those children don't fit the "norm". (When my DC1 was in state school, the only significant criterion was age.)

But they dropped the ball, and it's taken a couple of generations of successfully home-educated children for them to see the light. And a lot of effort/pain on the part of their parent educators. It's a long history, and doesn't reflect well on LEAs.

From what I can tell, you're new to HE, and presumably you're in an area of an enlightened LEA ? but you might want to think about who enlightened your LEA and the battles they fought.

My original post seems have got interpreted as a call for funding to individual parents but actually if you read all I have said I am more interested in the possibilities for collective funding - I have raised the idea of a flexi learning environment either online or actual and have had a lot of positive responses and will be actively looking at the possibilities of establishing this for my local area Kirklees. The EHO officer here has been really helpful - and I have links with businesses who can help via sponsorship free resources etc. I hope that the purist home educators won't see this as a betrayal of the Home Education agenda but simply a group of parents making a different choice in how they interpret home education.

I agree that others have gone before me and done the hard work in enlightening LEA's and I am lucky in that my area is trying to build "non-intrusive" bridges with home educators but I guess I am trying to say I don't see why a particular small sector of home ed parents can't interpret home education in a way which involves closer partnerships with outside agencies without being seen as trying to destroy the work that others have done before.

mummybiz - you seem to have changed tack there - now you're talking about "to enable funding for the set up of a learning environment which is not a school" - that's a world away from what you talked about in your OP - giving money to parents, directly or via an HE organisation.

I'm sure most HErs would have no problem with an LEA choosing to set up and fund a more flexible educational service which parents could opt into if they chose, either from an HE background or to leave school and move to. So long as that was not compulsory, and parents could utilise it in a flexible way to suit their needs, I'm sure there would be plenty of takers.

But would a government that insists on a National Curriculum be prepared to set up and fund a school which did not comply with that?

Healthy debate (as Mumsnet is known for !!) helps to refine ideas and that's why I started the thread - I have been looking at setting up a flexi type centre for home edders in Kirklees as you can see from my previous threads on this forum and also some online learning for people further afield. I think there is more chance with the move towards free schools and academies to get funding for a "flexible opt in and out education service" - the other side of the coin is if people would hate government funding what about private funding - would private finance cause the same issues?

Local home educating groups can apply for grants and funding just like any other non-profit organization. My local HE group has gotten funding for years from government and other sources and use it for joint activities and lessons. Using outside organizations and funding is not anything new. Not everyone takes it up because getting that funding can be a PITA (and not everyone is part of their local group to get said funding).

The issue taken with your original post is that you said to the individual or to a central home educating body - there is no central elective home educating body and there isn't likely to be one. That type of funding would likely be taken as a bribe to register to get that funding and that would cause an explosive fight before it left the presses.

Not every child who fails to complete school at secondary age has been "kicked out" because they can't behave - the family I was referring to had medical issues which meant a lot of school had been missed - so again the almost blind panic of a home ed parent daring to suggest that they personally would like to approach home ed in a different way causes a misinterpretation of a post !

Ah, I didn't say that every child at college was there because they were kicked out, I said that those children should apply and be judged on merit, alongside every other child of that age who wants a place. Only the naive would think, that didn't include children who had been excluded for health reasons.

Please get a grip, there is no blind panic. You however seem to lace your posts with manipulative emotive language.

Saying "I don't want you campaigning on my behalf for funding" once again shows that some home edders seem to view all home ed parents as one collective and insular group - this fails to take into account that some newcomers to home education may see the future in a different light and may be interested in taking a new approach negotiated with LEAs government and or private businesses to enable funding for the set up of a learning environment which is not a school !!

Actually after 12 + years of HE, I am fully aware of the diversity in the HE community. It does not come as a surprise to me that people think differently.

What you fail to grasp, is that unfortunately the government sees us as one big group, and has largely failed to grasp that diversity. I have NO problem's whatsoever with free thinking and different approaches.

