Home education government review

[maverick]

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

Review of Elective Home Education in England Graham Badman

I've been involved in this consultation and my suggestion was that each LA set up a home ed department, totally seperate from the LEA, and SS. Said dept would have workers with experience in HE but also would be out right in favour of it. The job description would be as a facilitator for home edding families in their area.
This person would keep banks of info and resources for home edding families. They might even, dn't hold your breath, be able to obtain funding for certain things. They could iase with schools to sort out flexi schooling. They could offer advice on accessing exam boards, liase with schools to let hedders sit exams if they want to.
And yes, they could visit families from time to time, or meet with them elsewhere. Then if they ever had any concerns, and I mean proper concerns in respect of welfare issues or a child receiving no education whatsoever they could refer on. It would most definitely no be their remit to take it further.
In my utopia ex hedders would apply for the job.

Then again in the real world...

Not read it in detail yet but this recommendation seems to imply that you would need permission from LA to HE.

Recommendation 24
That the DCSF make such change as is necessary to the legislative framework to enable local
authorities to refuse registration on safeguarding grounds. In addition local authorities should have
the right to revoke registration should safeguarding concerns become apparent.

Consultation for change in legislation already up on DCSF site

I have to say I'm more than a little anxious at what transpiring of late in respect of Home Education and the local authorities.
My grandson is 10 years old today. He has been with me since he was 2.
He is classed as a 'looked after' child,and has been more HE'd than he has been at school.
I have been annually inspected, with favourable reports each year, including last year when I sent in a report,refusing a visit, for which the response was also favourable.
I am due for a visit in the next month or so, and am concerned that they may ask questions regarding grandson and secondary school in the light of recent publicity over LEAs wanting to question children. My LEA have always been supportive of my decision to HE grandson and the last report stated that children are not always suited to a school environment and this is the case with grandson.
Any advice would be appreciated.

It's a shame they couldn't arrange for this level of monitoring in schools, then perhaps there wouldn't be so many opting to home educate .

I can only think that you haven't seen the level of monitoring in schools streakybacon!!
It would be much better if teachers were left to get on with the job-everything is monitered to death IMO!
I think that your idea seems excellent Litchick and is the way it ought to work-unfortunately I can't see it happening.

Sorry -monitored.

That's quite a list of recommendations, and goes much further than what we have already up here. Which no doubt means our Scottish guidelines will also be "reviewed" in a while, and we'll have the same thing...

And his list of "things to consider" includes the whole concept of autonomous education and whether it works or not. So, for now, you will still have the right to HE (as long as there are no safeguarding concerns) and to decide how to educate your child (but they have to achieve what you've planned), but even your right to follow an autonomous path may be problematic if he does another review and decides there's no evidence to prove that it works.

About as bad as it could get without taking away the right to HE completely, or insisting on the NC...

I have seen what passes for monitoring in schools, but as ever it's mostly just words on paper. Supposedly by the monitoring process school-educated children are receiving a quality of education that rarely exists. The system exists not for the welfare of children, but to give the appearance that it is for the welfare of children.

Exactly.

It's not clear whether the onus will be on the LA to prove the parents are unsuitable or on the parenst to prove they are.
I'd like to know that tbh.

I wonder if being a single parent would make one classed as 'unsuitable' or perhaps if your child had already missed a lot of school time, or previously school refused, whether that would make you 'unsuitable' too. By what definition will a person be classed 'unsuitable?' What if you have a disability? Will you have to prove you are suitable? Or a mental illness like depression or something? The problem is the terminology being splattered throughout the whole thing is too vague and broad. It seems to give LA's more powers to confuse the meaning of the law which they didn't always understand when it was simpler!

You can't generalise about schools. I only go to good ones, I am lucky in having the choice, and they are not just words on paper.
I expect that they are in some schools.

Piscesmoon, my son was thorougly failed by two separate primary schools with outstanding Ofsted reviews and local parents clamouring to get their children into them - most people would class them as 'good schools'. In the first the Head refused to accept the existence of special needs, and children such as my ds with behavioural issues (dxd with AS) were totally disregarded. I am in contact with numerous parents of children with SNs and 99% of them tell similar accounts of the lack of support they've had in schools.

