Home education government review

[maverick]

I hope you've read this:
www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jun/05/home-schooling-education-crack-down

bumping just so people see it.

Seems a shame that the majority have to suffer but if it does mean that one child's life is saved/improved then I guess everyone should do it.

Would you object to registering - surely those with nothing to hide would be fine with that. As long as they are not trying to restrict what home educating can be.

I am a teacher but think that HE can work extremely well for parents and children who are committed to it and suited to it.

sigh

No offense Dysgu, but thats the same old argument that's been offered and refuted here and in other places.

If a child is at risk there are ALREADY laws and policies in place to deal with this. The child's educational provision is a separate legal and practical concern.

To force registration of home educators is the same thing as saying that many pre-school children are cared for by childminders or nurseries, and therefore all stay at home parents must register with their local authority if they do not choose to use a childminder or nursery to care for their child.

So yes, I would and will object to complusory registration.

The bit that said school is a good safety net for children would have made me laugh if it wasn't so awful.

Firstly, I worked in schools as a teacher for many years and more than one child in that time came to light as having been seriously abused at home. School didn't prevent it at all, because we didn't know. These things can be very easily hidden by families who wish to do so, and children are often too scared to speak out.

Secondly, my elder daughter was really badly bullied at the end of primary school. School was not a safety net for her, it was a place of terror and nobody in the school seemed to be able to do anything to prevent that. Years ago, a girl in my sister's year committed suicide, mainly due to pressures of school. Safety net? I don't think so.

I'm not saying this because I am against school in any way, merely that I think the arguments put forward by the government are a complete smoke screen for something else entirely.

I've home educated for more than eight years.
My children never met with the LA, never sent them any work.
After years at school, being badly bullied (school a safety net? Pah!) and with their SEN completely unmet, we finally found out about home education -after frantically searching because my son said he didn't want his life any more and was deeply unhappy, we deregistered them.

The children didn't want to meet with any LA professionals.
They had been badly let down by them.
They were terrified that the LA would misunderstand their SEN (as they had up until then) and make them conform to their school based standard (which had failed my children so badly) and would put pressure on my children to go back to school.

Tomorrow I am going along with a family to meet with a social worker.
Other social workers from the LA, demonstrated only last week that they have no understanding about autonomous home based education and none about the childrens SEN (Aspergers and ASD)
The children were bombarded with questions for hours about their education.
They are being pushed to attend school again-in fact every thing my children feared would happen, is happening to these children-right now!

My children tell me now, that that sort of pressure would have made their unhappiness much worse,
My youngest has met with the man reviewing home based education and told him to his face why these sorts of enforced visits are such a bad idea for some children especially for those with a history of problems with school and severe SEN.

I said to him, and would say to anyone that being home educated by parental choice, saves the lives of children who are otherwise considering suicide.

I know this because I take phone calls and emails from local parents who are desperate to help their children, who have expressed a wish to kill themselves because they are so unhappy in school.
Unfortunately it is a message I hear all too frequently.

Keeping their children safe from bullying behaviour by LAs is something unfortunately too many home educating parents have experience of.

AAgghh!
Have just this min heard about a child, who is much happier since being home educated, who has blossomed, goes to the local HE hroups and made new friends, was asked, by a paediatrician, if there was any downside to being home educated.

The child replied that she does miss her school friends.
The paed is now demanding a case conference is held as this child is being socially isolated!

This is the sort of twisting of words that some home educting families have to put up with!

this is no longer just about home educators

"the former director of children's services at Kent county council, Graham Badman, is looking "favourably" at proposals that would require parents to register their children with their council when they are born or when they move to a different local authority."

spot it? yes, he's wanting EVERY CHILD to have to be registered with the LA at birth and then whenever you move. Quite how this is going to prevent child abuse I can't fathom. But if you personally have an objection to a proposal that you would have to register with your LA whenever you move house with your preschoolers (to what purpose? for all children to be given preventative "safe and well" (= child abuse) checks on a regular basis? paid for with which swathes of spare tax money???), then this might be a good moment to write to your MP and ask what the hell is going on.

Stasiland??

OMG, Julie!!!

They'd better not try that with me...I will report them for harassment, breaching confidentiality and anything else I can pin on them!

It's one thing trying to invade my privacy/interfere in my family life BUT to try and get us to give other peoples' info is sickeningly awful, imo.

Still no review, but more discussion on the BBC website:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8017036.stm

Apparently it's tomorrow. From Yahoo EO.

""Report from the Home Education Review and the Government's response to the
Report are to be published tomorrow morning"

Message just passed over to EO from DCSF."

A review of home education in England is expected to recommend a national registration scheme for home educators.
more nanny state?

