Deregistered son for home education- Worried about form husband signed at school after meeting

[JustUmberWriter]

Hi, I’d really appreciate some advice from experienced home educators about my son’s recent deregistration from primary school for elective home education.

I emailed the school instructing them to remove him from the register after the last day of term and asked for written confirmation. Instead, they called shortly afterwards and requested a meeting with the headteacher, which my husband attended.

At the meeting, they discussed support to keep my son in school, gave information about home education, and then asked my husband to sign a form recording what had been discussed.From what he remembers, the form mentioned that the school suspects SEN, possibly ADHD/autism, although my son has no formal diagnosis. It also referred to concerns about “dangers in his environments”, apparently relating to his occasional difficulty recognising danger.The headteacher also asked whether we would accept LA visits. My husband said yes without giving it much thought, and this was written on the form before he signed it. I would personally prefer all communication with the LA to remain in writing.

My main concerns are whether signing this form could affect or complicate the deregistration/home education process, whether agreeing to LA visits makes them mandatory, and whether the wording about suspected SEN or “dangers” could be used to raise safeguarding concerns.

The school also still has not confirmed in writing that my son has been removed from the register. Is their confirmation required, or is our written deregistration instruction enough?We do not currently have a copy of the signed form, which is what is worrying me most.Many thanks for any advice.

At any point you can contact the LA and ask for communication in writing only.

I would join the Home Education and your Local Authority Facebook group which is for helping home edders with any problems with the LA or "officialdom" of any other sort. They are fantastic and super knowledgeable.

Edit for typos

It’s not a popular view with many home educators, but DH and I found the LA were supportive and helpful. We had a link with an amazing retired teacher who gave us good ideas about how to take some of the things we were doing to the next level and stretch DS. My advice would be not to fight them just because.

Wow.

Thank you to those that gave me genuine feedback and advice. I appreciate it.

I agree that safeguarding is essential and if we want EHE not to be banned entirely, which appears to be where the government is moving towards, EHE educators need to adjust and support these measure. It also is natural it raises red flags when people refuse and it has allowed harm to occur.

But the reluctance isn't about hiding harm in the vast majority of cases, its about protecting a childs safe space and then fears about the lack of specialist understanding from those making judgements.

So my child has autism and the first LA person assessing our home didnt know much about it as a condition. They were actually horrified that I had a grazing plate of food on the dining table that my child could take from when he liked as that was what his clinician at cahms said to do around sensory food issues. They made quite a big deal about him not asking and us and then not sitting together to eat. The cahms person spoke to them to clear it all up. But it was quite stressful getting a report flagging up this as a potential sign of inadequate supervision and referring us to early help. The next LA person was the one that helped us so much and she had much more autism experience and was very complimentary about our strategies.
I think people who have blind faith in authority have either no experience of it, or positive experience so dont understand that reluctance doesnt always stem from malicious intent.

Why are you bothered if they visit?

Given you can't prove anything via email, I'd honestly hope that refusing an annual visit would trigger a safeguarding alert

Red flags or what

Can you imagine if a school declined Ofsted visits, or safeguarding visits and all the other checks and balances in place for good reason

Currently it doesn't. I am actually deeply uncomfortable with the idea that people can refuse these home visits and I'm glad that's about to change. There is definitely a seige mentality from many home educators.

I’d much rather you felt a bit awkward once a year about putting a grazing plate out, than children were left unchecked and therefore unsafeguarded.

Deregistering your child and then not wanting LA visits is not a great look. Surely if you have a good reason and a plan, it will be fine. They might be able to provide you with useful information and help. I had to homeschool my child for quite a long period of time after she had a major operation. The school were really helpful and did a full handover and gave me lots of resources. There was no mention of LA visits. You sound like you want to isolate yourself but I would make contact with home ed groups if you don't want anything to do with anyone official as they will have lots of advice.

Me too and I’m utterly appalled that it’s not mandatory and some home educators on line are urging parents to disengage.

its terrifying that people can just take their kid out of school and refuse to let anyone see them, or check their progress. Thay there is no test to even see if youre capable of home educating, understand the syllabus yourself, have the mental capability to do it.

these are children’s lives, their futures. They need to either make it mandatory and regularly or ban home educating completely. I am not supportive of the latter, but it is stops even one person who is not capable or abusive ruining their kids life I’m all for it,

they all did.
you just didn’t want to hear the ones you didn't like.

what did the school offer to do and did you and dh consider these options to see if they might help, rather than isolate your child from the world.

This.

It’s a perfectly valid choice but the people inclined to make that choice unfortunately include quite a lot of the crazies.

I looked because I was interested about it but the level of suspicion and insanity on Facebook pages was quite frightening. Sounds like you have already been sucked in a bit OP so I would watch that carefully.

You are going to be your child’s sole educator so you need to keep your head screwed on.

