Sunday 6 June 2010

What's wrong with visits

Several people lately have posted messages explaining why they feel that visits by their local authority to inspect the provision being made for home education are both unnecessary and undesirable. I have gone before into the question of why I feel that such visits are necessary. I don't propose to go into this again. However, the matter of whether or not visits like this are actually harmful is another thing entirely.

There seem to be three important reasons why some parents dislike visits and feel them to be damaging. These are that they simply do not wish for their methods to be judged by others, that such visits make children anxious and upset and finally, perhaps most important of all, the very act of receiving a visit tends to change the nature of the education being given to the child. None of these objections seems to me to have any force.

Taking the most trivial first, that of disliking the idea of being judged, this is something which happens to all of us, all the time. there is no course of human action which will not bring disapproval by somebody. One need only consider how some folk reacted to the actions of Jesus, to see that trying to avoid negative judgements from others is a pretty barren endeavour! Home educating parents make the point that in this case the negative judgements of others may have a practical and unpleasant consequence; that their lifestyle might be judged wanting and they will be prevented from pursuing it. This is not likely. Hardly any School Attendance Orders are issued and those that are, are not issued to home educating families on purely educational grounds. All this came out quite clearly during the Badman enquiry and the subsequent select committee hearing. In other words, some local authority officers will certainly disapprove of some methods of home education but there is unlikely to be any practical result. Nobody will stop the home education on those grounds alone.

The second objection likewise holds little water. If children become anxious and nervous about a visit by the local authority, then it is almost invariable because we are transmitting our own unease to them. In other words, parents get worked up and neurotic and the kids pick up on this and also get upset. Sometimes, parents specifically tell their children that the visit might result in their being forced back to school. The remedy here is for parents not to wind their children up in this way. In normal homes, all sorts of people visit. The man to read the meter, friends, relatives, strangers. If the local authority officer is treated as just another random visitor, then there is unlikely to be a problem. most children like showing off what they are doing and this provides them with the perfect opportunity for a bit of licensed showing off. If a child is really so nervous as to be thrown into a panic by the presence of a stranger in the house, then this is a matter of concern; a problem which the child has which needs to be dealt with for her own sake. I seriously doubt if the best approach is to pander to these irrational fears.

As for the idea that the education itself could be harmed or the direction which it takes altered by annual visits, there might, I suppose, be something in this. Although we must bear in mind that such visits typically last for an hour once a year! I guess that for a week or so before such a visit, there might be a frantic effort to gather evidence and make things look professional. I can't really see why though, because as I said earlier, even if the local authority officer does not like the provision, nothing will happen. Attempts to fawn round her and pretend to be providing the sort of education found in school are simply people pleasing and not at all necessary.

I think also that we should bear in mind that any changes to the education which take place as a result of these visits could prove to be an improvement. Perhaps some parents have been slacking a bit and the realisation that somebody is coming will cause them to get on with things. This seems to me to be at least as likely as the education actually being harmed by visits.

22 comments:

  1. You seem to have made a posting error with parts of this post being duplicated.

    Mrs Anon

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  2. Old Simon says-that their lifestyle might be judged wanting and they will be prevented from pursuing it. This is not likely. Hardly any School Attendance Orders are issued and those that are, are not issued to home educating families on purely educational grounds.

    It is likly that a parents lifestyle and the house is judged by an LA officer it may be to tidy or messy you your self have said children may be hidden or held in a room would LA officer want to check all the rooms in house? i turn this around can we judge check LA offciers house? just in case?

    School Attendnace orders are issued not just on educatinal grounds a family only have to be refered to a EWS for it to become a real problem an LA officer can just refer family on grounds that he not sure about the education because family did not want home visit! or he refer family cos he does not like them! just saying i dont think education is good enough for this child! and also remember some LA Staff can lie!

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  3. After the debarcle of the report from Oldham not very many months ago which included the infamous passage"The front room is dark and had incense burning. There are a number of chinchillas kept in this room and the lighting arrangements may be for their benefit. The room is spacious. H has a laptop through the home access scheme and access to the internet. H visits the library at least twice a month. " (it was mentioned at one of the All Party Parliamentary Group and I have a full copy of all the documentation) I cannot see that you can claim lifestyle judgements do not happen. Granted they are in a minority but they do happen and they can have dire consequences. I have seen the fact parents smoke and have lots of pets lead to SS investigations based on an EHE visit.......

    As for your other point that we make our children nervous and they should get used to strangers entering the home please remember one cannot equate the purpose and behaviour of a meter reader with an LA officer who has the capacity to decide the education is not suitable.

    Some people love visits, others hate them. At the end of the day the guidelines are correct when they say that the form of information/evidence should be up to the parent. After all it is actually the provision that the LA are looking at, not the child.

