Letter 'requesting' visit - not sure what to do.

[effiedean]

I've been home educating for years and have never used a school. We've recently come to their attention and were asked to provide information to show we were providing an education.
We provided the information, including a detailed educational philosophy, aims, resources etc. We didn't include work samples, but offered to if need be.

The letter we received in reply contained this:

"Within four weeks a Home Education Officer, who is a qualified teacher, will contact you and seek to arrange to speak to you and your child at home in order to review the provision you are making for your child's education."

What do you think? I had intended to agree to a visit, but I dislike their wording and that they make the visit sound mandatory. Perhaps I am being oversensitive?

Would also be grateful also if anybody could tell me what I could expect if I agree to a visit.

many thanks

I think you are being oversensitve tbh, it sounds fairly standard and from their point of view their responsibility lies in making sure the child is recieving an appropriate education. They do say 'seek to arrange' after all. Of course you don't have to have a visit but I used to work for an LEA 'monitoring' home education and without exception the people we sent to homes like yours were kind, intelligent, pleasant people with no vested interest or axe to grind. Please bear in mind that although I am sure you are doing a wonderful job, some 'home educating' parents do nothing of the kind and in very rare instances it is a cover for some very unpleasant home lives. An LEA has a duty to check this. I'm sure you appreciate that it would not be acceptable for children to 'disappear off the radar' with no-one taking an interest in their wellbeing. Just offering a point of view from the other side iyswim. Hopefully they will be as pleasant as the colleagues I had in Oxford. Good luck.

If you don't feel comfortable about the visit then write back to them saying that you would prefer all contact to be in writing at the present time. The visit is mandatory.

If you were thinking of having a visit and would feel happier about going ahead with that then don't let the letter put you off but maybe point out to them that the letter was off-putting.

Your choice.

Sorry - that should say 'the visit isn't mandatory.

effiedean. If you're autonomous I'm not sure what the 'qualified teacher' is going to make of it, anyway. AFAIK even Badman has recognised that LA staff will need to be trained to understand autonomous education.

As you know, you are under no obligation to allow this person into your home and I think it might be a good idea to let them know that you know. Perhaps a letter saying that you are happy to speak with the person to arrange a mutually acceptable time and place might be a good idea?

we had the same thing so i asked dd how she felt and she refused to see them, the first time, (she had only been out of school for 2 months, and still did not like trust any body to do with schools!!!)

you can meet them at a park if you like, have no children at your house, or write back and say no thank you please write.

let us know what you decide to do

This sort of thing makes me crazy, and no, reikizen, I do not 'appreciate' that visiting is always necessary. I am curious though, whether or not there are specific warning signs that a monitoring agency can pick up from written communication that would cause the LEA to be concerned. If a parent has sent in as much information as effiedean has, then it seems obvious she's the real deal.

Effiedean, I'd send a letter, very nicely asking what the LEA's concerns are based on all the info that you sent to them.

'their responsibility lies in making sure the child is recieving an appropriate education.'

Actually, it is the parents' responsibility to make sure their child recieves an appropriate education.

Amen to that queenofflamingeverything.

I've never bought the argument that all children need an advocate, and that advocate should be the state. I know that there are cases of sheer evil, but surely that's the exception, not the rule.

I doubt anyone would have deemed my son's year 6 primary education as 'suitable'

Amen to that queenofflamingeverything from me too.

The LA may make informal enquiries if they have reason to believe an education is not being provided.

I don't think you are being over sensitive
effiedean
It's your choice of how to provide the information requested. You have sent in an educational philosphy and report-as the law requires.
If they are not satisfied, they need to tell you why that is.

"without exception the people we sent to homes like yours were kind, intelligent, pleasant people with no vested interest or axe to grind"

isn't it interesting how a thing can look one way to people providing a service and completely different to those in reciept of the service?

Of all the things I think HErs want from EWOs, I reckon a bit of humility might come high up the list.

Sorry I didn't mean to sound high handed, I suppose I was just trying to shed a bit of light on the 'them and us' scenario. I agree that mainstream education can be inappropriate and downright damaging for some children so I didn't mean to suggest that home education was in any way inferior. I can think of a couple of situations where the work provided by the parents was of outstanding quality, but the social needs of the child were not being met and in one case the child was in a very dangerous home environment. Whilst I agree that the state is not necessarily best placed to monitor a child's health and wellbeing I did feel a personal responsibility for ensuring that the home educated children were safe and happy, I think anything less would have been negligent on my part.
And with regard to the comments I made about the qualities of the staff I worked with, this was as much taken from the feedback from parents as my own point of view. Perhaps I was just lucky!

