Labour suggesting new hs register and home spot checks for hs dc

[Sunshinesausages]

How does everyone feel about home spot checks and a home Ed register?

I'm all for it.

Mostly in favour. There are people who do a wonderful job of HE but there are also children out there not being appropriately taught, who will have miserable lives when they're older.

HE children also don't have the same levelof safeguards as other children. I'm not saying home edders are any more likely to be abusers, but those who do abuse their kids are much less likely to be found out if they have the option to keep their kids hidden.

I home ed and don't have a problem with this.

I'm on the fence. For safeguarding I'm for it. I also see a lot of home Ed kids in groups we go to that I feel parents are failing them BUT I know of more SEND kids who are home Ed because schools were failing them or no suitable school place etc.

Also what will a spot check show? Some days my autistic home Ed kiddo will be in pjs and playing with toys till past lunchtime, the house may be a mess if I'm busy with toddler or planning activities. Other days he's got me up and we are reading at 5am or he asks to do learning to get out of bedtime and I roll with it because engagement in learning is a challenge for him. Spot check me in school hours I may not be teaching, we may be out at a group etc. But we don't have weekends off and work early or late whenever I can get the learning in. So for kids like my boy I'm worried about further monitoring.

Kids like my girl. Who is a lovely geeky child loves learning, very capable and a dream to teach would be no problem at all. But most kids who are home Ed local to me are not like my daughter the have significant SEND and home Ed out of need not choice

I read it as spot check to make sure they don't have injuries and are being fed, have clean bedding etc. Not spot check to see if your doing maths by 9.30am.

I'm absolutely all for checks for safeguarding but if I trusted the authorities with education I'd send DS to school!

I'm pro formal education for no reason other than it's what my family chose, but we are home edding for a while due to terrible local offer. I've seen excellent provision in that time from home ed families and none of the stereotypes. One glaring issue stands out however, in that the LA is not in position to meaningfully support anyone.

This is primarily due to low LA staffing numbers, and I say this in relation to the families they actually know about. It's fairly common to find families flying under the LA radar so if we're talking about welfare, perhaps any strategy should begin with measures designed to bring this sector of home edders out of the shadows. And not with a stick of any kind.

As for those already registered with the LA, there are appropriate ways of checking on child welfare but door-stepping is not one of them. How is it not alarming for someone to knock on your door and announce they want to come inside to inspect your children? HE families have done nothing wrong and are entitled to privacy. Many parents already see the LA as the enemy and this will only push them further away. What happens if parents are not home or it's not convenient? This really hasn't been properly considered. There are better ways.

Labour could avoid making a problem worse if only they'd get out in front of this. If meaningful support at LA level was available, not just a hurried 60 mins chat every 12 months, but real support, yes, with funding, they may find that the concern largely resolves itself.

On the face of it, it seems that welfare checks like this must be a good idea. But if you think through the details, it really isn't.

Who's going to carry these checks out? The same LA staff who have little or no training in home education (their actual job), and who know even less about welfare? It's for good reason that social workers have years of training. It isn't easy to assess a child's welfare in a brief rare visit. This is complicated by the fact that a large proportion of home educated kids have special needs. What is some untrained person going to make of the behaviour of a child with autism whose space has been invaded by a stranger?

This results in a high proportion of "false positives": kids being referred to Social Care who are not actually at risk. Analysis of referrals to Social Care indicate that home educated children who are referred to Social Care are far LESS likely to be subsequently put on a plan than non-HE kids. So these families are already being disproportionately targeted due to fear and prejudice. People imagine them to be isolated and at risk, or think their kids are quirky. (Many ARE quirky, given their special needs. Mine certainly isn't a typical child!) These spurious referrals are a huge waste of overworked social workers' time, and stressful for families.

Okay, so proper social workers could be sent out instead. But social care is already in crisis. Social workers don't have the resources to keep tabs on the kids who are on their books, who are known to have suffered in the past, who are known to be at risk. Are we going to divert those resources so those social workers trot round to the homes of kids who are at no more risk than the rest of the population, just in case? It makes no sense.

And if you're prepared to fix that problem by investing a huge amount of money in social care in order to improve staffing... surely such money would be better spent by using it to help the kids who are already known to social care, rather than fishing in the general home ed population on the off chance of identifying a tiny number of neglected children there.

