Impulsive Decision to home educate both DC

[YogaPants2441]

We have taken this decision recently as space has not been allocated to our DC after moving house in the local area and the LA advised that DC have to travel to their old school. The journey is 'unreasonable' and the school not great either.
DS has a tutor for his 11+ which he will sit next week, and I am looking currently to find a tutor for DD but have not found yet. He made a big progress with the tutor who prepared her DC for a grammar school with only 2 days per week (x 2 hours) and allocated homework.

Where do I start to home educate DC and prove the LA that this method works better than their old school? I have not done it myself but prefer it rather than DC attending their old school.

Please help where I could find useful information (I will also go and do some research).

Thank you.

I don't have much experience in home ed but I am a primary teacher.

I would say your find decision will be what type of education you want your children to have. Lots of home ed parents do a more child led/child centred education with lots of 'real life' type learning going on.

If you're looking for your dc to go to grammar school there may be some parts of the national curriculum that you will want to stick to. You can find the new curriculum online with ideas of how to teach the objectives online.

Whatever you decide to do I would make sure you teach your eldest (the one aiming for grammar) the literacy and numeracy objectives otherwise you may find they struggle when they get to secondary.

Education Otherwise might be a good place to start.

I believe you don't have to prove the LA anything, you can choose to home ed any time you like, it could be a worse option, but as long as you are providing them an education it's up to you how you do it.

Our LA only wanted to see that our kids had some varied and interesting things to do, and some opportunities for contact with other kids. They were very supportive and nonjudgemental, and we certainly didn't have to prove anything. We have lots of books, music, and artwork in our house, and our kids are friendly and talkative; I don't think they looked much farther than this, really.

I wouldn't worry about the legalities; for me, the challenge of HE comes from inside myself, worrying that we were never doing enough, but that is my personal struggle.

Thank you all for your support. I would like them to go to a grammar school, but of course there is no 100% guarantee that they will get in to it. So, a very good girls and boys secondary school is near where we moved and I will do my best for them to be up their game.

DS has done 1 1/2 years tutoring for 11+. Last month 3 x week sessions 2 hrs each with 2 different tutors. I am more worried about DD as she will be in year 4 and need to find a good tutor for her as well.

Thanks again, this is great information and advice.

What about the sections below. The old school parents liaison officer is making it difficult for us:

Local authorities' responsibilities
2.5 The DCSF recommends that each local authority provides written information about
elective home education that is clear, accurate and sets out the legal position, roles and responsibilities of both the local authority and parents. This information should be made
available on local authority websites and in local community languages and alternative
formats on request. Local authorities should recognise that there are many approaches to
educational provision, not just a "school at home" model. What is suitable for one child may not be for another, but all children should be involved in a learning process.
2.6 Local authorities have a statutory duty under section 436A of the Education Act 1996,
inserted by the Education and Inspections Act 2006, to make arrangements to enable them
to establish the identities, so far as it is possible to do so, of children in their area who are not receiving a suitable education. The duty applies in relation to children of compulsory
school age who are not on a school roll, and who are not receiving a suitable education
otherwise than being at school (for example, at home, privately, or in alternative provision). The guidance issued makes it clear that the duty does not apply to children who are being
educated at home.2
2.7 Local authorities have no statutory duties in relation to monitoring the quality of home
education on a routine basis.
However, under Section 437(1) of the Education Act 1996, local authorities shall intervene if it appears that parents are not providing a suitable education. This section states that:
"If it appears to a local education authority that a child of compulsory school age in
their area is not receiving suitable education, either by regular attendance at school or
otherwise, they shall serve a notice in writing on the parent requiring him to satisfy them
within the period specified in the notice that the child is receiving such education."
Section 437(2) of the Act provides that the period shall not be less than 15 days beginning with the day on which the notice is served.
2.8 Prior to serving a notice under section 437(1), local authorities are encouraged to address
the situation informally. The most obvious course of action if the local authority has
information that makes it appear that parents are not providing a suitable education, would
be to ask parents for further information about the education they are providing. Such a
request is not the same as a notice under section 437(1), and is not necessarily a precursor
for formal procedures. Parents are under no duty to respond to such enquiries, but it would be sensible for them to do so3.
2 Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities in England to Identify Children not Receiving Education available at
www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/ete/childrenmissingeducation/.
3 Phillips v Brown (1980)
5
Elective Home Education Guidelines for Local Authorities
2.9 Section 437(3) refers to the serving of school attendance orders:
"If -
(a) a parent on whom a notice has been served under subsection (1) fails to satisfy the
local education authority, within the period specified in the notice, that the child is
receiving suitable education, and
(b) in the opinion of the authority it is expedient that the child should attend school,
the authority shall serve on the parent an order (referred to in this Act as a "school
attendance order"), in such form as may be prescribed, requiring him to cause the child to
become a registered pupil at a school named in the order."
2.10 A school attendance order should be served after all reasonable steps have been taken to try
to resolve the situation. At any stage following the issue of the Order, parents may present evidence to the local authority that they are now providing an appropriate education and apply to have the Order revoked. If the local authority refuses to revoke the Order, parents
can choose to refer the matter to the Secretary of State. If the local authority prosecutes the
parents for not complying with the Order, then it will be for a court to decide whether or
not the education being provided is suitable and efficient. The court can revoke the Order
if it is satisfied that the parent is fulfilling his or her duty. It can also revoke the Order where
it imposes an education supervision order. Detailed information about school attendance
orders is contained in Ensuring Regular School Attendance paragraphs 6 to 16.4
2.11 Where the authority imposes a time limit5, every effort should be made to make sure
that both the parents and the named senior officer with responsibility for elective home
education in the local authority are available throughout this period. In particular the Department recommends that the time limit does not expire during or near to school
holidays when there may be no appropriate point of contact for parents within the local authority.
2.12 Local authorities also have a duty under section 175(1) of the Education Act 2002 to
safeguard and promote the welfare of children. This section states:
"A local education authority shall make arrangements for ensuring that the functions
conferred upon them in their capacity as a local education authority are exercised with a
view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children."