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  4. "Taking the most trivial first, that of disliking the idea of being judged, this is something which happens to all of us, all the time. there is no course of human action which will not bring disapproval by somebody."

    But not many of these people have the power to make you change your lifestyle against your will. If a visitor can make you provide an inferior education to your child, why wouldn't you be more concerned about them than other visitors? It doesn't take the issue of a SAO to achieve this in most cases, just the implicit threat of one is enough in the cases I know of.

    "Hardly any School Attendance Orders are issued and those that are, are not issued to home educating families on purely educational grounds."

    There are no other grounds for issuing a SAO so if they are issued for other reasons they were issued improperly.

    "If children become anxious and nervous about a visit by the local authority, then it is almost invariable because we are transmitting our own unease to them"

    So you are so emotionally detached from your children that they do not pick up on your mood?

    "In normal homes, all sorts of people visit. The man to read the meter, friends, relatives, strangers. If the local authority officer is treated as just another random visitor, then there is unlikely to be a problem."

    None of whom can make you change your lifestyle and it presupposes an ability to completely hide any fears or anxieties you may have. Not always easy with observant children who are with you most of the time, often in a small house!

    "Although we must bear in mind that such visits typically last for an hour once a year! I guess that for a week or so before such a visit, there might be a frantic effort to gather evidence and make things look professional."

    More like a couple of months in the cases I know. And once the child has the idea that their education is carried out in order to please someone else who can decide if they can continue learning in the same way, they lose the ability to view education as part of their day to day life. The effect on the child and their view of learning is permanent.

    "I think also that we should bear in mind that any changes to the education which take place as a result of these visits could prove to be an improvement. This seems to me to be at least as likely as the education actually being harmed by visits."

    They could also prove to be the opposite and in my experience this is more likely. If it is at least as likely, half will be improved and half will be made worse, so what is the point?

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  5. There are no other grounds for issuing a SAO so if they are issued for other reasons they were issued improperly.

    But SAO are issued improperly as the LA officer knows that unless it goes to court no one will look at why SAO was issued unless family is rich and can employ a solictor to challenge the SAO. SAO are issued as a threat and some parents then back down those that wont are left in Limbo some SAO are left to run out! An LA officer can just refer family to EWS on the flimsy grounds that in his view education is not good and family wont meet! EWS in almost every case tend to agree with LA offcer.you try complain to the council about an SAO issued to you? your not get very far! often your told oh sorry its in the hands of the council solictor your be saying the education my child gets is good he happy at home but it wont undo the SAO! its done as a nasty way by some LA officers as a way of geting at parents it does not like is that right?

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  6. I wonder which local authority requires visits every two months? Unless this is a secret, I would be keen to know the name so that I can look into this. SAOs are almost only issued in cases of truancy or when there are other things going on with the family besides home education. Can we have a few cases of ordinary home educators who have been forced to return their children to school because they were educating autonomously? Again, this is something I would like to investigate. Or is it another of those home educating myths of which one grows so weary?

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  7. SAOs are almost only issued in cases of truancy or when there are other things going on with the family besides home education.

    Thats not ture Simon. Hampshire County council issue SAO if you refuse to meet with them!

    We had one issued on the grounds that we refused to meet with LA officer and he had not seen enough of the education for Peter when challenged he refused to answer! i have all the paperwork from him and the council! it was not issued becuase we refused to show them any evidence! so dont start that again. The LA officer also lied to the school the SAO was for the head of the school was very angry over this matter and wrote to complain to HCC so did the chair of governors i have the letters! they also wrote to the DCSF to complain as well!

    in the end of was revoked but only on the grounds Peter was to old for the primary school the letter said SAO revoked but still unable assess education of Peter has you have refused to meet with me! the letter was sent 3 years ago not heard a thing since.

    you all so have to go though a notice of intentions to serve a SAO which we been though 2 times!
    now if our LA was so sure Peter was not geting an education it would have gone all the way to court but it never did and Peter/myself and my wife all told them to take us to court but they never did!

    if an LA officer does not like you he can refer to EWS on very flimsy grounds such as the family wont meet or they not enough written work not enough maths or he could just hint that family are not normal im worried about child but not say in real detail what he means!


    we been though SAO and 2 notices so we know what we are talking about!


    we won which is the only good bit to come out of it and we never backed down not once and that was the real reason it was issued!

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  8. "Can we have a few cases of ordinary home educators who have been forced to return their children to school because they were educating autonomously?"

    I didn't say they had been forced back to school, for a start you cannot go back to something you have never attended. In our case it wasn't a change from autonomous to school it was a change from autonomous to parent directed/school at home.