I don't deny that a small number of home educated children are being abused or neglected. Of course they are. This will be true of any subset of the population. But spot checks are not a sensible way to identify them. They are identified through the measures already in place, same as other children.

I'd be more interested in what happens if spot checks report that your child isn't meeting expected targets at home. What happens then?

Excellent point.

For one thing, the expectation of meeting targets implies that a curriculum must be in place whereby children are made to learn certain things at certain ages. Many home educating families don't want to do that. For example, outside of school there is no need for kids to learn to read at any particular age, because we can educate them in other ways: by discussion, audiobooks, videos, hands-on learning, visits to museums etc. So they can learn to read when they are ready and motivated, rather than at some arbitrary age.

For another thing, there are always going to be children at different levels. My younger child has always been years "behind" her age peers in most areas. That is one reason I home educate her, so she can learn things which are right for her and not feel inferior to her classmates. It happens that she has diagnosed special needs, so we'd probably have been given some sort of exemption from age-linked performance expectations. But many similar kids don't have a diagnosis. Would their parents be required to hot-house them in a desperate attempt to pass muster?

Absolutely in favour. HE has been unmonitored for far too long. As PPs have said, many parents do a fab job but equally, many do not. And from a safeguarding perspective, yes, checks should be done. I've taught too many children over the years in questionable circumstances who've suddenly disappeared off the radar to be 'home educated'.

What happens in school?

This already happens to some extent in Scotland. When we were home educating, we had 2 meetings a year with an Education Officer from the Council. She was really nice and seemed far more interested in what we were doing for music and art than meeting any targets for Maths/English.

We did home Ed for about 18 months and I know a lot of people in the home Ed community still.

Vast majority of us would have no issue at all with this so long as it’s done well.

From my point of view it would be an occasional interruption/inconvenience, but it could be literally life saving for children who are currently hidden from the system and from normal safeguarding.

It’s a good idea. I can’t get this thread out of my head. The op has completely failed her children education wise. She’s written a few threads about them, one has been begging to go to school for months, the other still isn’t potty trained at 8. They’re so far behind that she’s too embarrassed to start taking them to school and they’re just falling more and more behind. I’m praying she’s got them into school this year https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/home_ed/4961756-i-hate-home-ed

Well, they certainly don't conclude that one child's inability to meet expected targets inevitably means that the school is failing, and demand that the child be removed and home educated instead. Which would seem logical if supposedly "failing" home educated kids are to be forced in to school.

There are many reasons why a child might not meet targets, and the solution is not necessarily to require that they be moved to a different setting.

It's completely pointless and the political equivalent of busy work. By this I mean it looks like politicians are doing something but they are actually achieving nothing.

Having a register

Most children are already known to the LA (as my son is) but having a register will not magically find children who aren't known. Are they going to roam the streets demanding ID from children they find? How are they going to find money for the staff and pay police to accompany staff for spot checks (unless they create new legislation to allow office staff to demand ID from the general public).

If they rely on other services such as GP, dentists etc to pass on information, it creates an issue with GDPR (HE isn't a safeguarding risk) plus it may deter parents from registering with such services.

Education targets

I would have more time for this if children in schools weren't failing but they are. Far more than are failing in HE so they should really put their focus there.

Moreover, who is going to assess this? Most LA staff involved with HE are not teachers or anything like it. Infact often have to cover 2 or 3 other roles so aren't event dedicated to HE alone. They certainly aren't routinely trained in SEND so how they'd know what a good education looked like it's anyone's guess. Most likely 'does this look like school?'

Safeguarding

The majority of referrals to social services don't come from schools (the majority are the police, hospitals etc). Yes seeing children everyday means problems can be identified however that cannot be replicated for HE. A meeting once a year or even twice isn't going to catch anything. There have been suggestions about interviewing children alone but I can't imagine many parents would be happy with their children being taken alone into a room with strangers to be questioned.

Spot checks in the home are massively intrusive. Again I can't imagine many parents would be happy with the authorities coming round at any time they like.

Though if it's deemed to be a good idea it could be rolled out to all families.

The reality is if politicians want to improve things for children they need to put massive investment into SEND in general and within schools and increase Social Services funding significantly.

But they won't because they don't actually want to improve anything they just want to look like they are doing something.

