Thursday 2 September 2010

How can we simply refuse monitoring?

A couple of days ago, somebody asked here for advice on frustrating the best efforts of her local authority to ensure that all the children within their area were receiving a suitable education. The question asked was, 'How can we simply refuse monitoring?' This is a common enough desire on the part of some home educating parents and although I have dealt with this question before, it will do no harm to run over the basics again for newcomers to home education.

The first rule is to make it quite clear to your local authority right from the start that they are dealing with a troublesome crank, rather than an ordinary parent. Sometimes just refusing to allow a local authority officer to visit your home will be enough to give this impression, but if this doesn't work then telling them 'We're autonomous!' will usually do the trick. It is as well that they know from the very beginning what sort of person they are dealing with. This is important, because you want the local authority to realise early on that you are the kind of person who will be complaining to her MP or getting the local paper involved if they hassle you too much by asking questions or trying to insist on visiting your home. Here's an old dodge which some have found useful. Why not simply quote chapter and verse of the relevant legislation when replying to an informal enquiry about your child's education? This will leave nobody in any doubt at all that you are a bloody minded, barrack-room lawyer type.

How can one get away with providing no evidence whatsoever to the local authority? This is not really as hard as it sounds. Begin by downloading an educational philosophy from ;

http://www.home-education.org.uk/ed-philos.htm


These have proved a great hit in the past. Just add your kid's name to the document and you're in business! You will end up with something along these lines;

Our approach to John's education is in the main opportunity-based,
child-led and very flexible. It is impossible to provide a timetable or to
specify in advance which activities we shall be undertaking.
We work to keep a good balance between child-led, informal learning
and a more directed approach. In general, it is our aim to facilitate
learning through John's interests rather than artificially contrived
situations to reach pre-determined outcomes. We are always vigilant for any gaps which should arise in our provision and ready, willing and able
to make the necessary adjustments to fill them.

Notice the cunning way in which you can avoid actually saying what your child is doing or learning. He could be an infant prodigy who also excels at athletics; he could equally well be blind, non-verbal, learning disabled and in a wheelchair. This is a vital gambit in your attempts to keep the local authority at bay. By keeping it completely vague in this way, you ensure that your local authority won't be able to work out what level your child should actually be working at. This is of course why it was essential to oppose vigorously the recommendation in Graham Badman's report which suggested that parents should provide a statement of educational intent for the coming year. Heavens, if once the local authority had that in their hands, they might be able to work out next year that your child hadn't learned a damned thing over the last twelve months!

Sometimes local authorities will ask for more 'evidence'. No need to panic. Why not take a photograph of your child looking at a tree or doing some baking? You can then claim that these are evidence of studying the environment in a scientific way and doing maths by measuring and calculating in a practical, life-based setting. Impossible to prove you wrong about that! The 'diary' is another popular ruse that many parents have found to pay dividends. Just get an old exercise book and write down dates. Under each date, put down some educational activities. This can be going to the library, visiting a museum, conducting experiments in the kitchen; almost anything at all really. Don't worry about being too accurate or truthful, it's not as though anybody is going to check up on all this.

Occasionally, you may get a stubborn local authority officer who is not prepared to take your word for it that your child is being educated. This can be a real pain. In such a case, try this. You should already by this stage have sent a succession of strange, oddly worded and angry letters full of long words to your local authority. (Always remember to copy these to the comments sections of Internet lists and blogs. Other home educators will get a real buzz from seeing how cleverly you have managed to portray yourself to non-home educators as somebody suffering from a massive social skills deficit combined with borderline personality disorder!) Presumably by now you will also have dazzled them with your knowledge of Section 7 of the 1996 Education Act, the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006, Education and Inspections Act 2006, Children Act 2004 and Sections 436a and 437 of the education Act 1996. You should also have demonstrated a mastery of the relevant case law. Now go in for the kill by reminding the local authority of the 2007 Guidelines for local authorities on elective home education. You can find them here;

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/publications/elective/


These contain some wonderful stuff about local authorities not being able to insist on visits and so on. This ought to get them off your case; after all, this is official government advice to them.

Any reasonably inventive parent should have no difficulty at all in refusing to be monitored by their local authority by following the simple points which I have outlined above. If you really find yourself stuck, then why not join the EO and HE-UK Internet lists? There you will find groups of like minded individuals. People just like you, who are all obsessively anxious to avoid having their children's education scrutinised by those best placed to judge its efficacy; i.e. the education department of the local authority. It has only been possible to sketch out the main points of strategy in this piece, but on the EO and HE-UK lists you will find plenty of people ready to help you with more specific advice.

