Do the LA contact you when kids turn 5?

[sorkycake]

I was re-reading SINC last night and even though she is 4.5 we did send the letter in to de-reg her because she's on the attendance register. I'm just wondering if the LA is likely to wait until Easter before making contact as she turns 5 in May, and according to law doesn't require education until the term following her 5th birthday.
Does that mean we'll have a bit of breathing space or will they contact us regardless because of the letter?
Whaddya think?

From everything I've ever come across it totally depends on the LA. We haven't heard hide nor hair of anything, but we've never been registered anyway.
Friends in another district contacted the LA themselves and where told they weren't in the least bit bothered about HE'ders, they were snowed under dealing with the truants.
I imagine most of these government departments are going to leave it later, given the workload and paperwork involved in pursuing something like this. So my best guess is you'll have some breathing space.

dunno

but we are about to post a letter informing te LA of our decision to HE and a brief synopsis of our position. hoping to avoid probs by being utterly above board.

will let you know

Ooh crikey...a synopsis! We didn't do one of those...bugger...noone said anything about a synopsis
I was thinking just get out of school and wait for the LA to find us lol.
I'm really hoping to have the baby before the questioning starts.

3 virgos in this house you see...

seriously i know our local SS quite well via work. they are overstretched and I reckon wont be bothered as long as we know we are not using the kids for sweatshop labour.

Are we not supposed to be using them for chimney-cleaning then? That's next years 3 month unit-study scuppered then...

As my ds is 5.5, I did send a copy of the de-reg letter to the LA and spoke with a bloke from the LA, who seemed very nice and we spoke about some of my reasons over the phone and he was very supportive. Like Filly, I wanted to be totally above board and hope that they wouldn't feel any reason to come rushing for a visit. Aparently, we will have an initial visit in the new year (probably feb) and then not again for a year. I am happy with that.

Hi Filly

I also decided to be above board with my LEA and let them know we were intending to home educate when my ds got to 5. Biggest mistake of my life! We have got precisely nothing whatsoever from our contact with the LEA. Only years of boring visits, and no help or support. When dd was 5 (10 years later) we got the bumph from the LEA and returned it saying that as they had no reason to believe that we were not providing an education could they please leave us alone now, and to my suprise they agreed - so they have never met dd. Life is much easier without having a yearly visit to worry about, and if you are intending to educate autonomously then it is very hard to present that in a way that ticks their boxes, not impossible as our kids are still learning loads, just not in a conventional manner.

If I were in your situation now, I would not draw myself to their attention. There is no legal requirement on you to notify the LA (they have changed their name this year as they now include welfare and education), the provision of an education is your duty, no one else's.

At the moment there is the "Every Child Matters" agenda coming in, which means that LA's now have to actively track and find out any children missing from education, so they are a bit keener than they have been in the past, but you might still be able to avoid attention, quite legally. We have to get across to the LA's that home educated children are NOT missing from education - they get a little confused and this makes them believe that they have some right to monitor our provision!! Wrong, in law they only have a negative duty to take action only if there appears to be no provision being made. If they believe there is an appearance of no education then they have a right to make informal enquiries, in response to which we only have to supply enough evidence as would convince a reaonable person on a balance of probabilities that an education is being provided. How LA's read this law to make regular home visits, prescribe methods of learning, demanding dated written work, (my son didn't bother with writing until he was 11) and demand a broad and balanced curriculum be followed, I don't know, but they do, so if you can keep out of their way, you might as well

I would second the last poster. My previous health visitor was trying to pressurise me to send Helen to a day nursery at 9 months, claiming it would be better for both of us if she went to nursery and I returned to work. The health visitor also made numerous comments (again before Helen even turned 1) such as "you're not one of those weird parents who will want to home educate?" amongst many others. In the end, we filed a complaint about several things - it's a long story. I'm happy to say that we have since changed health visitor and that we are now very happy and settled and that Helen is thriving and doing very well. However, I was still curious as to the reasons for all the attention and began to investigate the possible reasons - especially the home education bit. How many of you were asked the question by your health visitor? I eventually found out that there's a family in my neighbourhood who took their children out from a top preforming primary school to home educate. From what I can understand the parents refused access to the EWO from the LEA to their home. They in turn contacted Social Services. The family refused access to them too, the whole thing ended up in the courts, and luckily for the family, they won the cases. I realise that some LEA are better than others but our LEA is so negative regarding home education and I'm informed that they are increasingly using "child protection" reasons and the "Every Child Matters" documentation policies to browbeat parents into opening their houses/homes and lifestyles to the scrutiny of the LEA and others. I recently met the mother involved and she said her biggest regret was to have registered her children in the first place with the LEA. Although she won the court cases, she has decided to sell her home and move to Ireland. I fear - although many of you will probably disagree - those wishing to home educate will come under a lot of pressure from the authorities to reconsider. I had never considered home educating until the health visitor had mentioned it to me but the message I received is clear: expect trouble.