Hi, I just wanted to reply to your message and ask why instead of showing this poster compassion for the challenging home life she is living, instead you chose to judge her?

Ive read her threads and to me she sounds like a mum who is overwhelmed by her children who are neurodivergent.

I find your language very harsh!

“The op has completely failed her children education wise”

How on earth do you know? And what even does ‘falling more and more behind’ mean? Not everyone follows the National curriculum and as a home educator yourself you should be well aware of that.

“the other still isn’t potty trained at 8”
once again how on earth do you have the right to use that language when you don’t know anything about the child and their disabilities.

I agree with the sentiment of your post someone should help this family - the family need support but at the same time they absolutely do not need your unkind judgement.

I'm mostly in favour of a register for safeguarding. In 4 years of homeschooling we heard nothing from our LEA except one letter stating "we hear you're home educating. Don't expect anything from us".
Spot checks are more problematic depending on what is envisaged. People on your doorstep without notice demanding entry is a little too like bailiffs for my liking. A scheduled annual baseline check in English and Maths is more reasonable. But it should measure progress, not attainment. And what will happen if there are concerns?

What's equally significant is what's not being proposed. How about:

1. a vaccination service for those which are usually delivered in school. Try getting eg the HPV jab for a home-edder. GP's don't stock it.
2. An annual book/resource budget
3. Funding for the first 8 GCSES (i.e. covering exam entry costs) and first three level 3 qualifications. The cost of exam entries are prohibitive for some families. It's ridiculous that some kids have studied the course but end up underqualified because they can't afford to sit the exam.
4. A careers service for 14-18 year olds - the goal should be to ultimately reintegrate home-edders into mainstream education or the workplace but there's no support.

A register and spot-checks are basically a knee-jerk response that generate headlines. An integrated package of measures that would not just regulate but also support home-educators would be far more sensible (and might help counter the hostility that exists with many home-edders who feel they have been failed by the system).

Completely agree.

I home educated my eldest until secondary, my middle child is at school and I will be home educating my youngest who is almost 4.

My husband is a manager in children’s services for a local authority. He read about their plans and laughed. LAs have no money, the organisation and communication is pitiful and they never have enough staff. Spot checks are not going to happen.

When I home educated my eldest, a nice man used to come round once a year, have a chat, tick his boxes and then bugger off again. We were registered with the LA though as we had awful neighbors. we knew they would report us to someone when they noticed ds wasn’t going to school. They did. But as we were registered with the LA, nothing happened.

Not sure we will contact the LA for dd or not yet. I’ve not met anyone here who has home educated from the offset who has done.

We’re unregistered home edders with concerns about the competence of the people who’d be doing these checks. Clean bedding and food in the fridge, fine: doesn’t need to be every year though if no concerns. There are desperate children that need finding, and wasting money on families like mine would reduce their chances of rescue.

But education? One of my children didn’t learn to read until 10yo, at all. Was reading age-appropriate books within the year but would have ‘failed’ a check or multiple progress tests in literacy between 5 & 9, while receiving an excellent education. A skilled teacher would have been able to recognise that, but LAs don’t often require home education officers to have any pedagogical expertise at all, going by job ads, anyway.

I'm pro, had a friend who home educated, child couldn't read at 9 years old. My five year old was reading to him, he was embarrassed. Mum was just delighted that he could climb really high trees???

She did the whole learning through life stuff.. eventually she sent him to secondary, he was miles behind, socially and educationally.

It was really cruel, it's fine if you are really dedicated to education and teaching but I can't see how you will ever offer all the curriculum without a science lab, a foreign speaker, a maths expert etc.

It's open to parents offering poor education (not all I know) and should be monitored.

My son can’t read and he is nearly 8. He has disabilities. He can also climb well like the boy you speak of. I really think people need to stop judging others on outcomes like this and suggesting it automatically means a poor education. I am an ex primary teacher.

I read it as spot check to make sure they don't have injuries and are being fed, have clean bedding etc. Not spot check to see if your doing maths by 9.30am.

So who would do these spot checks? You would need a medical professional to check for injuries, and preferably a chaperone too if they are going to see the children on their own

How would they check if they are being fed? How clean would the bedding need to be?

It would be very complicated to set this up!

And it would also have to apply to pre-schoolers who don't go to nursery/ pre-school