37 comments:

  1. "..those best placed to judge its efficacy; i.e. the education department of the local authority.."

    What?? Why?

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  2. You must be kidding. Local Authorities employ all kinds of nutcases to do this 'work'. One, not far from us, is a staunch Christian, who believes children are only receiving a suitable education if it includes learning passages of the Bible every day.

    Another, closer to home, told our friends - whose provision is even more autonomous than ours - that they were pushing their child too hard and should back off and "give him a rest". His boss, on the contrary, is convinced that young adults can't possibly have successful careers without a clutch of good GCSE grades. (Other friends' grown up children have enjoyed proving him wrong. Not that he cares, or will listen to them.)

    We'd rather submit our children for annual standardised testing than subject them to this kind of arbitrary, slapdash system of judgement by people who don't know them and really don't care whether they're doing well or not. And that's saying something. At least we'd know for sure what sort of ideology we were being measured by, well in advance of it happening.

    I've even read you saying words to the effect of "I told her some fool from the council was coming round to make sure she was learning, but of course I'd prefer not to have to go through it at all."

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  3. Webb says-if they hassle you too much by asking questions or trying to insist on visiting your home. Here's an old dodge which some have found useful. Why not simply quote chapter and verse of the relevant legislation when replying to an informal enquiry about your child's education?

    So you dont want the Local authorthy to follow the laws on education for England? you want the Local authorthy to be able to break the laws on education for England?
    you also want parents to be hassled by a local LA staff just because they home educate?

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  4. You must be kidding. Local Authorities employ all kinds of nutcases to do this 'work'. One, not far from us, is a staunch Christian, who believes children are only receiving a suitable education if it includes learning passages of the Bible every day.

    i agree with that many LA staff hate home education and would like to ban it! we got one here who thinks you must follow what a school does for the same age as the child! and he refuses to listen hence we will NEVER let him into our house!
    what is needed is a way to be able to complain about these Officers after all they do work for us!

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  5. "..those best placed to judge its efficacy; i.e. the education department of the local authority.."


    LOL! Isn't that like asking the manager of a Fanta producation plant to pass judgement on the taste of fresh organic orange juice?

    He might have an opinion, but why would it be worth listening to?

    Mrs Anon

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  6. Simon wrote,
    "A couple of days ago, somebody asked here for advice on frustrating the best efforts of her local authority to ensure that all the children within their area were receiving a suitable education. The question asked was, 'How can we simply refuse monitoring?' ...
    People just like you, who are all obsessively anxious to avoid having their children's education scrutinised by those best placed to judge its efficacy;"

    Just for the record, in case someone should actually think that question was asked in earnest, it wasn't and I have no intention of refusing contact or visits from our LA (yes, I know I don't have to have them but I find them easier). I asked because I don't believe that the current law, if correctly applied by Local Authorities, allows people to 'simply refuse monitoring'.

    If the LA issue a SAO and the case goes to court I would have to provide evidence such as would convince ‘a reasonable person’, ‘on the balance of probabilities’ that I am providing a suitable education to my children. Therefore, it is recommended that we provide this level of evidence to the LA when they make their informal enquiries. This has been the standard advice for many, many years amongst home educators.

    A simple statement of philosophy is your first suggestion, but this has never been the advice given. The advice is to include a philosophy along with all your other evidence because case law has stated that an education is efficient if it achieves what it sets out to achieve. Without the philosophy it would be impossible for anyone to judge efficiency, parents included. Along with the philosophy, home educators are advised to offer evidence by providing things like, examples of work, photographs, diaries, third party testimonials, meeting with the LA either at home or elsewhere, etc.

    I'm not sure why you dismiss the diary suggestion so lightly. In our case it was quite detailed with information about conversations that led to new knowledge and understandings, for instance. It helped focus the discussion when we had our home visit and enabled to LA visitor to tick the right boxes on her chart.

    Simon's description of someone avoiding giving sufficient evidence (if it's accurate) can hardly be used as evidence that LAs need more powers. It is evidence that Local Authorities do not understand current law or know how to apply it correctly. Why does he think more powers will help? The same people will make the same mistakes. What they need is training and smaller case loads.

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  7. "it wasn't and I have no intention of refusing contact or visits from our LA (yes, I know I don't have to have them but I find them easier)."

    Visits, that is, not contact.

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  8. Simon, are you really of the opinion that someone from the local authority was "best placed to judge the efficacy" of *your* daughter's education? Of course you don't. But we're not talking about you, are we?