I would second the last poster. My previous health visitor was trying to pressurise me to send Helen to a day nursery at 9 months, claiming it would be better for both of us if she went to nursery and I returned to work. The health visitor also made numerous comments (again before Helen even turned 1) such as "you're not one of those weird parents who will want to home educate?" amongst many others. In the end, we filed a complaint about several things - it's a long story. I'm happy to say that we have since changed health visitor and that we are now very happy and settled and that Helen is thriving and doing very well. However, I was still curious as to the reasons for all the attention and began to investigate the possible reasons - especially the home education bit. How many of you were asked the question by your health visitor? I eventually found out that there's a family in my neighbourhood who took their children out from a top preforming primary school to home educate. From what I can understand the parents refused access to the EWO from the LEA to their home. They in turn contacted Social Services. The family refused access to them too, the whole thing ended up in the courts, and luckily for the family, they won the cases. I realise that some LEA are better than others but our LEA is so negative regarding home education and I'm informed that they are increasingly using "child protection" reasons and the "Every Child Matters" documentation policies to browbeat parents into opening their houses/homes and lifestyles to the scrutiny of the LEA and others. I recently met the mother involved and she said her biggest regret was to have registered her children in the first place with the LEA. Although she won the court cases, she has decided to sell her home and move to Ireland. I fear - although many of you will probably disagree - those wishing to home educate will come under a lot of pressure from the authorities to reconsider. I had never considered home educating until the health visitor had mentioned it to me but the message I received is clear: expect trouble.

I wouldn't worry too much. I would have done the same as you. Get out of school and wait for them to contact you at some point.

Oh and when we deregged another of our dds, they did arrange a visit which we declined and asked for all contact to be in writing. They were fine with that.

I think on the pre school health check/injection boosts our health visitor asked about schools and then she wrote in their babybooks/records which we keep here that they were due to go to a particular private school (where they now go) and we never then heard anything further about that. Interesting of course that the LA has no idea if I might have been lying of cousre and for the last 3 years they may have been uneducated and working 10 hours a day making carpets for me at home.

Right, that's this month's project sorted!

It's the nimble fingers that make children good carpet makers. When I'm joking to the twins I tell them if they were in some countries they woudln't be on the Nintendo wii they'd be making carpets all day.

I would also join a home education support group. It is through my local group that I have just learnt and found out about the Education and Inspection Act 2006, which came into effect in September 2006. I have yet to obtain a copy for myself, but according to one of the posters, this Act places a statutory duty on LEA to establish the education status of every child within their Authority, especially those "missing from education", that is mainstream education. In other words, I think the poster was implying that the Act has placed a legal obligation on LEA to track down children not being educated in mainstream schools. As I said, I have not checked this out properly for myself but I think it's something to be aware of.

Just an update I leanrt from www.freedomforchildrentogrow.org/index.htm It states that: The Government is planning changes to the monitoring of home education. Proposed changes include: a mission statement and clear plan which we stick to, targets, a broad and balanced curriculum, more surveillance and monitoring from the LA to make sure we are "doing it properly" etc.
Home education support groups have registered their opposition towards any proposals to change parents' responsibilities under Section 7 of the 1996 Education Act.

but the LEA does know about my kids, the HV has informed them. We have had letters asking where our kids are going.

I suspect that this is the result of the new Education and Inspection Act, tbh. And that as a result they will know about every child in the coutry.

Given that they probably know anyway...for me I prefer to go on the offensive, give them a load of info and hope they bog off. But really I think that comes down to personal style.