This. I’m really struggling to understand why you aren’t getting this. No one is accusing you of harming or planning on harming your child. You know your child is going to be well cared for and suitably educated. But there are many children out there who do not have the same loving parents and for whom removal from the school system is a common way of disguising abuse and / or neglect.
I certainly remember an horrific case of a teenage girl with disabilities dying an awful death during lockdown as no home visits were done.
Schools are a huge part of the system in place to help identify safeguarding needs. You can’t safeguard a child you can’t see. I am also quite horrified that LA visits aren’t mandatory for HE kids.
OP you need to see the bigger picture here regarding allowing visits and possible offers of support. You have given absolutely no valid reason as to why you don’t want visits other than you just don’t.

Because anyone can put anything in an email.
I am supportive of home education but it absolutely horrifies me that families are essentially allowed to remove their children and then they can say they never want them to be physically seen again. And yes I’m exaggerating but my point remains.
All children who don’t attend school should be assigned a social worker to check regularly on their welfare. The possibilities for safeguarding issues are endless.

As I clearly engaged with the process and clearly stated that I think EHE educators should get behind safeguarding measures, and that the LA were helpful, that feels an unnecessary dig?

But i still think those saying 'you have nothing to hide' are being glib. Its not just an awkward feeling about a grazing table is it? Its people having power to make decisions over your childs wellbeing who dont necessarily have expertise in your childs condition. It wasnt awkward. It was very stressful feeling that people without the necessary expertise could force you to harm your child by sending them to an unsuitable school. My son has diagnosed ptsd from what happened in school . Imagine how 'awkward' you'd feel if you feared youd be forced to send your child back into an environment causing genuine harm someone judging you didnt know enough.

I will reiterate again. Safeguarding has no exceptions and EHE must get behind this and must understand why its important to engage.

But others could have a bit if empathy of why its not as easy as nothing to hide.

Im a parent. I am totally open to the idea that I may not always know what is best for my child. Therefore im happy to have open discussions with my kids social worker. Its for the child. Why would I not want to hear what they have to say?! They tell me about services, give me tips that I think "oh yeah, why didnt I think of that myself?" Sometimes parenting can be tough and you cant see the wood for the trees and so that support is useful. Agencies dont need to be the enemy

It's non-standard to require a social worker, the majority of parents would neither want nor need a social worker.

You have valid points there. There needs to be far more training and guidance issued to those from the LA that visit EHE homes.
The onus must be on the child’s welfare and best interests.
Equally the LA have to be careful that some parents who do abuse their children don’t use this reason to cover up the abuse (ie the child is never seen). It’s a very fine line to tread and sometimes they’ll get it wrong.

I agree with you. And what also appals me is anyone can do it. Even if they are loving with the best intentions, they actually need to be capable of doing it, and many aren’t. Some of them barely do an hour. Some read the guidance and think fuck it I can get away with 2 hours. 2 hours of teaching thays not actually teaching; and some don’t even do anything academic. These children get the bare minimum from lazy or incapable parents. In itself I class that as abuse.

What we actually know is that children are at the greatest risk of abuse or murder by their parents before they've even reached school age, but there is no mandatory oversight of children before they reach school.

Also, it's worth weighing up the actual benefits that could be achieved by an annual visit by the LA. I'm sure there are cases where children are being kept in very obvious terrible conditions, and the parents see nothing wrong with this and wouldn't attempt to mask the treatment of the child, but that seems like a vanishingly rare circumstance. I wouldn't be willing to inconvenience myself with visits from the LA that are pure useless box-ticking theatre, even if that inconvenience is mild, especially as I fundamentally disagree with the premise that the LA is qualified or empowered to have an opinion on the education of homeschooled children. The behaviour, literacy and numeracy of a large proportion of conventionally schooled children is abysmal, so it seems extremely cheeky for them to be inserting themselves into home education.

This is coming from the perspective of someone who is pro-homeschooling for the purposes of safeguarding children from the degenerate social ideals and poorly-parented other children in state school, as well as exceeding the standards and expectations of the education system with academic excellence and well-rounded non-academic education. I am certainly not pro-homeschooling of the kind that many parents are entering into in recent years, which seems oriented around enabling "SEN" and school refusing children to continue with their undesirable behaviour. If you don't intend on providing a rigorous, competitive, disciplined and individualised education to your children, they would be better off in school.

Is your DH happy for someone to visit? It’s not all about you. Were you both happy with the decision to EHE, is your DC? Schools sometimes follow up afterwards. Hard for schools to lose eyes on.

So you don't see how some of the people who are genuinely harming their children may also be the very ones who choose to opt out of these visits?

Personally, if I’m giving my child a safe, loving, and enriching home, I'd happily open the door. I'd be PROUD to show them what my child has and how they're thriving. Good parents have nothing to fear from someone checking that a child is safe.