Not accepting a school place. Do I *have* to tell LA what I am doing?

[InASchoolsDilemma]

I'm not home educating, but thought about it years ago, and spent some time lurking on this board. So I know that everyone on here will be able to advise me.

DS has been in private education up to now (Yr 6). We applied through the LA system for the LB of Sutton grammar schools and DS has been accepted at one. But we have decided to stay in the private sector. My acceptance form says that if I decline, I MUST tell them which school DS is going to instead.

That's not the case, is it? Or have things changed? I thought I was under no obligation to tell them. I don't really have a problem with telling them, but I do object to being told I must when I'm not sure that's correct.

Under the Children Missing Education legislation, they have a duty to try to get this information. But you have no corresponding duty to assist them with this!

Once your child has finished Y6 and is no longer enrolled at a school, if you don't send him to another one then there is no requirement for you to inform anybody.

So you don't have to tell the LA you are going to HE, but you can expect that they may keep pestering you for more info. Some people write "privately educated" on the form if they don't want to have to correspond with the LA's EHE team - that might satisfy them.

Many thanks Saracen. My DH can't understand my desire to withhold the information from them, but I don't like being told what to do at the best of times, let alone when I am being lied to! I'll just write that he's staying in the private sector.

When mine moved from state primary to private secondary I just put reason for declining independent school.. I then got an email or letter saying I needed to provide proof. I just ignored it.

Thanks SilasGreenback. Have been vague in my reply, so expect I will get a follow up, but will ignore it too

Thanks SilasGreenback. Have been vague in my reply, so expect I will get a follow up, but will ignore it too

Oops Sorry for double post!

Just tell them. So many children slip through the cracks- making life difficult for overstretched people trying to keep children safe is just perverse.

And making them waste time following up your perfectly safe child when they could be using the time to follow up an unsafe one is even more perverse.

Agree with Hak. What is the point of NOT telling them apart from you acting all bloody minded over someone in 'authority' trying to tell you what to do?!

I've had a letter this morning offering my son a place at secondary school, they know he's home schooled and if I want to decline it I just have to let them know that he's staying as home schooled. You should be able to let them know he's home schooled, they don't need to know anything else.

Agree with hak. What is your objection to answer their question?

Well, I would object to answering the question on the grounds that it is likely to involve me in unnecessary future correspondence with the LA, and attempted intrusion from them. Many, many LAs, including mine, are fairly underhanded in how they deal with HE families. This can require a number of assertive letters from parents "reminding" LA staff of the law (as if they didn't know and hadn't chosen deliberately to misrepresent it!).

It's a hassle. I have better ways to spend my time.

If my LA were above-board and reasonable about it all, I'd be willing to fill in the odd form. They'd get better engagement with families.

And if you dont respond then you wont get caught in unnecesary future correspondence?
It is an honest question.

Surely answering the questions STOPS a whole load of chasing / follow up correspondence. In this situation, I would give the information, and if you're ever chased in the future you can just forward back the same email.

I'd add another argument that from a statistical point of view I would like to know an accurate % of children HE, privately educated and state educated, so I support the gathering of that information.

HandMini - why does anyone need to know that % ? I mean, it might be interesting but why is it important enough to trump privacy?

Maybe I'd like to know how many women use reusable sanitary protection, but making a law to enable me to find out would be outrageous (I don't care how many women use disposable and how many use usable - I was looking for a random example of some intrusive question to make the point).

Because in order to make long term policy the la needs to know how many kids are living in the area, how many receive each type of education etc.

I honestly dont see why saying my dc is he/goes to school x is considered such a breach of privacy. It is good that the la follows up to make sure that every kid is educated.

Well, no. Parents are legally responsible for ensuring that their children receive a full time education, at school or otherwise.

State provided schooling is just one of the options we can choose from.

So the LA only needs to know, actually, about the children whose education parents ask them to provide, in order to satisfy the parents' legal responsibility. They do need to know forward numbers for planning and stuff, and that's why they do the admissions cycle each year.

The LA has no responsibility for making sure that every child is educated which, when an LA staffer actually stops to think about it, is very much in their interests. Otherwise, LA education teams would be vulnerable to being prosecuted every time a child in their area fails to receive a decent education in one of the schools they run. Oops.

The LA DOES have a responsibility, when they are aware of a child not being in school, to satisfy themselves that a full time education is being provided, but they have no responsibility (or legal remit) for ongoing monitoring.

This is the one corner of the law that home educators are pretty savvy about, for obvious reasons (there are too many local authorities where the staffers try to persuade us that they DO have a responsibility for ongoing monitoring, and that it is they, the staffers, rather than a court of law, who should decide what a suitable education looks like. There is a long standing issue of the actual law being at odds with the most effective way for LA employees to claim that they shouldn't be made redundant in an era of cuts...)

Well, no. Parents are legally responsible for ensuring that their children receive a full time education, at school or otherwise.

State provided schooling is just one of the options we can choose from.

So the LA only needs to know, actually, about the children whose education parents ask them to provide, in order to satisfy the parents' legal responsibility. They do need to know forward numbers for planning and stuff, and that's why they do the admissions cycle each year.

The LA has no responsibility for making sure that every child is educated which, when an LA staffer actually stops to think about it, is very much in their interests. Otherwise, LA education teams would be vulnerable to being prosecuted every time a child in their area fails to receive a decent education in one of the schools they run. Oops.

The LA DOES have a responsibility, when they are aware of a child not being in school, to satisfy themselves that a full time education is being provided, but they have no responsibility (or legal remit) for ongoing monitoring.

This is the one corner of the law that home educators are pretty savvy about, for obvious reasons (there are too many local authorities where the staffers try to persuade us that they DO have a responsibility for ongoing monitoring, and that it is they, the staffers, rather than a court of law, who should decide what a suitable education looks like. There is a long standing issue of the actual law being at odds with the most effective way for LA employees to claim that they shouldn't be made redundant in an era of cuts...)

sorry for double post.

I take your word for it ommward.

Still it seems to me that by refusing to engage with the la you are making things difficult for a lot of people just to make a point.

I don't see why anyone needs to know how many kids ar being HE- although I suppose it might be interesting to see whether the numbers are going up or down.

I do think it's important that they know roughly where children are. So "educated in the private sector" is fine, if you don't want to say what school. So that the LEA knows it's not a vanished through the gaps child. Making people's lives difficult for the sake of it is not being a free spirit, it's being an arse.

and when children do slip through the gaps there are cries that the la should have known. they shouldn't have been allowed to vanish from their records.
not suggesting that's anything to do with home ed, just making the pointy theyre damned if they do and if they don't

That may be stealth. But that isn't our responsibility is it? We are not the ones who hold them responsible. We just ask to be left in peace.

the general public, the media, ministers and sometimes th epolice assign blame
why be uncooperative when it's as easy to cooperate and frees them up to worry about families who need it

From a different perspective, when I was a school nurse we were interested to know about children being home educated.

School health teams are responsible for the health and wellbeing of all children of school age, whether educated in school or not. If the LA don't know where they are, we can't offer them health initiatives only available through school health services. I'm particularly thinking of vaccinations such as the HPV vaccine and the teen boosters.

You don't have to be in school to receive them, but they aren't necessarily funded and available through your GP.