EHE overstepping her mark!!?

[Eightofus]

I have devised my first report as I couldn't find a date to meet with my ehe this year so she suggested to do a report on my 3 children.

So I have already completed two reports for my eldest dcs 14 and 13 and I think it's quite good, I'm pleased it's informative and got lots about what we have been doing and obviously the progress made also and she has come back to me making no sense and being picky about things I mentioned we were doing for maths e.g I stated we were doing angles, degrees, the use of pi and also division and she stated she needs to know what aspects of these????

Please help as I think she constantly oversteps her mark and expects alot of information more than is necessary, and when I looked over her report from last year, meeting her it just wasn't that detailed!
Am I wrong or is she being picky?

Are you just saying “we are doing” but not showing the work?

Sorry just realised I my haze of stress there is no punctuation.....I should no better!🙈

Honestly, you can share as much or as little as you want to. You don’t even have to interact with these people.
File your report and that’s that
I wish I’d have known years ago that saying too much is almost worse than saying too little
The more you jibber Jabba on the more will be taken down and used against you if necessary just present the facts concisely and then don’t reply any further
If they have concerns and you reached the threshold, they’ll soon come back to you
But the threshold is ludicrously high beyond most people’s imagination, unfortunately

I have given clear and precise information on what my children have done this year, and she's whinging about resources and listing exactly what work has been done right down to the sums of maths and every aspect, I wrote about clubs and she wanted to know all the clubs exactly, as I said I usually meet with them but this year and couldn't so tried a report and I have been met with constant emails from her, being very picky!

You’ve done what you’ve been asked to do. That’s it. Stop corresponding stop feeding the beast.

Are you on HEFA (Home Education for All) on Facebook they have really good guides to help you compose your response. Also the mods on there can help with an appropriate response if she is being uber picky. A lot of them are over stepping with the new legislation looming but it has not been implemented yet so they haven’t got grounds to be as pushy as they are. Good luck.

I would never give them this level of detail and they are being CFs trying to get you to give those details. There is no requirement even to do maths, let alone go into all those specifics.

If you need help in writing a suitable response, I highly recommend the Home Education and Your Local Authority Facebook group, who are the experts in dealing with officialdom.

I second HEFA they are fantastic and the guides are brilliant to help with the amount of information you need to put in your report.

Deleted as probably not the place to start a discussion about home schooling

In addition to previous posters' suggestions, you could also go to the home ed charity Education Otherwise. Under "Resources" on their website they have a guide to writing a report for the LA. They also offer a report-checking service where you send them a copy of what you've sent to the LA (or what you plan to send, if you are still drafting it) and they can advise on whether you've included the right level of detail.

It may be that it would be helpful to go into some more detail on some aspects of your report, or it may be that you are 100% on firm ground and can challenge why they are asking for more.

Additionally, EO and HEFA and the "Officialdom" Facebook group mentioned by a PP can all advise whether your particular LA has been unreasonable recently, and whether they are particularly trigger-happy when it comes to issuing School Attendance Orders and prosecuting for noncompliance. That knowledge may inform your response.

If you do decide to answer her rather than leave it, one line per topic is plenty and it does not have to read like a scheme of work. Angles becomes measuring and drawing with a protractor, and angles on a straight line. Pi is just circumference and area of a circle. That is the level she is fishing for and it is ten minutes of your evening, if you decide she is getting it at all.

Others have covered the whether-you-should side better than I could. Only thing I would add is keep the next reply the same length as the last one, not longer, or it turns into a habit and next year she expects it.

Thank you everyone for your feedback and quidance really appreciate it!

I'm just soo tired of having to go back and forth with our hea on this, I've readjusted the reports so many times now, it's seems its easier just to meet up, I usually do but we couldn't settle on a date this year, I've often wondered does anyone else meet with their hea and take down lots of samples of work and all children, because I speak to other people from different areas, and they say oh no I don't take work of my childs we just meet and have a coffee! And I'm always baffled why I got the hea that's awkward!

As far as I have ever worked out there is no requirement to meet or to hand over samples, so the difference you are seeing between areas is mostly what each officer has got into the habit of asking for, and what parents locally have got used to agreeing to. It is not something you have brought on yourself.

If the meeting is less draining than the report tennis then carry on meeting, but you could take one folder between all of them rather than a set each, and leave out anything you would rather not show. The two suggestions upthread will both give you the firm version of what is actually required where you are.