    "Again, this is something I would like to investigate. Or is it another of those home educating myths of which one grows so weary?"

    I don't really care if you believe it happened to us or not and I certainly don't want you to investigate us. We have had enough of that from the LA!

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  9. The trouble with home visits is that there are clear inconsistencies between those who carry them out - some may be positive and helpful, others destructive. That is why we are getting involved in training the people who carry them out. If people are going to have them (and just pointing out here, to appease Peter - that we never did) it would be helpful if the advisors could actually provide some constructive support - and that is another of the things we locally are aiming at.

    I am not going down the whole "what HCC did next" thing with Peter - because all of his experience was 6 years ago, and if he was as baffling then as he is now, no wonder HCC got a bit confused! I will say that I don't think they have issued any SAOs of late, they certainly don't require home visits (or else the vast majority of our 150 families would be in court) and I am quite happy to support families regardless of whether they do or do not want such visits.

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  10. Julie says-I am not going down the whole "what HCC did next" thing with Peter - because all of his experience was 6 years ago, and if he was as baffling then as he is now, no wonder HCC got a bit confused! I will say that I don't think they have issued any SAOs of late, they certainly don't require home visits (or else the vast majority of our 150 families would be in court)

    The same people are in charge at HCC Julie including County Councilor David Kirk(Exective lead member for Children Service)who fully agreed with a SAO on the grounds that Peter would not meet with an LA officer he was told of the SAO and did nothing to stop it!
    Peter wrote to David Kirk to complain about this SAO no answer from David Why? Peter also made a number of phone calls to him but he refused to come to the phone to explain why he had done nothing to stop the SAO.Peter and i have all the paperwork Julie every last bit of it! Peter had to go to meet the head of the school in which the SAO named his school the head was very angry after speaking to Peter the school had been lied to by HCC he wrote a letter at once to complain to HCC i have the Letter Julie! a HeadTeacher does not often do this so quick but he was cross and so was his school governor!

    We have been though an SAO and how HCC lie tp do this so we know what we are talking about Julie.

    How is Peter baffling Julie? cos he wont do as he is told or Peter does not do Home education the right way? or because he aked for some resourses? or becuse he wont be quiet? im very proud of Peter and his refusal to be silenced by HCC

    That is at the heart of the problem HCC do wrong to a family and then expect eveything to be all ok! that your view as well.

    we know everything about SAO and the notice that they send to along with the letters tellign you how you have to do home education! one letter said you got to write about feelings?LOL and good old Steve Mellor wanted to know if i was a teacher and what exam Peter would take age 7! i got the letter!

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  11. I'm getting deja vu. So far all your June posts (I've been away and I'm catching up, so this is a comment on all those posts) have been rehashes of previous ones and all they demonstrate is that you have learnt nothing about how HE really works from any of the people who take the trouble to respond to you. You are still convinced that yours is the one true path. The only slight difference I have noticed is that you are no longer quite so appallingly rude about all autonomous educators, probably because some of them have taken you to task. Now, you appear to be saying that it's not the "real" autonomous educators you are rubbishing, it's the ones who "pretend" to be autonomous as a cover for being too lazy to do anything. You appear to believe that this is a reason for everyone to adopt a structured approach. I'm not quite sure why, and the only possible reason I can infer from your posts is that it's much easier to pretend to be autonomous than to pretend to be structured, so the existence of autonomy as a method of education makes it easier for lazy parents to get away with doing nothing.
    You have also returned to the old chestnut of qualifications, and yet again you are demanding proof of the existence of HE young people who have achieved success without GCSE's. You have been given many examples, none of which is good enough for you. I would like to turn that question around and demand proof from you of the existence of all the HE young people who, you claim, have not achieved success because of their lack of GCSE's. Give us some examples. Then maybe we can have a constructive discussion.

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  12. Harsh words indeed, Anonymous! Yes, rehashing work is a problem, you are quite right. However, new aspects of various topics come to light and so it seems worth looking at the subject again. For example, although I have indeed posted before on the matter of fourteen eyar olds attending college, since I last posted there has been excitement on the lists about the possibility of funding for such places. Also, my own daughter's experiences at college have given me a new insight.

    I am still appalingly rude about autonomous educators; you do me an injustice to suggest that this has stopped entirely. However, my special rudeness was reserved for idiots like Ali Edgeley and Maire Stafford who came on here and made nuisances of themselves. Most of those who post comments these days are more reasonable and so it seems worth having constructive debates with them.

    You say that you; 'demand proof from you of the existence of all the HE young people who, you claim, have not achieved success because of their lack of GCSE's.'