I think you may be being a little over-sensitive about the wording - I would interpret it as meaning "we will seek to arrange to visit you at home, because that's what we'd prefer to do" The "seek to", in my view, makes it clear it is only their suggestion. If they wanted to make it sound mandatory they could easily have said they "will contact you to arrange" the visit.

But still up to you if you want to or not. Our council never contacted us at all, so I never had to decide what to do about visits!

Reikizen, thanks for your response! I think it is SO VERY helpful to have someone 'in the business' with whom to work toward understanding.

It's one thing to say "we want to make sure that no parent is using home schooling to hide signs of abuse" and quite another to say "we want to make sure that the education offered by a home schooling parent is appropriate."

I'm on board with the first agenda, but believe that if a parent responds such as effiedean has done, then it is clear that they really are home schooling and not hiding bruises. Perhaps I'm being grossly naive and it's the case that evil, abusive parents can put together a scam response. I'd be curious if this has happened to a convincing degree.

If the LEA is assuming responsibility for the second, then I have a whole lot of questions and concerns. What are the criteria for determining the appropriateness of an education? Who has the authority to determine this? Who determines what a child's social needs are, let alone if they are being met? What constitutes a "dangerous home environment" assuming we're not talking about abuse?

Yes, I agree, it is very subjective. Although a guiding principal would probably be meeting the needs of the child rather than the parent and thinking of the long term consequences of having no formal qualifications (for example - although of course I accept these are not the be all and end all they do determine one's life choices to some degree). The LEA I worked at had very loose criteria in that it was realistic about the differing needs and expectations of children and tbh the slim chance of enforcing any decisions they may make. Believe it or not, it was virtually impossible to ensure parents were complying with any suggestions the LEA made (this was several years ago so the law may have changed). The dangerous home environment I was thinking of did indeed include abuse, neglect and domestic violence.

Thank you.

I think I will agree to the visit, when they contact me.

I spoke to somebody from EO over the weekend who did say that LEAs will sometimes involve social services if you do not agree to a home visit, simply because they can.
Obviously I have nothing to hide and am happy for them to meet my children check our environment is as I say, but I'm not willing for them to be tested or interrogated/questioned.
We are also semi autonomous so I'm wondering how this is going to work with the home visit.

I am also uneasy because I personally know someone (albeit from another local authority) who used to visit the HE families. She was of the opinion that "they'd all be better in school".

Apparently, afterwards we receive a report based on the visit.
The letter says this may include improvements which need to be made and a time period for implementing these is given, if not complied with then a school attendance order is applied for.

Is this standard with LEAs too? The report etc It all seems very formal.

I think the fact I felt the visit seemed to be implied was mandatory, was because they didn't offer an alternative.
E.g., If you do not wish to agree to a home visit, evidence of learning may also be provided in writing.

Well I'm in EO too and know that most LAs don't just refer to SS just because you refuse a visit.
Most LAs will agree when faced with the facts, that you are entitled to provide information in the way that you choose.

They would prefer to do a home visit.
I preferred they didn't.
More importantly my children did not wish to meet with the LA and they didn't wish to share any of their work with them. So we didn't.

That way I was left in peace to judge whether my children were making progress, along their own chosen paths-as is MY legal responsibility and NOT the LAs. And in peace not dictated by somebody else's idea of what "improvements which need to be made and a time period for implementing these"

If you and your children are happy to have a home visit then that is something else. But I wouldn't be intimidated into it.

Effiedean, I hope it all goes very well for you, and that your visitor is as reikizen describes. I'll look for your post-visit post.

If, as Julienshoes says, most LAs don't automatically refer people who refuse visits to SS, that means some indeed do, and shame shame on them.

Though I rant about how this situation is stepping all over our rights as parents, if I were faced with 'let us in your house or we'll call SS' then I'm pretty sure I'd step off my soapbox, hang up my principles, and let them in. I don't think I'd risk my dc's wellbeing by saying 'no visit.'