I was wondering the other day what, if any, the long term consequences of the Graham Badman review of home education are likely to be. It certainly brought home education into the spotlight and drew the attention of the newspapers and public to the fact that it is happening and is perfectly legal. I am curious to know whether or not this has resulted in a surge of people deregistering their children from school.
Judging purely from the lists such as HE-UK, EO and so on, I seem to notice a hardening of positions both on the part of parents and also the local authorities. I don't know if this is significant or indeed anything to do with the Graham Badman review at all. The impression I get is that some local authorities are behaving as though the Children, Schools and Families Bill had been passed and are talking as though they have new powers. On the other side of the fence, a number of parents, with the enthusiastic backing of others on the lists, are refusing to provide anything beyond the barest information about their educational philosophy. The feeling I get is that both local authorities and home educating parents are digging in. Of course this is not the case in every local authority area; Somerset and Hampshire being notable exceptions. I would like to know though if this is a trend that anybody else has noticed.
I have a suspicion that matters are not about to rest with the defeat of the CSF Bill and that whoever comes to power next month will eventually get round to looking at home education again. I can't somehow see anybody wishing to go through the whole business of trying to get a bill through Parliament again. I should think that once was quite enough for all sides! I have an idea that it might be possible to push through some of the provisions as amendments to existing acts like the 1996 Education Act or The Education (School Attendance Targets)(England) Regulations 2005. It is not uncommon for such things to be added, even years after the acts were passed. I doubt that the whole rigmarole of the CSF Bill would be put through in that way, but I rather think that the requirement to register could.
My own feeling is that one way or another, the Graham Badman Review has changed things. Simply by drawing everybody's attention to the fact that many children have been taken out of school and are not being prosecuted for aiding their children's truancy must have come as a surprise to many ordinary parents. It will be interesting to see what happens now under the next administration. One thing is for sure, I doubt that things will just go back to how they were before January 2009.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Regulations cannot change legislation, they are limited to the terms of their enabling legislation and I thought amendments to Acts were done via Bills. For instance the Education Act 1997 amends the Education Act 1996:
ReplyDelete"An Act to amend the law relating to education in schools and further education in England and Wales; to make provision for the supervision of the awarding of external academic and vocational qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; and for connected purposes."
Quite a minor change but it still required an Act. If it were possible to amend previous Acts in another way without the rigmarole of debates and votes, why were these amendments not put through that way?
"Simply by drawing everybody's attention to the fact that many children have been taken out of school and are not being prosecuted for aiding their children's truancy must have come as a surprise to many ordinary parents."
ReplyDeleteI presume you mean the parents (and not the children) would be prosecuted for truancy after withdrawing their child from school to HE? However, you can only be prosecuted for truancy if your child is a registered pupil at a school so they cannot be aiding their child's truancy. They may be failing to provide a suitable education, but that's not truancy and the LA can take action and issue a SAO if that is the case.
Yes, I'm aware of all this. However, many parents who do not home educate were not and were surprised to hear that people could just pull their kids out of school and so avoid prosecution for aiding their truancy. An awful lot of people are still under the impression that school is compulsory, rather than education. The Badman review and the resultant publicity had the effect of bringing these facts to many people's attention.
ReplyDeleteActually, there is quite a lot of scope for amending primary legislation by introducing amendements years later. Just consider the Education Act 1996 (Amendment of Section 19) (England) Regulations 2007. It's considered bad form to put too much into such documents, but I have no doubt that it would be possible to slip one or two points from the CSF Bill into law in this way.
ReplyDeleteSimon wrote,
ReplyDelete"Actually, there is quite a lot of scope for amending primary legislation by introducing amendements years later. Just consider the Education Act 1996 (Amendment of Section 19) (England) Regulations 2007."
As I said, regulations or SI are limited to the terms of their enabling legislation, they cannot introduce new laws. In this case the powers to make these regulations were conferred by section 144 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. This Act made changes to the categorisation of maintained schools and these regulations just transfer the information from this Act that made it law to another Act that would not make sense without the amendment. Nothing in the regulations changed law, this was done via the 1998 Act.
Simon wrote,
ReplyDelete"An awful lot of people are still under the impression that school is compulsory, rather than education. The Badman review and the resultant publicity had the effect of bringing these facts to many people's attention."
If this is true it has at least had some positive side-effects though I fear the slant placed on it in the media may have put others, who would otherwise have considered HE, off the idea. Who wants automatic suspicion of child abuse? But if it leads to other children being saved from a school they hate, then that's good. Obviously they will need to be aware that they need to provide evidence of provision of a suitable education as we all do (if known) or they will just switch from one type of persecution to another. The publicity was very misleading in this respect, seeming to suggest that LAs had no powers over home educators at all, so it's entirely possible that some will have gone from the frying pan into the fire as a result.
Simon says-Somerset and Hampshire being notable exceptions.
ReplyDeleteThat is not true Hampshire are one of the worst LA in England who employer LA officers who tell lies!
Home educators are stronger now simon Balls DCSF LA's lost we can do what we like now
ReplyDeletePeter got complaint in about Hampshire Council over home education in writing and it has been accepted under the appropriate procedures by Karina Large the Complaints Manger for HCC.your be pleased to know it is a good complaint by Peter all in writing nice long letter with all the complaints listed in full about HCC!
ReplyDeleteIt's going to change, the important thing is by how much and in which direction.