I don't really understand your concern about the old school liaison officer. As far as i know, you simply write to the old school informing them that you are deregistering your children and intend to home educate. Eventually, you will get a letter from the LEA, possibly with a questionnaire in it about how you intend to educate your children.

I chose to ring up rather than fill in the questionnaire and we arranged for an informal home visit. The (lovely) HE officer dropped in, had a chat with us and sent us a very supportive email afterwards. We talked about why we chose to HE, explained that we had one tutor once a week, various music lessons, football club, several opportunities for our son to be involved in the local community, etc. He seemed very happy with everything, even though we had little going on in the way of formal education.

I think the officer wanted to see that our son was happy, active, and engaged in life and learning, and it was also important that we were supporting and encouraging our son's education and his ambitions for the future. I wouldn't bother reading that rather dull legal document that you posted; I doubt that you will have any problems with the authorities. If you do have a legal problem, you could start by going to Education Otherwise for advice.

She rang us and said that 'this is not where things end', there is a lot more involved. Advised that by car the journey is 15 minutes to the old school, however we explained that we both work full time in the city and none of ourselves or the person looking after DC during the day could drive.

I will follow the advice to obtain a proof of receipt by sending another letter by recorded delivery and will ignore them.

Thank you for your support, this is new for me and the current LA authority told me that by law I cannot remove DC from roll.

Are your DCs attending a special school? Or subject to an attendence order?The rules are slightly different if so , but if neither of these apply you just have to write to your LEA advising your DC will be educated at home.

If you look at the homeducation.org website there is a template letter you can use. Plus the info you need. It is entirely your decision how your DC receive an education!

If you are in Scotland the rules are different, and you DO have to ask permission to take your children out of school. There is an old thread on here about deregistering, I'll look it up.

If in England or Wales, though, your LA are talking out of their you-know-whats.

I'm just curious if you both work who is home schooling your DCs?

Yes sorry, I only answered for England there we have just started slthough I have been researching it for a loooong time, but should leave replies to experts! I have seen a lot of LEAS spouting bollocks though.

For me, I think that the thing about home educating, is that people I have met who love it and advocate it, really chose it as they genuinely believe it is the best option, not as a "back up" if their first choices don't pan out. Personally I think it's a hard thing to do even if you believe in it, but very very worthwhile. It was an active decision though not a reaction to circumstances.

I have been surprised how effectively the time is used, with one to one attention, you don't necessarily need a 9 till half 3 approach, and I know a lot of people don't, but what childcare would you be using and would they have any input?

My DC are not attending a special school and we are in Greater London.
Penfold007, we have had (and still do) private tutor coming to the house for 2 hours per week and giving them 4 times more homework as the one at school. Currently DC is preparing for his results to start year 7 successfully.

Will we be in disadvantageous position for our application for primary school spaces in the new LA when we want to de-register DC? Is this not considered as 'refusing' the spaces as we were advised that DC have to continue to go to the old school in another borough? Sorry, unsure if this is clear. Is the de-registration from the old school impacting negatively on our application for spaces in the new one?

Never thought I will have to go that route.

Have you de registered? Because if you haven't, then you will (understandably) be contacted by attendance officers.

All you need to do is write to the school- copied to the LEA - saying that you are de registering to home educate. You don't have to do anything else.

Thank you BertrandRussell. I did de-register but the old school is calling us and asking for proof that we have a tutor.
I would like to contact the new LA where we currently live and advise them that our DC are currently without school. My question is, Is it going to make a difference for our application for the new school that we have deregistered?

It will not make any difference to your new LEA that you have de registered, but they will offer you places in the nearest school with spaces- which may not be your first choice.

Surely you just deregisyer your kids and go on the waiting list for the new primary school.

It's the LA who will want to confirm what provision is made for your children but that provision can be very child led and non school like.