However I do think that there is nothing new under the sun, and often times people dash head long into their great ideas, and haven't really stopped to consider how their actions affect others. Or if those ideas have actually been tossed about before eons ago.

I don't want my child's education sponsored by KFC or Coca Cola. If I wanted to put my children in learning environment that wasn't school, I would set up a co-op with other interested parents, and allow those who are responsible for the children, to be so. So therefore, I don't want strings attached to my freedom, because YOU want your learning center sponsored by Loreal (or any other private business). Until the government and the LEA's can even begin to grasp the difference between autonomous, unschooling, natural, or a structured home educator then we are starting way behind the 8 ball.

You said I never said anything about determining what is right for you... I am looking to find more parents who have the same outlook (and I have people already interested) But by default you do. By campaigning the government for funding for home educators and changing the way things are done, then you place strings on my freedom. You have way too much faith in your government.

why the insistence that home education has to be with minimal outside contact Fairly large assumption wouldn't you say?

By becoming less insular you will attract greater numbers to your cause and your ability to resist any measures you don't want will be all the greater.

I don't need to attract anyone to my cause. I don't have a cause. I have a family, whom I am happy to home educate as long as they want to be. I think Fiona offers some great alternatives above for those who want to set up such learning environments. Perhaps that would be a good place for you and your interested others to start? On your own, with your own thing, doing it your own way, for your own family.

No, I wouldn't want that. As it is, we are sending DD to state school, but we are very pro home ed, especially autonomous or 'unschooling'. But if having govt funding meant they had ANY influence over how we chose to live, I would really resent that.

Also I may be immensely cynical but I would also be concerned that less scrupulous parents would think "oh goody I can 'homeschool' and do nothing, and get money!"...

MammaSez - my priority is always going to be to give my children the best education I can and if that means setting up a learning environment then I will do it :) - love the image of an academy sponsored by L'oreal but I was thinking more Jamie Oliver myself :)
Describing my posts as laced with manipulative emotive language is a little bizarre - I am obviously coming across the fundamentalist side of Home Education I was warned about:) - removes tongue form cheek and continues ......
I was brought up to believe that everyone has the right to their opinion but that others should be allowed to have a different opinion - don't be so scared that if a group or an individual wearing the label of Home educator does something different the whole Home Education community will be "threatened".
Even without direct government funding the government is contributing towards your childs education in some way whether through claiming tax credits- income support- using the local library- the swimming pool - the museums etc etc - should home educators who object to government funding so strongly not be allowed to use these services and be allowed to withhold a proportion of their taxes !?

I've only got one child so I should be refunded at least £6000 p.a in respect of the the other 2 children I might have had but didn't, thereby saving the state all that money....

And what about the taxpayers with NO children? Should they be givcen a voucher in repsect of the NHS money that you use when you take your kids to A&E but they don't need?

The whole point of a state provision is that it is provided by society as a whole, for the benefit of individuals within it, who in turn benefit society as a whole.

I agree with you mummybiz regarding EO - absolutely hopeless - and were hopeless the whole time I was a member. Joined in autumn 09, membership stuff took months to arrive. I sent in my change of address twice, then sent it in again for the new 'address book' thingy (I did that twice too)
All that happened was they still put my old address in the contact book - and sent EO newsletter to both my old and new address for 6 months after my membership expired.
It might be worthwhile if you live near places where the discounts apply but here in rural land it wasnt!

But with regard to the funding for HE issue Im with Julienoshoes all the way - all funding means is interferrance and strings attached! No thanks

Thanks for giving your views so freely everyone - quite proud that the thread hit 50 posts!!
Our children are all very lucky that we feel so passionately about giving them the type of education we feel will suit them best - I wonder if our children will go on to home educate their own children and perhaps the idea of state funded opt in opt out home education will be in all the forms we have talked about will become a reality - for now I'll carry on my home ed journey and see where it leads :)