Hmm, i'm in two minds on this

I home edded ds3 for a while and it wa absolutely the right thing to do; I can also see it happening at some point with ds1 if needed, and ds4 if the vaccination stuff goes through ( we live in wales where it is higher up the agenda than in England).

If it was done in a way thatb wasn't managed by social services I wouldn't mind, if there was a dedicated HE support worker perjhaps who really was onside. there are cases of abuse picked up by schools and similar, I picked up a case at a kids club I helepd at many years ago after building a rapport with the child.

SS mustn't be invovled as a baseline though. Too much of a psychological issue for many- and besides i've never found them any use at all in SN matters. Has to be dealt with purely through LEA department.

From mrsz link

"NSPCC head of policy and public affairs, Diana Sutton, said current legislation was "outdated" and a system was needed to deal with cases where local authorities had concerns."

The local authorities already have the means to deal with cases about which they have concerns.

As head of policy and public affairs at the NSPCC, I would have hoped that Diana Sutton had researched the current situation before making erroneous/misleading comments. Obviously not

Absolurtely they ahve the ability to deal with concerned cases, there'sloads of procedures that can be followed

The issues in my mind are when the abuse would only come to notice through teacher concerns, etc

that's the riskfactors here, spotting kids in the first case

When I first came to mumsnet, We had been home educating for some time and had been subjected to what I would say quite a lengthy LEA visit.

As a nursery nurse with school based experience and having taught ds1 alongside a private home tutor for 2 years(funded by another LEA in order to cover up a TEACHER bullying ds1 )it was a role I and dh felt comfortable with, however this visit was awful and not one Id like to repeat- not because I was doing anything wrong but because we faced a barrage of questions and the kids(ds2&3) were questioned too.

Julienoshoes took a lot of time to explain to me how I could avoid future visits and whilst I do have 'vague' contact - 1 phone call,1 letter sent and 1 received from the LEA.

I see lots of children and believe me there are far more abused childrenin school neglected and ignored than there could ever be educated at home.

Just to include my own success stories- ds1 H.E for 3 years leaves school today with hopefully 13 GCSEs and starts at a top college in Sept studying 4 A levels,ds2 home educated for 3 years went back into school for secondary education and despite being diagnosed with M.E/cfs he is in top middle stream on 58% attendance!!(the reason he home educated was bcos primary school said he had SEN - funny really a few years at home and he goes from bottom of the year to quite a high achiever)- ds3 has never been to school,hes the most popular kid on the st - he is friends with everyone,has an hectic social life and has no desire to go to school at all.

The were discussing it BBC breakfast TV this morning-they had a mother and DS who were HEing and an inspector-although he saw his role as advisor more than inspector. Did anyone see it?

bugger pisces i missed that. wonder if i can catch it on the web somewhere?

the inspector didn't come across very well did he pisces?

I suspect the suggested proposals to have every child registered at birth or when you move is a direct response to the commonly-pointed-out fact that HE children are no more at risk than children before they reach school age. They are trying to make the point that of course they're not singling out HE families, they're only interested in protecting all children.

But that proposal will be received with outrage from all quarters, and will then be dropped as "excessive". So they will then be able to say both "We're trying to protect all children" and "We've listened to public opinion and softened our proposals", while still getting all HE children registered at the point they reach compulsory education age.

Cynical, me?

It was impossible to say really southeastastra without knowing more about him. He did see his role as advisor-which on the face of it seemed fine - I can't see it working unless the inspectors are visionary types who can accept that it isn't 'school at home'. My SIL finds tham helpful but I accept the fact that they are not all like that.
Actually I thought that the boy came over in the interview as the most well balanced of the three-I thought he was a good representitive for HE.

"We need to put children's interests at the heart of this and embed a children's rights agenda instead of a parents' rights agenda."

This quote out of the original article concerns me, because in the context of this discussion doesn't children's rights agenda translate directly into the state's agenda? For example, if the state believes that all children should go through the national curriculum, wouldn't they then just translate that into "your home schooling is not up to our standard (?) and your child has a right to the standard education therefore we require you to send them to school."

Someone needs to speak for children, and now this becomes the classic debate about whether that advocate should ultimately be the parent or the state.

Thoughts?

Okay, Julie's stasiland article sums it up pretty clearly. Great work!

They are discussing this on VIctoria Derbyshire on FiveLive, right now!

Just in case anyone wants to listen

Has anyone else read it? It's not good. Recommendation 7 is for the LA to have right of acess and to be able to talk to the child alone if deemed appropriate. WTF! Sorry, I'm just angry.

He also wants us to prove the child has attained what we planned in any 12 month period. What next -SATS?

I have no problem with the LA visiting (would prefer that they didn't though) but I do have a big problem with the amount of power Badman wants to hand them.