ReplyDeleteIt has to be done with a proper Act, whether it amends or supersedes what went before is irrelevant. DCSF (in common with other departments) made the mistake of putting far too much into a single Bill and then not allowing proper time for Commnos debate, so the Lords were always going to haul it slowly over the coals.
I can see some sort of notification scheme being imposed, but if it's set up in such a way as to require all parents initially to report the educational status of their child and the address at which the child lives, and update it when the address or the school (or entering/leaving for EHE purposes) changes, then it would be much harder to fight. Having said that, for a home educator who doesn't move house for eleven years, that would be a single notification at the start and nothing more, whereas parents of schoolchildren would have to update when their children changed school.
I would hope that whoever tries next, will learn from the mistakes this time and do it properly and take account of the input from the home education community. If nothing else, politicians have learned that home educating parents as a group are good at organising things, finding things out, disseminating information rapidly and are not shy about letting their elected representatives know what they think.
The Badman saga has shown home educators what could happen, and the state is going to have to do some careful bridge-building before they get the cooperation of all those who've been annoyed by the whole episode.
It's definitely not over, we have a breathing space which may be measured in days if Balls gets to carry out his threat, or perhaps a couple of years if not, but it will be back.
But can we do anything if the government has a large enough majority? MPs vote for Bills or parts of Bills after speaking against them. Can we really hope for a back bench revolt?
ReplyDeleteWhat has changed is that more home educators are angry and have become politicised. Some have even become Single Issue Voters for the first time in their lives.
ReplyDeleteOur LA has asked to speak to representatives of the HE community for the first time in years. There's potential there.
Dave H said...
ReplyDeleteIt's going to change, the important thing is by how much and in which direction.
No its not going to change Dave the LA's DCSF/Balls lost home educators won the bill failed and thos was dispite they very best effort to get it passed!
Anonymous is right home educators are very very angry Badman has made us stronger if they wanna try it again come on then!
Okay Peter- we are faced with 3 political options next Thursday...
ReplyDelete1) Labour - will bring back CSF Bill as it is
2) LibDem - will bring in regstration scheme
3) Tory - no definates, but Graham Stuart (who actually led the no campaign to CSF Bill) said something about this issue will come back again...
so how is that "its not going to change"?
Teacher Julie said...
ReplyDeleteOkay Peter- we are faced with 3 political options next Thursday...
1) Labour - will bring back CSF Bill as it is
2) LibDem - will bring in regstration scheme
3) Tory - no definates, but Graham Stuart (who actually led the no campaign to CSF Bill) said something about this issue will come back again...
so how is that "its not going to change"?
Labour will not win next election Brown is dead in the water! they finshed! lets hope Balls loses his seat to!
LibDem will not bring in a regstration scheme its not in they manifesto? LibDem say a lot of things to all people Dr Tony Ludlow is not in favour of a regstration scheme he is leader of LibDems in Hampshire!
issue coming up and changing the law are 2 differents things Julie. Its not a big deal home education with the Tory party its going to have far more important things to worry about such has the very deep cuts that are coming to public services.The Tory party will not want to waste money on hom educators.I think the debt works out at 48,000 pounds per man women and child for the UK! the Tory Party will not waste time and money on home educators so its good news for home educators.
In the mean time all home educators you can do as you like enjoy we so much stronger now we won we beat the LA's we crushed them!LOL like on the chessboard check mate Julie! LOL im going to have anther glass of wine 2nite any ideas for a toast?
"What has changed is that more home educators are angry and have become politicised. Some have even become Single Issue Voters for the first time in their lives."
ReplyDeleteBut how would this help if they have already been elected and the Bill doesn't run out of time? You need enough MPs who feel strongly enough about the issue that they will vote against party instructions. Not a single MP voted against their party instructions during the last commons' vote on the Children, Schools and Families Bill. It it had not run out of time, the Bill would have passed despite all our campaigning and we would bow be faced with registration/licensing etc.
Not a single MP voted against their party instructions during the last commons' vote on the Children, Schools and Families Bill. It it had not run out of time, the Bill would have passed despite all our campaigning and we would bow be faced with registration/licensing etc.
ReplyDeleteThey did that because they knew it would not become law! Balls is a laughting stock in the house of commons!
No new laws will come forward in the next parliament for home education they are far more important issues such as the debt and the way money is learnt to us we must keep our 3 star credit rating home education will not get a look in! relax it be fine.
To various anonymous people:
ReplyDeleteIt is going to change, the side effect of Badman is that we've raised our profile so that all parties know about us. Plus, whoever it is in the DCSF civil service, and various LAs, that want changes are going to keep up the pressure from their side. It may be a couple of years before anything happens, but there will almost certainly be an education bill and at that point home education will come under scrutiny again. The trick is to turn it on its head and propose changes to the LA side of things that require them to provide services without obligation on our side. In the long term they'll get far more cooperation if they were interested in helping instead of ticking boxes. They know it will be a lot harder next time because as you say, we're annoyed and ready for them because now we know the system.
Some Labour MPs did vote against the CSF Bill in the Commons Third Reading, you can see it them in the list as recorded by Hansard. David Drew did, he even announced his intention in the debate, right before the Speaker cut it short. I think Kate Hoey voted against as well. However, had it not run out of time we would have been well screwed, because although the Lords might have delayed it and amended it, I suspect Ed would have removed the amendments when it came back to the Commons.
but there will almost certainly be an education bill and at that point home education will come under scrutiny again.
ReplyDeleteHome education will not be in any new bill should one come forward! relax it be fine we won!