Is this being reported anywhere?

[sorky]

I bought the Independent this morning thinking there would be a mention or even an article in there on this whole nonsense and there is absolutely nothing!

This is the worst thing that could happen, for it to sail through unnoticed unchallenged

Is it in any of the other papers?

Covers all bases as long as you aren't an autonomous home educator, which is an area that Badman says lies outside his remit but is a cause for concern. I CANNOT PROVIDE DESIRED OUTCOMES FOR NEXT YEAR. I CANNOT EVEN PROVIDE DESIRED OUTCOMES FOR THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES. INSTEAD< I WILL FOLLOW THE INTERESTS OF MY CHILDREN, WHEREVER THEY LEAD US. Badman failed to 'get' this, despite hours of meetings with HEdders and hours of us writing to him to explain it, and ££ of us sending him copies of books which explain it. The man did not want to listen.

The balance of power is shifting. At present LAs make a case in court to issue a SAO. Under these new proposals, they'll have the power themselves to refuse registration. It's all there in the document. And of course if we have sensible, well informed, sympathetic public servants we'll be fine. But it's just like HVs really, isn't it? You can't guarantee that you won't get one who is a total numpty. But these total numpties are about to get huge power over our family lives.

I really don't think we are over reacting.

(by the way, registration IS something to worry about. I'm quite happy to be legally required to inform by LA of my intention to HE, but if I register something, it confers ownership of that thing to the person I am registering it with. 'tis one of the neat little scams on which the legal system rests.)

I must have missed the bit about LEAs having the power to refuse registration.

Interesting point about the meaning of registration. My children are registered at a school. And on the register of births. And with their GP. I don't feel that the process of registration confers ownership onto any of those people or institutions.

Could the desired outcome be that " X continues to be an active learner with her own unique set of interests, concerns, questions and problems and that she continues to address these throughout the year"?

yup. if your children weren't on the register of births, the state would have no power over them. I have heard of it happening where a families children were removed by SS and then a couple of hours later one or two of them were brought back because the parents had never registered the births and the SS therefore couldn't keep them. I have no idea of the rights or wrongs of the situation btw, but that is how the legality of it was explained to me, after too much wine, at 15th hand. I'll get me coat, shall I?

I could do that desired outcome, seeker, but I'd be at the mercy of the numpty. If the numpty was a work book type, I'd be in the poo.

I'm SURE that's not true - about children not on the register of births, I mean! And if it is, are you saying that it's a good thing? REALLY?

the trouble is seeker, according to that report, we don't have any control over whether our kids will be the ones interviewed. We don't get a say in whether the circumstances are judged to be exceptional.

What is happening, IMO, is that HEing is going to be a flag for possible abuse, and we are going to have all the same stuff thrown at us that families suspected of abusing their kids have.

Now if the system is working, competant HEs who are providing an education recognised by the state should be fine. Except it isn't that simple. You get an inexperienced social worker or EWO, and things start going very wrong.

That's a bit scary to us, just as if "sending your child to a faith school" or "voting Green" became a flag for possible abuse.

lol at not registering birth though! That is one way out of it...

oh and agree with onward

Think there is another problem that is not being explored fully. For a lot of us, education is no-one's business but the educatee (lol is that a word?).

my "desired outcome" for the next 12 months is that my kids remain happy and healthy.

I know they will learn. But tbh I think what they learn is their own business.

This is quite a common sentiment among HErs, and is backed by a huge amount of experience and anecdotal evidence. We do actually know that they will learn, but I suspect someone who hasn't seen this sort of education in action would assume they'd just watch tv all day. There is a real cultural divide and I don't really know what to do about it, it isn't helping our cause.

"I'm SURE that's not true - about children not on the register of births, I mean! And if it is, are you saying that it's a good thing? REALLY?"

That's what I heard. From an anarchist, admittedly, but that doesn't make it not true. Don't have links to substantiate.

I'm not saying it's a good thing, if true. I'm just saying that registration, as I understand it, confers a degree of ownership. We need a lawyer to tell me to take my tin hat off.

I agree with the policy of the NSPCC HERE

I think that HEers could afford to be altruistic-I think if it saves only one DC it is worth it. It seems selfish to me to say that 'my family and all the families that I know are fine so we don't need to be seen'- it does allow some to slip through the net.

The other thing that surprises me is that any HEers who post on here are adamant that they are best for their DC and they are producing what their DC needs and yet they get so upset at the thought that someone might say 'show me'.

I would agree that LEAs should get their act together. It needs to be properly funded and staffed by those who have a very broad view on education, it is a bit pointless if they have a mind set on the things that people are avoiding in the first place.
It could work well-as a shared resource and people able to get help on specific problems.

I can't see it happening-there isn't the money. It is less that 1% of the population, but a very opinionated part! It is impossible to implement (I think someone said like herding cats!)-I think it is unworkable and will be dropped.

