@Apple40 "your EHE team can and will close you to there service and your will be advised provision is not suitable and be referred to you local children missing education team, attendance, and admissions team and advised to apply for school spaces."
I'm afraid you seem to have been on the receiving end of some dodgy communications from your LA. Where LAs use these phrases and make these threats, it's an indication that their staff are poorly trained and unfamiliar with the law. Not to put too fine a point on it, these threats are nonsense. I'll elaborate.
An LA cannot "close you to their service". Electively home educated children are not in receipt of a service from the LA. It is their parents who have the responsibility to educate them. The LA's only duty is to intervene if it appears that parents are not providing a suitable education.
Children Missing Education teams are not relevant to home education. Being listed on a CME register has no consequence to the family. It is simply a list which LAs keep of children whose educational arrangements are not known to be satisfactory. It is the LA's home education team which would be attempting to establish whether the home education is suitable, and taking appropriate action if it is not.
Attendance teams are also not relevant to home education. LA attendance teams intervene where a child who is registered at a school has low attendance at that school.
Technically, I suppose the LA could "advise" parents to approach the admissions team and apply for school places. They can also advise parents to dance in the rain while wearing pink tutus and singing "Blue Moon". Parents are free to ignore any such advice, as it does not have the force of law.
Here's what the LA should do if it appears to them that the education is not satisfactory. Most of these steps are a legal requirement if the LA seeks to force the child to school.
- Specify what their concerns are. Engage in a dialogue with parents to establish whether the education does appear to be unsatisfactory, and if so, advise parents on how to improve it and give them an opportunity to improve.
- If they are still not satisfied, issue a formal notice under section 437 of the Education Act 1996, giving the parents 15 days to satisfy them that a suitable education is being provided.
- If they are still not satisfied, write to the parents stating their intention to issue a School Attendance Order which will direct parents to register the child at a specific school.
- Issue the SAO.
- If the parents do not comply with the SAO, the LA may choose to prosecute.
- If the LA prosecutes, parents may in their defence present information to the court which indicates that a suitable home education is in fact being provided.
- If the court finds against the parents, they will receive a fine, but they still are not required to send their child to school.
- If the LA wishes to enforce school attendance, they start the whole process over, this time seeking an Education Supervision Order from the court.
- If the ESO is granted, the supervising officer can direct that the child be registered at a school.
At any stage of this process, the LA must consider any new information which becomes available to it, and revise its view of the suitability of the education accordingly.
Some LA staff are in the habit of implying that it's in their power to simply send home educated children to school if they feel like it. It is not. Only a court can make the relevant order. Along the way, there are many opportunities for parents to provide information about the child's home education.
Of course, most parents prefer to avoid all this by providing the LA with the necessary information at an early stage in order to stop the above process. But we don't need to live in fear of our children being sent to school, because that isn't at all likely.