    As usual, peeking from behind Simon's words is the assumption that many home educators are lesser beings than him who could do with a good 'looking at' to make sure they're 'doing it properly'.

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  9. "These have proved a great hit in the past. Just add your kid's name to the document and you're in business! You will end up with something along these lines;"

    Which of course goes against the advice on the page Simon linked to where it says:

    Below are examples of educational philosophies that some families have found useful in the past. They are not intended to be copied wholesale but rather to form a basis for your own philosophy of education and resource list.

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  10. Simon wrote,
    "These have proved a great hit in the past. Just add your kid's name to the document and you're in business! You will end up with something along these lines;"

    Where did this example of a philosophy come from, Simon? It's nothing like the examples given on the link you gave. The examples (not templates) given there are much more detailed and informative. They are too long to copy to this comment box, but just for comparisons sake, the word count of the autonomous education example is 1396 compared you your version which contains only 95.

    Presumably it was your attempt at parody for humorous effect, but you can't then use this severely truncated mockery of a philosophy in order to criticize normal home educator philosophies.

    EO does mention that a philosophy could be as short as a couple of paragraphs on their web site, but they also say:

    You are likely to go into greater length with your report giving examples of how it works in practice and what sort of resources you are using.

    Generally the philosophy is just part of the evidence, not all of the evidence, provided to the LA. It may be long, short or not even included in the evidence.

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  11. 'Just for the record, in case someone should actually think that question was asked in earnest,'

    Gosh, I'm sorry if you thought that this was serious advice; I never dreamed for a moment that anybody would fail to realise that I was actually writing tongue in cheek! The fault is mine. I would be absolutely horrified to think that anybody would do any of the things which I described in this piece. It was only meant as a bit of fun. Do you think I should post a few words at the beginning to warn people that this is not genuine advice and that readers should under no circumstances attempt any of these activities at home? You've got me worried now. I would hate anybody to think that I was advocating the sort of ludicrous and irresponsible actions which I was spoofing here.

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  12. 'Simon, are you really of the opinion that someone from the local authority was "best placed to judge the efficacy" of *your* daughter's education?'

    Well yes, or I would not have allowed them to visit once a year. They needed my cooperation to get a fuller picture of the education being provided, but I think that if I had just left them alone with my daughter for an hour, they would have been able to reach the same conclusion. They were former teachers you see, and pretty familiar with the sort of knowledge and skills that the average child might be expected to possess at various ages. They obviously were also aware that the age at which various stages are reached developmentally was also subject to a good deal of leeway. I think that former teachers are the best people for this job. An educatinal psychologist might do better under some circumstances, but a teacher with years of experience would be in general be better.

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  13. 'Presumably it was your attempt at parody for humorous effect,'

    Why yes, how astute of you!

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  14. 'Where did this example of a philosophy come from, Simon? It's nothing like the examples given on the link you gave.'

    Well this is from Mike Fortune-Wood's site, whic I gave a link to above:


    'As our approach to M.'s education is largely opportunity based, child centred and flexible, it is not possible to submit a timetable, or to specify in advance the activities we will be undertaking.
    We strive to keep a balance between child centred and directed learning. On the whole we aim to facilitate learning through M's interests rather than to contrive situations in order to reach pre-determined outcomes. However we are always on the look out for any gap that may arise and we make the necessary adjustments to ensure that such gaps are filled.'

    And this is what I wrote above;


    'Our approach to John's education is in the main opportunity-based,
    child-led and very flexible. It is impossible to provide a timetable or to
    specify in advance which activities we shall be undertaking.
    We work to keep a good balance between child-led, informal learning
    and a more directed approach. In general, it is our aim to facilitate
    learning through John's interests rather than artificially contrived
    situations to reach pre-determined outcomes. We are always vigilant for any gaps which should arise in our provision and ready, willing and able
    to make the necessary adjustments to fill them.
    '

    Looks pretty similar to me! If what I wrote was a humorous parody, then so was Mike Fortune-Wood's.

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  15. "They were former teachers you see, and pretty familiar with the sort of knowledge and skills that the average child might be expected to possess at various ages. They obviously were also aware that the age at which various stages are reached developmentally was also subject to a good deal of leeway."

    - which is why the state school system is so fantastically effective, obviously.

    More sarcasm there, by the way.

    Also, where is this 'average child'? I'd like to meet him. Seems like a whole swathe of decisions are based on his individual traits and yet one doesn't see him around much.

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  16. "Looks pretty similar to me! If what I wrote was a humorous parody, then so was Mike Fortune-Wood's."

    But a significant part of your point is how little you have to write, then you quote a small part of a much larger document without mentioning that it is a partial quote. That is dishonest.