Is there a lawyer in the house? I hear registration as completely neutral and I was a sort of anarchist once! The library doesn't own me. Neither does Mumsnet, or my GP.

seriously, seeker, you see registration as neutral? Seriously?

piscesmoon, the trouble is I don't see how requiring all HErs to produce a list of desired yearly outcomes is going to prevent abuse. They want us to fall in line educationally and are using the "child abuse" line as a justification.

In not ONE of the recent child abuse cases was a child hidden from the authorities. All these children were extremely well known to the authorities. Not one involved a child homeschooled since birth, in the two that do involve homeschooled kids the children were removed from school AFTER significant abuse had occured. Had the LEA been on the ball, they would not have been still living with their parents, let alone HEd by them. What happened to the wondreful school safety net? It is the schools and social workers who failed these kids.

In modern britain I reckon it is virtually impossible to hide a child. A good thing imo.
But it is possible for abuse to go undetected. It is possible for a child to spend all day in the presence of trained adults who are nonetheless not interested or alert enough to spot that things aren't right.

It is not about us being selfless. It is about not diverting the arguement from the real issues, our overworked public sectors, undertrained social workers being overloaded, the appalling way we marginalise kids so that it is very easy to see how they could be abused. It is about having a cacophony of involved professionals, none of whom see the buck as stopping with them.

I want this governement to take responsibility for failing these kids.

You know, I think I am on a completely different track from others on this thread. I'm not thinking about abuse at all. I suppose it might happen, but it could happen in any family. I suppose it might be easier to hide in a HE family, but I'm not sure that registration would prevent this.

What I am concerned about is the fact that for SOME (and I stress SOME) HE families, HE is another word for indoctrination. The rise of the Christian Right in America is mirrored by the rise in the number of HE children being taught that the world was created in 6 days 6000 years ago and that fossils were created by God to test their faith.

While I am convinced that parents should have the right to HE and I would defend go to great legnths to defend this right, I DON"T think that they should be free to teach them crap or lies. I don't think schools should be allowed to teach them crap or lies either!

pisces - the NSPCC receives a LARGE whack of its money from government. They are what is known as a "third sector" organisation ,i.e. a fake charity, a mouth piece for government policy.

If they cared about stopping child abuse, they'd put their money into stopping it rather than running ad campaigns which cost ££££££££. Oh, and conducting press campaigns slurring HEers without foundation. cui bono? It's all about funding streams IMO.

"I think if it saves only one DC it is worth it." Give us one shred of evidence that it would. Give us one shred of evidence that the existing powers, if used properly, cannot prevent child abuse in the HEing population. Give us one shred of evidence that child abuse is disproportionately problematic among HEers. It's all bullshit. We are being asked, altruistically, to sleep walk into a police state based on a smear campaign. Ed Balls is behind it, and we all know what sorts of tactics the man engages in.

"It seems selfish to me to say that 'my family and all the families that I know are fine so we don't need to be seen'" does it? Are you up for regular compulsory child abuse checks of all families who don't send their preschoolers to nursery?

" - it does allow some to slip through the net." unsubstantiated "what if" fear mongering. It does us a huge amount of damage. Please stop.

"The other thing that surprises me is that any HEers who post on here are adamant that they are best for their DC and they are producing what their DC needs and yet they get so upset at the thought that someone might say 'show me'.". I'd be delighted to show someone if I had any confidence that they were qualified to judge it. But oddly enough, there aren't many (any?) autonomous HEers on the LA staff. And there's no way I'm going to talk to some prejudiced institutionalised ex-teacher about the details of my family life, giving them the ammo to say our provision fails in their eyes because it doesn't look like what they think education looks like.

The problem with legislating for indoctrination through parents choice though is that its open to abuse by the state.

ie. in Nazi Germany state education was made compulsory so indoctrinate children in the Nazi Party's values.

And it is far safer to have a small minority of parents choosing this (I agree bad) option, than it is to risk it becoming a tool of the state - because who can say for sure that a government wouldn't take advantage of that?

once we are sure what the truth is, seeker, then we are in a position to decide what everyone MUST be taught. Me, I'm a critical rationalist, so I don't think that day is nigh...

who decides what are the crap lies? me, I personally think the guardianista consensus of state schools on multi-culturalism, environmentalism, and moral relativism is probably crap and lies. If the state said we couldn't teach our own values to our children, there'd be no escape from it, though, would there?

But some things are just factually incorrect. You shouldn't be allowed to teach your child that 12 times 12 is 47, or that the world is flat...or was created in 6 days. Or that it is OK to kill infidels. Or that gay people will burn in hell.

Seeker,
then you would have to say that ALL parents COULD be lying to their children with regard to different religions wouldn't you?