I don't understand why the old school is asking for evidence. It's non of their business. Can you email the old school getting them to confirm your kids are deregistered. I wonder if they are still claiming your children's LEA financial allocation

But then you are still on the waiting list for your 1st choice school and can wait whilst attending another school in the borough?

Vanilla please don't think I'm having a pop at you. I wanted to HS but needed to work to pay the bills, probably just as you do. How do you manage childcare?

Your school will be infuriated but there is nothing they can do. You are not obliged to give them anything whatsoever. But they probably aren't aware of this - or think you're not aware of it. I would allow them to complain to whoever they complain to and they can find it out for themselves. There are lots of facebook groups with much better advice than I can give - one called Home Education and your Local Authority: Help with dealing with officialdom would be good for you. I would also send a polite, formal and brief letter requesting that all your communications from now on be in writing and to your solicitor. It will be so much work for them to actually do their homework before writing each letter that they might not bother much. But it is the way to do it because otherwise you may well find yourself misquoted at a later stage.

HE is a brilliant alternative for any children but I imagine it requires an enormous amount of work by at least one parent. I am an academic, I've been teaching my subject for 15 years and still need preparation time. To teach school children you'd need to become familiar with the curriculum in a variety of topics from sciences, to the humanities to art and PE, as well as get to grips with different teaching methods. I can't see how anyone could do this alongside a full time job.

Don't worry, booboostwo, home ed is a totally different thing from classroom, lecturing or seminar teaching. Think of it more like supervising the dissertation of a really rather talented and motivated MA student. It doesn't matter if you don't know every thing about the subject yourself as long as you have good ideas about where to send the student for resources and advice. It really is much more like that, even when it's at primary level. (I'm a home educating academic, so I do actually know of wot I speak :) )

ommmward interesting. So you think a parent could do this with no prep and while working full time? Do they not set tasks, or questions, or exercises? Do these not have to be prepared in advance and have some kind of learning outcome?

I've never heard of anyone supervising MA students in a topic they know little. Or nothing about, in fact the opposite is true, I.e. you are only allowed research students as you become more experienced in teaching. Helping a research student know where to start, what is useful literature, how to frame a research question, how to organise diverse materials and providing constructive feedback on draft work is an extremely challenging job.

Look up autonomous home education, or unschooling - that'll give you a better sense of where some home educators come from. It's about facilitating, definitely not about setting tasks, questions, exercises. And no, you really really don't need pre-set learning outcomes when you are in a home education situation. I mean, you might say "learning to read" is a learning outcome, but that still doesn't mean the parent needs to have a curriculum or a plan to get there. Every child I know who has been autonomously home educated has got to reading when they were ready, and it simply hasn't been a challenge. The parents read to them, scribe for them, explain spellings when the child wants, provide materials of all sorts that have writing on them.

None of it looks ANYTHING like what we are used to in the formal education system, but I can assure you it really works.

I supervise lots of postgrads - MAs and research students too. What you say "Helping a research student know where to start, what is useful literature, how to frame a research question, how to organise diverse materials and providing constructive feedback on draft work is an extremely challenging job." is absolutely right, totally agree with you. None of it is discipline specific - we do co-supervisions across different subject areas in my faculty, because the important thing is having those skills in facilitating someone else to find out what they need to find out in order to learn, not knowing all the subject specific stuff to start with. Do you see what I mean? It doesn't matter whether I'm an expert in chemistry or not, if I know how to help my children find out what they want and need to know about chemistry, and I know other people who we can ask to help us.

For those of us who've spent our whole lives, as adults as well as children, in the formal education system, this is a real Alice through the looking glass challenge. Almost everything we think we know as professionals about how people learn best is just wrong when we apply it to an informal family-based context.

My educational philosophy could not be more different. I am a philosopher so the emphasis of my entire discipline is on teaching people how to think not what to think but structure, context and goals are still crucial.

I don't quite see how the OP can prepare her kids for grammar school with little preparation on her part, just facilitating them to learn while she is at work.

Just specifically about chemistry how do you supervise an MA in this topic? You direct pupils to reliable literary sources and presumably you help them with checking reliability, but how can you know they have done a comprehensive literature review, that they have correctly understood the theories they have read about, that they have correctly identified a gap in the literature, that they have correctly framed a plausible research question, come up with a relevant methodology for testing it and carried out the research correctly? If facilitators were all that was needed surely they would not be needed themselves, all you would need is a list of reliable websites and databases.

Penfold007, we have an au-pair. She lives with us and provides full time child care around the clock, we are very lucky to have her, wonderful lady.

I completely agree that HE requires a lot of research, effort and time. I will continue with the private tutor even if places are allocated. I agree this is not as easy as it seems and this is (hopefully) a temp solution for us.

We spoke to the new LA today and they are aware that we de-registered from the previous one, so thank you all for your valuable imput. I was indeed not aware, but also think the school staff was not competent as well with the legislation. And I do not have a solicitor:-) I cant afford one :-))