Anyone decline primary offer to home ed? Do LA follow up?

[Wodehouse18]

Hi, I am totally new so apologies for anything already out there to tell me this.

I have always felt that home education would be good for my children but wanted to be sure and looked around some local schools. We have agreed that one school in particular would be a fantastic environment and made us both really happy which we weren't expecting. The problem is that this school is small and very oversubscribed so it is likely that we will not get a place for our child.
I am happy to home educate should we not get offered this school or even just change our minds.

My question is, if we do not get offered our school of choice and decline and place will the LA be in contact in the near future?

As I am aware I do not need to contact them to let them know of my decision and I would rather get along without their assistance.

Has anyone here done this? Have you had contact with the LA as a result?

Thanks

My LA followed up, many years ago. I think it is more likely that they will, these days. LAs are more zealous about data gathering, particularly since the Children Missing Education legislation now puts a duty on them to try to keep track of the educational destinations of all children living in their area.

All the same, I think that if there is any chance at all that you might want a place at this lovely oversubscribed school, you should apply. The worst that will happen is that if you end up HEing, your LA will be a PITA and try to hassle you. Since you are in contact with other HE families, you'll be able to rebuff their attempts to get you to go along with any silly policies they may have concocted which don't comply with the law. You might need to send them a few stern letters and an educational report.

If they do get in contact about HE at an early stage, your first move is to confirm that the school place isn't required, ask them to keep everything in writing, and remind them that your child isn't yet of Compulsory School Age. Until s/he reaches CSA, the LA has no duties whatsoever in regards to your child's education except to offer a school place if one is requested. So they can go away and write to you again in January if your child is autumn-born, or later if your child is younger. That buys you some time to consider how you will respond to them.

If you do secure a place at your preferred school and are still undecided about home education when autumn rolls around, remember that you can defer your child's school start until summer term or until they reach CSA, whichever is earlier, without risk of losing the place.

Thank you. It's helpful to know that this can happen. I know some who never considered school and so get along with no contact, some of them took up free nursery places. Others have withdrawn children from school so are fairly regularly contacted so it's not clear where they gather their list of out of school children from.

I wish I could be certain of my decision. I know I will flap if as soon as I decide to home ed and decline a place the LA do contact me. Not that I have anything to hide, I just don't really want to have them involved.

When you defer is it through the school or LA? Do you know if they have to let you or is it their choice?

Some LAs are being rather naughty and gathering children's names from healthcare services. That is pretty hit and miss. But I think it very likely that if you actually apply for a school place they will track your child, and they will probably continue to do so unless you move out of their area.

Still, you can keep the LA at arm's length and it should be at most a question of sending in an annual report. Some militant home educators like me refuse to send anything unless/until the LA can demonstrate a reason for concern, because the law says the LA has no duty to carry out routine monitoring. But that can entail more correspondence than sending a report once a year, so for most people that is the preferred option. You definitely don't need to provide any more than that unless they identify genuine concerns.

You can get a better idea whether and when the LA is likely to contact you by asking on your local HE group. However, it does change over time as staff come and go, so there are never any guarantees.

Deferring school start is done through the school. Deferring is an absolute right and is not at the school's discretion: see the School Admissions Code. Many schools will try to talk parents out of it, because they tend to have a strong belief in the importance of school-based education and think that more and earlier is better. The same applies to part-time attendance, which you also have a right to do until your child reaches CSA. Few schools are keen on part-time. When deferring, make sure you get an acknowledgement from the school. If your child simply doesn't turn up in the autumn as expected, the school place will be given to another child fairly quickly.

That's fantastic. Thank you so much. I have been worrying about what to do so much.

I have been put off the other schools local to me due to their answers regarding deferring places for summer born children. The school we like seem very flexible and I suppose can afford to be due to their numbers.

I will just have to decide whether I want to chance it. I know my LA overstep the mark with a few people.

Don't want to be a pain but are the reports something you have to compile yourself or are they simply a form you complete with evidence of things you have been doing?

"are the reports something you have to compile yourself or are they simply a form you complete with evidence of things you have been doing?"

That depends whether you listen to the LA or to the home educators . Many LAs will try to insist on HE parents filling in forms, accepting home visits, and presenting "evidence" of their children's learning. The law does not support them in demanding such things. In fact, the 2007 government guidelines on home education, which are still in force, specifically state that none of this is necessary. That document is very useful: www.gov.uk/government/publications/elective-home-education .

IMO the trouble with filling in LA forms is that you are tacitly accepting their value judgements about education. Given that LA staff tend to have a school background and little or no training in home education, their ideas about how it should be done are not likely to coincide with yours. For example, their form may ask how many hours a week you spend educating your child, a question which presupposes that education is a timetabled activity distinct from the rest of the child's life. The number of hours I have timetabled in advance for overtly "educational" activities is tiny, shockingly tiny if you think that is the only way learning happens. But if I look back at the last week, it's clear that my child was learning for far more hours than those.

Last night, on an evening in the "school holidays", she was in the room while I watched three Spanish documentaries about deep-sea creatures. The English subtitles were on. Her dad and I kept pausing the video to talk about geology and tourism and various other things. She appeared to be playing with her stuffed toys, but it became evident that part of her attention was on the video and our discussion. She was trying to decode the English words (she is learning to read), to understand the maps, and to pick out some Spanish. Primarily she was interested in the sea creatures, and the rest appeared to be a means to that end. How on earth would I categorise that under subject headings on a school-style form? And that is just the obvious stuff: most of what she learns is done very quietly and I don't even know where or when or how it happens.

So if I were to write a report describing my child's education, it would be based on my understanding of how she learns and would mention her interests and the resources available to her, giving some examples of what she has done in the past. It would look nothing like a school report.

Once the LA has some information from you, they can contact you with any specific questions they may have, and you can address those. So you don't have to send them a highly detailed document in the first instance. A few sides of A4 should be enough to satisfy them.

It's a minefield isn't it?!

It must feel quite rewarding to know that what you are doing is working.

I will have to try and keep snippets of what we are doing to use as evidence if needed.
I see now why people are less inclined to inform the LA.

Saracen is right; you are not required to furnish the LA with information unless it appears to them that your child is not receiving a suitable education.

Be very wary of providing them with even one 'snippet' as that will give them the hook to say they need more 'snippets' and, from that moment on they will have you on a hook.