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Home ed

Find advice from other parents on our Homeschool forum. You may also find our round up of the best online learning resources useful.

LA and suitable education?

10 replies

Lookingforwardtosummer42 · 22/01/2023 16:39

Hi, I am considering home educating my 12 and 8 year olds, I keep reading stories of the LA saying the education is not suitable and trying to send the kids back to school. How do they decide what’s suitable ? Do they give you a second chance if they don’t think it’s enough ? What have others done in this situation?

OP posts:
Saracen · 22/01/2023 23:51

By law, the education must be suitable to the child's age, ability, aptitude, and any special needs they have. The law is vague on what that means, making it very difficult for a Local Authority to prove that a child is NOT receiving a suitable education.

In practice, LAs often make empty threats. Some LAs seem to have it in for home ed families and make all sorts of untrue claims, threatening (and in some cases issuing) disproportionately high numbers of School Attendance Orders. Individual judges may tell these LAs off, but there is no comeback and so they just carry on. Most LAs are more reasonable, though there is no mandatory staff training and many don't grasp how home education works, leaving us to explain it to them!

Anyway, it is rare for Local Authorities to win in court against parents who get good advice and who resist sending their children to school. I would suggest that you simply provide the education which YOU know to be best for your child, rather than second-guessing what approach might please the LA. Then it's a matter of communicating clearly to the LA about what you are doing.

When the LA approaches you to ask for information about how you are educating your kids, you can get expert help to write a good report describing how you are doing it. For example, volunteers at the home ed charity Education Otherwise offers a report-checking service to its members, or to non-members who make a donation and then send in a draft. They can help ensure you include the right level of detail so your report should be acceptable.

If the LA thinks the education isn't suitable, they must explain why and give you an opportunity to address their concerns. It's worth bearing in mind that there's no historical offence of having failed to educate your children in the past: all that matters is whether you are NOW doing so. That means even if you were actually doing a bad job, you could still pull your socks up, sort it out, and your children wouldn't be forced to school.

The whole legal process is long-winded. Along the way you have numerous chances to have another go at explaining why the education is in fact suitable, if you didn't explain it well in the first place, or improving the education if it wasn't actually up to scratch. Of course, ideally you will get it right first time and save yourself time and trouble. But it is not an absolute disaster to make mistakes.

Saracen · 22/01/2023 23:56

Also it's worth bearing in mind that people don't tend to post on forums to say their interactions with their LA were uneventful. So you mostly only hear the bad stories. If you talk to people in your area, you can get a better idea of how your particular LA is, and most likely hardly anyone will report having had serious issues.

Jebatronic · 26/01/2023 14:48

Hi Op. If you say which LA you have on here, then you might get some specific feedback. Failing that ask on your local HomeEd groups because they will have dealt with the same elective HE team.

SpentDandelion · 26/01/2023 14:56

I found the LA to be absolutely fine.
My son was 13 and capable of finding everything he needed free online, along with revision books, if he didn't understand something he would just look it up online, so many excellent tutorials by qualified proffesionals on YouTube etc.
All we did was full out some questionaires, l said l was happy for them to come to the house anytime.
They sent me some useful emails about educational resources from time to time. I didn't find them in the least bit intrusive.

SpentDandelion · 26/01/2023 14:57

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Fuckadoodledowho · 09/04/2023 20:02

Hi all a bit late to this thread but am wondering as all my 4dc are home educated and I have never had any interaction with the home education advisory officer from the council, until now, where I am expected to meet them with my children and have them do a home education assessment!!! Where I lived previously there were meet ups with the la home education sector but it was very informal and more a whole area meet up with other home educators altogether to see if we all needed any advice or tips etc, but this is stressing me out a bit as I feel where we live now north London they are being rather bossy and forceful.
Has anyone had to meet these advisors with their children and take lots of work with them to be assessed and what was the general experience and assessment like is what im asking? And generally what should I expect?
And I suppose the other question is do I and my children have to go? not that I have anything to hide more I don't like being dictated to by someone I don't know/have never met? And everywhere I'm reading other people say don't take your children etc, really not sure what to do?

Saracen · 09/04/2023 21:52

Fuckadoodledowho · 09/04/2023 20:02

Hi all a bit late to this thread but am wondering as all my 4dc are home educated and I have never had any interaction with the home education advisory officer from the council, until now, where I am expected to meet them with my children and have them do a home education assessment!!! Where I lived previously there were meet ups with the la home education sector but it was very informal and more a whole area meet up with other home educators altogether to see if we all needed any advice or tips etc, but this is stressing me out a bit as I feel where we live now north London they are being rather bossy and forceful.
Has anyone had to meet these advisors with their children and take lots of work with them to be assessed and what was the general experience and assessment like is what im asking? And generally what should I expect?
And I suppose the other question is do I and my children have to go? not that I have anything to hide more I don't like being dictated to by someone I don't know/have never met? And everywhere I'm reading other people say don't take your children etc, really not sure what to do?

No, you don't have to meet with them. The Dept for Education's guidance for Local Authorities on how to deal with home educating families specifies that LAs cannot disregard information supplied by parents simply because it isn't in the LA's preferred format. For example, they cannot ignore a report you send in describing your children's education and conclude that the education is unsuitable simply because you declined to provide that information via a meeting and sent a report instead.

Fuckadoodledowho · 09/04/2023 23:44

@Saracen ok that's really useful to know, when you say report what does that entail, because she has asked for me to fill in a questionnaire about how it is that I intend to fulfil my children's education etc, to which I did immediately when she contacted me initially. But she has then sent me emails stating to meet her at the local library and bring the children and their work to start their home ed assessment!
When I asked what sort of work did she want me to bring she gave me no info at all and pointed me in the direction of another letter which states that if I don't comply then ss will be involved! Which obviously has stressed me out no end, but in general she has really been no help at all! Could you explain more about this report please and whether it should include examples of children's work? Thank you for your knowledge😊

Saracen · 10/04/2023 10:41

Education Otherwise has some good info on their website, including fact sheets and a template for writing a report. The blue bar at the top of the page will take you to contact info in case you want to use their report checking service. https://www.educationotherwise.org/

If you're on Facebook, the group "Home Education and your Local Authority: Help with dealing with officialdom" is really good for interactions with the LA or if you have any problems claiming Child Benefit etc for an over-16 who is continuing in home education, so you can ask all your questions there.

You don't have to show the LA any "work" - in fact home educated children don't have to do school-style "work" at all; schoolteachers typically have to use that method to assess children's understanding because they don't have time to observe them closely and have individual discussions like you do.

The threat of referring you to Social Care if you decline to jump through their hoops is ridiculous bullying behaviour. It is not the appropriate path for an LA to follow if they believe a child is not receiving a suitable education; they should instead take steps toward issuing a School Attendance Order. The fact the LA staff member made such a threat is good cause to keep her at arm's length, keep everything in writing, and check up on anything she tells you. It's clear she is not inclined to play by the rules!

Did she say that in writing?? You might consider a complaint, in hopes she will be reined in and not harass other families as she is doing to you. If you decide to do that, you can get help to word the complaint from that Facebook page I mentioned above, or from Education Otherwise.

Saracen · 10/04/2023 10:44

Your situation is a fine example of the postcode lottery to which home ed families are subject, with some LAs behaving far more reasonably than others. And a formerly "good" LA can be transformed into a bad one by the arrival of new staff who like to make their mark on the department and don't bother to familiarise themselves with the law or learn anything about home education.

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