Muslims, catholics, protestants, jews, atheists, buddhists,...who's telling their kids "the truth" out of these groups of people? Who decides what religious views you can or cannot "teach" your child? No-one, that's who!! You wouldn't dream of suggesting that we all had to be brought up in one religion, dictated to us by the Government of the day....or would you?

I have no problem with people teaching their children their faith - (well, I do actually, but I know I'm being unreasonable.)

But sensible Christians don't believe the 6000 year thing. And sensible Muslims don't believe the kill Infidels thing. Actually, even if they did, they shouldn't teach their children to do something criminal!

You can teach your child that they should believe in God. Tat is a belief and is up to you whether you believe it or not.

You cannot teach them that the world is 6000 years old, because that is provably, scientifically, not true, and you are doing them a disservice if you do.

Sorry, but that makes absolutely no sense to me.

"sensible Muslims? sensible Christians"?

Who decides on which ones are the "sensible ones"??!

The ones who don't consider it necessary to believe in things which are incontrovertibly, provably, not true, or which are criminal.

Can I just add that although its not an education case, with cases like this its no wonder home educators are worried about getting involved in the system:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5534188/Second-mother-too-supid-to-raise-her-childre n.html

Who decided the woman was too stupid? Will someone like that be making judgements on my educational provision? Will the fact that welfare and education concerns are being combined mean that we might eventually end up using closed family courts to protest against school attendance orders? All hypothetical, but absolutely terrifying.

Sorry if this has been raised in this thread already, but has any thought been given to the dangers of false positives (innocent people being accused of abuse or neglect)? My fear is that someone looking for abuse or neglect is more likely to see it even when it isn't there as in the satanic abuse cases and I'm sure there are other examples. I believe that even when abuse has happened in a family, research has shown that some children experienced the investigation and contact with SS as more harmful than the abuse itself. How much more difficult must this be if the family is entirely innocent?

Do people believe that families are never falsely accused and harmed as a result, or is this just collateral damage and considered an acceptable trade-off?

Does anyone know how frequent false positives are in practice? If 1000 routine safe and well home visits are made, how many are likely to escalate into further investigations and ultimately result in false accusations of abuse or neglect?

How much more at risk of false accusations of abuse or neglect are families with children with SEN likely to be?

Until these questions can be answered, how can we know if routine safe and well visits will save more children than they harm?

Seeker said,
"Seriously, if there was the possibility of registration being refused there would be stuff in there about appeals, and all that sort of thing."

The guidance states:

"That the DCSF review the current statutory definition of what constitutes a ?suitable? and ?efficient? education in the light of the Rose review of the primary curriculum, and other changes to curriculum assessment and definition throughout statutory school age....The outcome of this review should further inform guidance on registration."

and later, "National guidance should be issued on the requirements of registration."

This suggests that if the parent's plans do not conform with what the DCSF decides is a suitable education then registration will be refused. Can you think an alternative explanation?

The guidance also states:

"That parents be required to allow the child through exhibition or other means to demonstrate both attainment and progress in accord with the statement of intent lodged at the time of registration."

Many autonomous home educators believe that the action of displaying education in this way will disrupt the child's attitude to learning. Here's are one autonomous home educator's thoughts on home visits:

"Having a home visit (or any kind of face-to-face meeting) with a person standing in judgement over your whole life-style can be destructive of autonomous education, for it would be a very unusual child who did not experience a narrowing of choices, and very unusual parents who could entirely protect their child from anxiety ? and therefore from a loss of spontaneous motivation ? at the very prospect of such a judgement."

www.fitz-claridge.com/Articles/Evidence.html

I am an autonomous home educator and home visits certainly changed how I approached home education. I attempted to 'encourage' my children to do 'school work' and this lead to arguments and stress. Since moving we have been able to follow a fully autonomous approach (as we are unknown to our new LEA) and we have been much happier as a family.

One child learnt to read at 5, another learnt to read at 13 but they both have a wide general knowledge, read at an adult level and enjoy learning. Both are now doing very well at college and their tutors have remarked on how self motivated they are when researching and completing work both in and out of college. All the marks received so far have been distinctions. I doubt the DCSF would have approved our approach as suitable, but in our children's experience it was.

seeker i actually absolutely agree with you that parents should not teach their children that gay people burn in hell, that women are second class citizens, etc etc. And I would personally be prepared to have a big row with someone about it.

HOWEVER

1. There are several state schools now teaching exactly those values-OFSTED praises creationist school.

1. These ideas are rife in schools. I was taught at school that to be gay was wrong and girls shouldn't do science. Actually, my desire to transmit my liberal ideas to my kids is one of several reasons for me keeping them out of school.

oh and the thing about appeals, no, they wouldn't be in the review or ed balls' letter document, as far as I understand. appeals procedures are standard procedure, something to be worked out with the rest of the practicalities. These documents are about the ideas.