Petition Against Home Ed Register

[Isawthesigns]

Now It Is Evident The Goverment Is Committed To A Register Of Children Not In School Which Will Be Followed By Assessments And Monitoring

Please Sign And Share The Petition Help Us Defend Our Right To HE Without State Interference

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/594065?fbclid=IwAR0o70ZNS9miOu6k8l769Kcu9XJnFbkAYggnqkbHzaknueGt39nnQrbhZTo

@Bitofachinwag

* At worst, a very very small minority use home Ed as way of removing the child from outside interference in order to cover up abuse or neglect. I have participated in a number of child death overview panels involving children deliberately kept away from any form of scrutiny or intervention, leading to very tragic outcomes*

Are these cases where no concern was ever raised by anybody and nobody had seen the child?

In the cases I was involved in, parents went to great lengths to keep the child away from authorities, so the child was basically invisible. The child had no voice, no power. I'm not saying that a home Ed register would solve all problems but it would be a (however small) additional safety net for children who are extremely vulnerable.

If you had read the case details that I have seen you would not object to a register, believe me.

I am not saying that you are wrong, But you didn't really answer my question. I get fed up with people saying there are plenty of cases where home educated children have died because their parents hid them and nobody knew about them. I don't know of any such cases that are known to the public. In all the cases people talk about different people had raised concerns already but they weren't acted upon.

How would a register help? Would it mean, for example, that the LA would be able to forcibly interview a child on their own to check if they are being abused? Who would do that? Social workers?

What criteria would they use to decide whether the child's education is good enough?

We home educated DS for a while and found our local council surprisingly helpful.

I think a register is a great idea, and would be even more supportive of LEAs having to provide some resources.

Op
Good luck with that petition. You're going to need it!

I work in a school as safeguarding lead. We've had a number of families over the years elect to home educate when concerns start to be raised. Social services are only involved where concerns meet threshold. They do a parenting assessment and if not concerns that meet threshold, they close to the family. Then, the only people likely to see the child are who the family let in to the home. So potentially no one to safeguard the child. I genuinely don't see how having your child's name on a register is a 'breech of their human rights' unless of course, the parent feels they have something to hide? What about the rights of the child to an education? To feel safe and secure? To have opportunities to socialise etc etc. I have no doubt the OP and the vast majority of parents make sure their children's rights are met. But if there is a chance (and, let's face it there is a chance) that even a tiny percent of children are neglected or worse, surely having a register so authorities can make sure these children don't fall off the radar can only be a good thing?

We've been a home ed family for 10 years and I've heard many convos about this issue.

I've listened, but I've never been persuaded that the drawbacks of a register outweigh the potential benefits to those kids who need visibility and additional support.

On balance, I support having a register.

Being vehemently against a register as a home educator is a massive red flag to me as a healthcare professional, certainly will be seen as one when the register comes in, akin to non-cooperation with social services.

Would you feel otherwise if you lived in a country in which social workers:

1. had no mandatory training whatsoever,
2. were routinely drafted in from other departments to work in social care,
3. often did not know the basics of the law,
4. were sometimes contract staff whose pay was based on how many interventions they made,
5. routinely threatened to take children into care if families did not comply with unreasonable demands, and
6. had no effective oversight of their departments?

Thousands of us are fed up with unregulated, untrained workers trying to push us around. Here's a particularly egregious example for you:

Parent submits a report describing her child's education. LA finds no fault with the report but nevertheless demands to visit the family at home because "it's our policy", despite this policy being unlawful. LA threatens to send the child to school if parent does not comply. Parent refuses to be bullied, so LA issues a School Attendance Order and takes her to court. Judge finds in the parent's favour and tells the LA off for its unreasonable policy when all the evidence indicates the child is indeed receiving a satisfactory education.

Next year, LA again does exactly the same thing to the same parent, with the same outcome. And the next year. Child emerges from home education with good GCSEs and "ages out" of LA oversight... so they turn their attention to his younger sibling and carry on. Six times the LA prosecutes this parent. Six times, judges find in the parent's favour and reprimand the LA. The LA only stops harassing the family when all the children are too old to be in their remit.

Along the way, the parent complains to the Department for Education, who say it is a local matter and none of their concern. She also goes through the LA's complaints procedure and eventually to the Local Government Ombudsman, who declines to get involved because the LA has followed its own policy. The fact that the policy is unlawful is not a matter for the LGO, apparently.

That's an extreme example. Not all LAs are this bad, but it really is the Wild West out there. It's easy to verify that the majority of LA websites misrepresent the law and imply parents have to do things which we are not required to do. This doesn't fill us with confidence that we'll be treated fairly by them. Is it any wonder we don't want these people to be handed more power over us, when they don't know what they're doing and misuse the power they have?

Social workers may make mistakes, but they are professionals and are accountable for their behaviour. LA home education staff are neither.

Excellent post.

So a red flag is raised for being opposed to what is an ineffective register. Raise your flag in health care where it belongs. Safeguarding should be for every child via trained health and social care professionals not educators and in all settings.

My experience of SWs is largely of them not acting when a child is in danger, not the other way round