You are indeed lucky that the schools you've been involved with have turned out to be good ones, but that's far from the norm where special needs are concerned. I'm not generalising, just quoting from numerous parents' experiences.

Sorry,pisces, but I share the same view as streakybacon. I won't go into detail, but my dd was badly let down by her school.
She has SN and we fought for 3 years to get the support she needed. All to no avail -she ended up suicidal.

Since we took her out of school -where they said she was 'doing well' I have found huge gaps in the knowledge she is supposed to have aquired. At 8, she wasn't even sure of her number bonds to 10 -there are many other areas that her school said she was competent in that she clearly wasn't. So who was monitoring her progress and the ability of her teacher to see she was in difficulty?
In 3 years, not one teacher noticed that she was showing signs of dyscalculia.

I'm not saying all schools are badly monitored, but you will find many people with similar experiences to my family's.

I am so bloody angry about this I can't actually type anything sensible.

Sadly I don't think this is going to stop at Home-edders. I don't think anyone is safe under this lot.

[this message is cross posted from reflectionsinthegreenhouse.blogspot.com/2009/06/call-to-action.html because she says it so much better than I could. But despite the spamminess of that, please please please read it and consider acting to help thousands of families like mine. Just sympathy ain't going to help. We are about to lose our right to a private family life.]

"Imagine a world where...

All vegetarians are required to register with their local authorities, and inform the authorities whenever they move house.

• Vegetarians must be visited annually by an inspector (usually a former employee of the meat industry), who will assess their dietary plans for the coming year against government standards.
• Inspectors have the right to interview children in vegetarian families, without their parents present, in order to find out whether the children are safe and well, and ask them if they are happy to be living on a vegetarian diet.

No need to use your imagination - this is reality.

These are measures actually being proposed by the British government, not for vegetarians but for people in England who make the lawful choice to educate their children outside the school system.

The proposed heavy-handed system of registration, monitoring and inspection will cost millions of pounds to implement. Money which will be diverted from providing services for families who actually need and want help. If you are looking for a needle in a haystack, don't make the haystack bigger!

If home educators can be treated this way, who will be next?

Would you be happy for your child to be questioned alone by a government official they do not know, when there is no reason to suppose any crime has been committed?

Do you trust the government to keep safe the personal data of thousands of families?

To bring in this system, the government is proposing to change the law. We have a short time in which to raise our voices and object.

What you can do:

• Respond to the DCSF consultation at www.dcsf.gov.uk/consultations/index.cfm?action=consultationDetails&consultationId=1643&extern al=no
• Write to your MP
• Write to local and national newspapers
• Tell your friends - pass this message on by email, blog it, photocopy it

*or people who don't drive/people who use homeopathy/smokers/people who don't have a television/any other group of people exercising a lawful minority choice

Now I have composed myself, I really do not see how they're going to impose forced entry into the private home or forced interrogation of children without their parents being there. It surely must come under HRA.

My kids have already said that they wouldn't want to be "interviewed" so we shall see what happens if this does kick off as I, for one, will fight it all the way.

' In the first the Head refused to accept the existence of special needs, and children such as my ds with behavioural issues (dxd with AS) were totally disregarded. '

This would automatically make them bad schools IMO. I am sorry that your DCs had such a negative time, but a good Ofsted or parent's clamouring to get a place doesn't necessarily mean that it is a good school. The Head of the school down the road from me is classed by Ofsted as having outstanding leadership skills-yet the woman is an utter nightmare to work for with no people skills whatsoever! My DSs went to a primary school that a certain section of local opinion wouldn't touch with a bargepole!
HOWEVER-this has nothing to do with the thread-so I don't want to sidetrack. It actually has nothing to do with schools.
I think the whole thing is unworkable. It needs to be done as Litchick (hope I got the name right without looking back)outlined and there won't be the money and probably not the inclination either. (It is a bit like the fox hunting-impossible to carry out).

don't think much to reccomedation 7, spaeaking to child alone, I thought this was about child protection, mine feel intimidated when I am there, my son in particualr hates them coming.

Home educators made to register