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  17. "Well yes, or I would not have allowed them to visit once a year."

    So, how many visits did you receive altogether?

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  18. "The fault is mine. I would be absolutely horrified to think that anybody would do any of the things which I described in this piece. It was only meant as a bit of fun. Do you think I should post a few words at the beginning to warn people that this is not genuine advice and that readers should under no circumstances attempt any of these activities at home?"

    What is the point of the article then? You are poking fun at something that doesn't happen. You are making up a problem and then discussing it. I know you are having problems filling your blog and maybe feel you cannot re-use your old articles again so soon, but this smacks of desperation.

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  19. "Well yes, or I would not have allowed them to visit once a year."

    If you are happy to have home visits and think they are necessary, why didn't you register with the LA when you began home educating?

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  20. Anonymous wrote,
    "If you are happy to have home visits and think they are necessary, why didn't you register with the LA when you began home educating?"

    Yes, according to your own words, this unwillingness to make yourself known to the Local Authority, this perceived secrecy, is something which seems like a bit of a warning flag. Maybe, when they stumbled across you by accident, they should have been concerned that you had kept your home education so secret up till then and involved SS just in case?

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  21. 'But a significant part of your point is how little you have to write, then you quote a small part of a much larger document without mentioning that it is a partial quote. That is dishonest.'

    Don't be absurd. I simply took a paragraph of the original document and altered a few words. It would take five or ten minutes to do the whole thing. It certainly does sound like a 'humorous parody'. Pity the poor local authority officers who have to read dozens of these thinly disguised versions of Mike Fortune-Wood's productions!

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  22. 'So, how many visits did you receive altogether?'

    Ten between 20010 and 2009

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  23. 'If you are happy to have home visits and think they are necessary, why didn't you register with the LA when you began home educating? '

    One of those which I simply did not get round to.

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  24. 'that you had kept your home education so secret up till then and involved SS just in case?'

    Hardly that! Haringey knew about us but as we have seen in recent years is not really on the ball with these things. They certainly did not show any signs of wanting to visit. We were home educating our other daughter on a flexi-time basis and so our family were a bit of a thorn in their sides since this was a unilateral arrangement which we had set up without Hringey's say-so. Essex County Council too was aware of our existence, but was not anxious to take on any new home educators. It was only when the truancy patrol notified them officially that they felt obliged to stick us on their books.

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  25. 'What is the point of the article then? You are poking fun at something that doesn't happen.'

    Curious. The Dark Lord spoof blog of Badman's life was crammed with incidents relating to home education which never happened. It was nevertheless very popular with home educators. When I write something from a slightly different perspective of, 'something that doesn't happen', it 'smacks of desperation'. How does that work? Both are simply light hearted spoofs about different aspects of home education. what is it that makes the one vastly popular and amusing, but the other annoying?

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  26. Simon paraphrased part of an example educational philosophy from Mike Fortune-Wood's site, and then said:

    "Notice the cunning way in which you can avoid actually saying what your child is doing or learning."

    When challenged on this very selective quoting, Simon replied:

    "Don't be absurd. I simply took a paragraph of the original document and altered a few words. It would take five or ten minutes to do the whole thing."

    But if you go and read the whole thing, you see that the original author did not avoid describing the learning her/his child was doing at all! For example (and again, this is only part of the whole document), they wrote:

    "Similarly we recently had a project of "growing things", where M saw how plants and animals grow and develop. Some of the activities we included were growing cress on a plate in the shape of her initials, these were later eaten in a salad. Sprouting mung beans which were then included in a meal made to celebrate Chinese New Year which we ate with chopsticks. Wearing Chinese clothes, this led on to drawing dragons, making dragon masks, learning how to say Happy New year in Chinese and making lucky red envelopes for the traditional Chinese new year gift of money, which the children then took to a local school fair to spend.

    We grew potatoes in a bucket, then harvested them and made some into oven crisps and did potato prints with the rest. We watched carrot tops grow and made them into a jungle plate garden. A primula was chosen from a local garden centre and brought home to feature in a still life drawing. M made a cress head by decorating a yoghurt pot with a face and growing cress in it for hair. M has her own patch in the garden where she chose to plant some flower seeds and tended them until they bloomed. We regularly visit local farms and animal centres. We were lucky enough to watch a chicken hatching out of an egg, which fitted in very well with our theme."

    These examples are useful in that they show the overall style and content of the kind of document that has been seen as sufficient by local authorities in the past. Nobody intends them to be copied word for word - that would be foolish and counterproductive. Nobody on local or national lists advises new home educators to do this.