    I have no information on this subject at all. All the available evidence tends to show that colleges and universities do not allow students to syudy academic subjects like Chemistry or Mathematics unless they have at least a GCSE in the subject. The claim is constanly being made that this is not so and that it is quite possible to study traditional subjects like this without having taken GCSEs. I am asking for the names of the colleges and universities which will allow this. You say; ' You have been given many examples, none of which is good enough for you.' Why not humour me and give me the name of a university which has accepted a student to study Mathematics, Chemistry or another traditional subject without the student having any GCSEs? What is the big secret here?

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  13. See Alison Sauer's post from the other day. Nottingham Trent, St Andrews, Oxford and Cambridge, I think she said. Have you spoken to them yet?

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  14. Simon wrote (in an earlier article),
    "A good deal of these data lead also to the conclusion that the earlier children read, the greater the benefits from an educational viewpoint."

    Thought you might be interested in this research:

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article7145706.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=6939628
    "Children who learn to read from a very young age perform no better by the age of 5 than those who learn later. A government study indicates that billions of pounds spent on the “nappy curriculum” have failed to boost achievement...

    Research from the Office for National Statistics...found that in a sample of the results of 7,000 five-year-olds “on average . . . early years education had no impact on any of [the] outcome measures”. "

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  15. Yes, Anonymous, I was aware of this. It is precisely the point which I made in my original post. I said, 'Learning to read at school when a child is five is however quite a different thing from being taught to read by a parent at the age of two or three. Research showing that early schooling is undesirable does not mean that a parent teaching a child to read at home at that age is undesirable.'

    This is what the Moores found, see 'Better late than never', published in 1975. The research which you have cited concerns children being placed in an institutional setting and being taught by strangers. I am a believer in home education, which is quite a different matter. The two cases are not really comparable.

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  16. Have no fear, Anonymous! I spotted the comment by Alison Sauer about those universities last night and I shall be on to it this morning. Reading the rest of her comment though, tells me that there is a bit of a difficulty with what she says. I shall do the research and post in a few days.

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  17. No answer from you Julie why?

    How is Peter baffling Julie? cos he wont do as he is told or Peter does not do Home education the right way? or because he aked for some resourses? or becuse he wont be quiet? im very proud of Peter and his refusal to be silenced by HCC

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  18. No answer cos very busy week invigilating exams....

    It is you, Peter senior who are baffling (don't know your son but have seen a lot of your writings on here....). I have no idea how you HE - because actually that is one thing you never discuss, but I don't have a preconceived idea of a "right way" so I can't see that being an issue. I am less than happy with your fight for resources, not because I believe that some shouldn't be available (but not the whole AWPU) but because I think your constant badgering and letter writing to the LA makes all home educators seem silly - especially since you have now been labelled vexatious.

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  19. never fear Julie im not baffling!

    i make home educators seem silly because i want resources for all home educators that want them? i should only ask once or twice then go quiet? Peter asked more times than me Peter wrote many letters to HCC/David Kirk about resources and it is Peter who has been labelled as vexatious something which of course he does not agree with. all letters by Peter are well wrote and well thought out! but your silly if you write for resources you got to be quiet about it and just hope something will happen? if your a good boy HCC/ old Kirk may give you a pat on the back? if you can find him LOL. i like a pen off of him! or a book or a computer disk or some of that money AWPU or what ever it is called? only thoose that want the money must claim for it if you do not that is fine by me!

    you said Peter was Baffling? how? cos he wont be quiet? or do as he is told by HCC? i try to let him out as much as i can lol he keeps breaking the cellar door down LOL

    people are always labelled as vexatious when they wont do as they are told dont change anything labeling some one as that does not make the problem go away!

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  20. "Research showing that early schooling is undesirable does not mean that a parent teaching a child to read at home at that age is undesirable.'"

    I don't think they said it was undesirable, just of no benefit.

    "The research which you have cited concerns children being placed in an institutional setting and being taught by strangers. I am a believer in home education, which is quite a different matter. The two cases are not really comparable."

    What research are you basing this on?

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  21. And isn't the "huge body of research dating back centuries [that] amply demonstrates the advantages of teaching children to read and write" that you refer to in a previous article to support your theory that teaching reading and writing is the best approach, also based on "children being placed in an institutional setting and being taught by strangers"? Why would those two cases be comparable whilst this one isn't?

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  22. "Why not humour me and give me the name of a university which has accepted a student to study Mathematics, Chemistry or another traditional subject without the student having any GCSEs? What is the big secret here?"

    Can you explain to me why they would not accept a 30 point maths or chemistry course from the OU instead of maths or chemistry GCSEs or A levels? They are higher level courses so the student must have attained GCSE/A level knowledge levels in order to pass them and, of course, you do not need GCSEs or A levels to study OU courses.

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