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.

I think people are overestimating the powers of the LA when it comes to EHE. Officers cannot compel a parent to make their child available to be seen, nor can they insist on gaining entry to a home to see a child. Parents are not required by law to send their child to school, only to ensure they receive suitable full time education. The LA’s job is to determine what is “suitable”. If it deems education unsuitable, it can enforce attendance at a named school. There would need to be a wellbeing concern significant enough to meet social services threshold for statutory safeguarding powers to kick in (and it feels like a child has to be on fire before some social services depts will intervene).

The recent act introduces additional powers but (unless I’ve misread it) only when a child is removed from a special school or is subject to child protection (or there is an investigation underway relating to a child protection concern). There is also a proposed pilot which includes a mandatory meeting with the parent, where the child should be present. It also introduces the ability to refuse for the child to come off roll if the LA deems it not in their best interest. However I don’t think we’ve seen any published regulations or guidance yet on how this is to be implemented and in any case wouldn’t apply to most children as they’re not in a special school and not subject to CP.

I think (but can’t remember) that this is watered down from what was originally proposed, I presume via lobbying.

I have friends who home ed and seems to be really successful; equally I’ve come across cases of home ed where safeguarding referrals have been necessary. It’s a sensitive and complex area.

People comment a lot on how much hard work is is home educating. How difficult it is to provide a broad, balanced, education. But many actively don’t want that. It’s not that they think they can do better or be as good as a teacher. They aren’t bothered if the child has huge gaps in their knowledge or education. They don’t care if they get qualifications or not. Or go to university or not. They fully adopt the unschooling ethos. At every next stage, something is ready front loaded, to be the reason why their children won’t be going on to the next thing (high school, college, university whatever the next step towards independence might be).

I don't have a problem with home schooling as such.

But being aware that for some families it's a way to prevent the child's independence and to infantilise them as permanent dependents is hard and having seen it first hand, I'm very much in favour of the law being significantly strengthened in this area but this needs to be accompanied by robust support for many who feel forced into home ed by the failure of schools.

The current dynamic where the state effectively washes hands with a home school signoff isn't acceptable or in the best interests of ANY child.

I totally agree with you

I also agree with you, and I strongly believe the law needs to be tightened up hugely.

for me, home schooling should only be permitted with stringent oversight and significant training and capability tests for the person who chooses to be th4 educator,

parents being able to just decide to do it, and then decline la visits, is horrific.

You clearly have zero knowledge of the serious safeguarding risks schools pose to ND children. I can’t tell you the number of parents whose children become suicidal in mainstream.

I’m so fortunate to have a SEN school for my child. But if I didn’t I’d have absolutely no option but HE. Putting further pressure on families is not the answer at all.

That’s such an odd assumption to make. Saying there should be stringent oversight and tests for the educator, and that people being able to just decline over sight is horrific has absolutely no correlation to the capability of schools with nd children,

that’s about why people take them out. But those kids still need to be educated appropriately, there is no way I will change my mind on this.

becaude a child was suicidal doesn’t mean the parent should have no oversight or testing to ensure they are capable. And training if they are not/

Did you miss the point that there absolutely should be more responsibility about supporting Sen kids as part of tightening up?

Or did you just read the bit you don't like and jump up and down because safeguarding is somehow bad.

Any parent who doesn't like safeguarding is a walking red flag

None of this is a reason for home ed not to have more oversight or be more regulated

OP, "open forums" like Mumsnet which anyone can join do tend to feature a large proportion of people who are clueless about home education but who think their opinion is as valid as those who have experience.

You can often get good information here, but you'll have to tune out a number of posts, especially if your thread has been trending in the sidebar as I guess happened here.

For that reason, many home educators prefer closed forums which people can only join if they are actually home educating or are seriously considering doing so. The vast majority are on Facebook these days. You will find that with some exceptions, established home educators know just how poorly trained some LA staff are and understand why you wouldn't want to risk subjecting your child to a visit from such a person.

(Also, of course, on a practical level, home visits from EHE staff are a pretty ineffective tool in preventing abuse and neglect. Indeed, the Serious Case Review into the tragic death of Khyra Ishaq actually identified the involvement of the LA's home ed team as a factor in her death! They lacked both the skills and the authority to intervene in the way Social Care could have done, and only muddied the waters.)

I think a few people are missing the nuance of the post about a suicidal child with sen.

Safeguarding good - agree 100%.

But... Imagine if the people judging and assessing you in terms of safeguarding were the very same people who failed to safeguard your child to the point they were suicidal. Might you be a bit concerned by that idea? Some LA teams are pretty small - the same people advising schools on how to deal with pupils with issues will be the ones giving permission to withdraw them from school under this act (if you have an ehcp) now you have a suicidal ehcp child and your supposed to welcome the team who drove them to it getting to decide if you can withdraw them and if that worries you its can only be a red flag for abuse. Thats what pp was alluding to in her post.

And caveating the sen support and training will just magically improveve so this wont happen, is a bit pie in the sky.

Again, not disagreeing oversight is necessary for the greater good. Also not against effective safeguarding. Im actually pretty relentless when it come to safeguarding, even though I seem contrary on this thread. Im not disagreeing with the safeguarding aspect at all.

But can see that shooting down peoples worries as ' you are a red flag' means issues cant be addressed.

Where are the frameworks, the training etc to support this act and make it actually work well.

I don’t accept that the LA is remotely well placed to know what a good education looks like for a SEN child. So no, I’m not very bothered about their opinion and would be extremely worried about them having power to force changes or force into mainstream.

As I said, my child is in a fantastic special school. He isn’t HEducated. But how he spends his school day looks absolutely nothing like mainstream. I’ve seen children with similar needs who are HEducated and the LA trying to get ridiculous evidence out of the parents that they wouldn’t have if they were in an appropriate school either. They just have no clue.

Stopped reading the replies, got bored of the ignorance.

Yes, I would be worried about this. Signing something to agree to SEND needs, potential home environmental risks and agreeing to home visits which are not mandated is concerning.
I would post this in Facebook group home education for all to gain some advice on how to proceed from experienced home educators.