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  27. "Curious. The Dark Lord spoof blog of Badman's life was crammed with incidents relating to home education which never happened. It was nevertheless very popular with home educators. When I write something from a slightly different perspective of, 'something that doesn't happen', it 'smacks of desperation'."

    But it was obvious that was a spoof. In this article you just spout out your usual biased opinion about autonomous education and selectively quote from other peoples web sites without making it clear when the quote is partial. How are we supposed to tell that this particular article is a spoof when it looks so like your other articles?

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  28. "It certainly does sound like a 'humorous parody'. Pity the poor local authority officers who have to read dozens of these thinly disguised versions of Mike Fortune-Wood's productions!"

    It only sounds like a humorous parody if you quote only a small part of the whole document and suggested that this is the only evidence a home educator would send, both of which are wrong. Mike F-W also specifically says not to copy and paste the examples on his web site but just to use them as a springboard to develop your own, individual philosophy.

    You seem to need to look very hard and then twist what you do find out of all recognition in order to criticize home educators. Why try so hard? What's in it for you?

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  29. Webb do you want the Local Authorthy to follow the law on home education yes or no will do?

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  30. Simon said,
    "'If you are happy to have home visits and think they are necessary, why didn't you register with the LA when you began home educating? '

    One of those which I simply did not get round to."

    You've mentioned before that you didn't want to be, "bothered by the council with forms, visits and so on", (http://homeeducationheretic.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-do-home-educating-parents-really.html). So you "certainly did not volunteer to register myself with the local authority". Sounds more as though you decided not to register rather than just didn't get around to it.

    Not a very responsible attitude if you think visits and monitoring are necessary and important.

    But then, as Allie suggests above, you think yourself above this as you say later:

    "So although I for one felt that I need not have any dealings with my local authority"

    Allie's comment seems about right:

    peeking from behind Simon's words is the assumption that many home educators are lesser beings than him who could do with a good 'looking at' to make sure they're 'doing it properly'.

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  31. Allie's comment seems about right:

    peeking from behind Simon's words is the assumption that many home educators are lesser beings than him who could do with a good 'looking at' to make sure they're 'doing it properly'.

    I agree Webb belives othe home edcuators are lesser being who do not home educate in the right way the webb way!

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  32. 'How are we supposed to tell that this particular article is a spoof '

    I think that bits like this should have been abot of a giveaway!

    '(Always remember to copy these to the comments sections of Internet lists and blogs. Other home educators will get a real buzz from seeing how cleverly you have managed to portray yourself to non-home educators as somebody suffering from a massive social skills deficit combined with borderline personality disorder!)'

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  33. 'I think that bits like this should have been abot of a giveaway!'

    But this is no different from the way you usually portray autonomous educators. How can we tell the difference? Or are we to assume that all your comments about AE are spoofs?

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  34. 'You've mentioned before that you didn't want to be, "bothered by the council with forms, visits and so on", (http://homeeducationheretic.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-do-home-educating-parents-really.html). So you "certainly did not volunteer to register myself with the local authority". Sounds more as though you decided not to register rather than just didn't get around to it.'

    Let's just say that in an ideal world and if I were an ideal person who always did at once those things which he knew he ought to do; then I would have got round to registering eventually. I did not have any deep-seated ideological objection, otherwise when stopped by the truancy patrol I would have told them to get lost. There is a long list of things which I know I should get round to and have yet to do. registering with my local authority was one of them.

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  35. "Let's just say that in an ideal world and if I were an ideal person who always did at once those things which he knew he ought to do; then I would have got round to registering eventually. I did not have any deep-seated ideological objection, otherwise when stopped by the truancy patrol I would have told them to get lost. There is a long list of things which I know I should get round to and have yet to do. registering with my local authority was one of them."

    Sorry Simon, but this just doesn't ring true at all.

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  36. "I did not have any deep-seated ideological objection, otherwise when stopped by the truancy patrol I would have told them to get lost."

    Who does? I think people dislike the idea of contact to varying degrees, but very few have a deep-seated idealogical objection. Maybe far right libertarians, but I don't think there are that many of those around.

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  37. its very simple really- remind the Local Authority they have no monitoring role in law and offer to provide them with an education philosophy and a description of goals- not that this is required either but 'it would be reasonable' to expect this from every family they know about. There is nothing whihc says you must provide this annually but again , it could be considered 'reasonable' to do so.
    If the LA has reason to believe you are NOT providing a suitable education ( or cribbing form an example of an Ed Phil) they can then ask for a visit to follow up.

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