I mentioned in passing yesterday that 99.9% of people sent their children to school. Upon which, predictably enough, somebody challenged me to 'do the maths'. Actually, the real figure is probably even less than this. The most thorough study attempting to discover the prevalence of home education in this country was the survey carried out in nine local authority areas by York Consulting. This took place in 2006 and was called; The Prevalence of Home Education in England: A Feasibility Study. In the nine local authority areas at which they looked, Hopwood et al found that the percentage of home educated children know to the authority varied between 0.09 and 0.42. this is less than half the 0.1 which I suggested yesterday. Even these figures may be inflated. When Ofsted conducted a study in fifteen local authority areas, they discovered that the numbers of electively home educated children fluctuated wildly throughout the year. In one authority, there were six hundred and thirty in September, but this had dropped to four hundred and thirty or so by June. People begin in September, full of enthusiasm and then a third of them have given up by Christmas!
York Consulting were criticised for choosing local authority areas with a high proportion of Gypsy/Roma/Traveller families and this too could have artificially inflated the numbers, as compared with the other hundred and forty or so local authorities at which they did not look. Even if you assume that the numbers of home educated children are roughly double that of those actually known to the local authorities, this would still only give a maximum figure of 0.84% of children aged between five and sixteen, well below the 0.1 which I claimed yesterday.
I notice that in his revamped website, Mike Fortune-Wood is suggesting that there might be eighty thousand children being educated at home. I am curious to know upon what he bases this figure. He seems to have taken the number of children known to local authorities at the beginning of the year, rounded it up and then quadrupled it! I would be interested to know his rationale for this method of calculation. One might as well simply multiply by the date and add the change in your pocket in order to obtain a figure!
<< and this too could have artificially inflated the numbers >>
ReplyDeleteor deflated them depending on when York did their study. I would like to know how many and which LAs york used, and how they extrapolated to 16 thousand.
When all the LAs were asked by FOI last year , the numbers given mostly pre-September and the total was almost 16 thousand .
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ao_d0FTV62i4dHR3aDZLV1YzZXhYWE5PbHNJd0hJT0E&hl=en#gid=2
This figure was missing some LAs responses- Wolverhampton
Somerset (about 250)
Rochdale (about 50)
Nottinghamshire (about 350)
Enfield (about 70)
East Sussex (about 350)
Devon (about 500)
Derbyshire (283)
Cornwall (306)
'When all the LAs were asked by FOI last year , the numbers given mostly pre-September and the total was almost 16 thousand'
ReplyDeleteThis is perfectly correct. It means, as I say, that Mike Fortune-Wood has, for reasons known only to himself, multiplied the numbers fivefold in order to arrive at his total of eighty thousand.
You say that, ' the numbers given mostly pre-September', but this is essentially meaningless. There is no standard time of year for local authorities to count the number of home educated children. One might do so in October, another in May. Until we can adjust for this, even the figure of sixteen thousand must remain dubious.
If you read Mike's book :) he says that we consistently get a third to a half of EHE parents saying that their family are unknown to the LA. Therefore doubling or tripling the known figure seems reasonable.
ReplyDeleteOf course, any such numbers are unverifiable as children can come in and out of achool at any point. And children like mine who did not get registered at five are generally not known. In fact my 16yo DS is "not known" despite my talking to the LA and his sister being "known" after trying school for a term at 9yo.
'Therefore doubling or tripling the known figure seems reasonable.'
ReplyDeleteI think that this is reasonable, Shena. We were theoretically unknown for some years. Doubling sixteen thousand would give us a figure of thirty two thousand. Tripling it would give forty eight thousand. I have to say that many local authorities do not believe that this is a reliable method. It is increasingly hard to avoid coming to the attention of local authorities. I was simply curious to see Mike Fortune-Wood's claim on the revamped Home Education UK website that;
'from my research there are now (2010) estimated to be perhaps 80,000 home educated children in the UK'
He gives no details of his research and I was just wondering if anybody knows what form it took?
"found that the percentage of home educated children know to the authority varied between 0.09 and 0.42. this is less than half the 0.1 which I suggested yesterday. "
ReplyDeleteYou need to look at your maths again. 0.09 is not less than half of 0.1, half of 0.1 is 0.05. The York suggested range begins just below your suggested figure (100th of a percent less) and extends up to 4 times over your suggested figure, so between 99.91% and 99.58% of people in the UK send their children to school.
Given that the school age population of England and Wales for 2009 was estimated at 7,526,300, that gives us an estimated range of between 6,774 and 31,610 known home educators. The more recent Badman review gives the DFES estimate of 20,000 known home educators which at 0.27% is right in the middle of the York study range suggesting that it may well be about right.
Doubling 20,000 gives us 40,000 and tripling it gives us 60,000.
Simon wrote,
ReplyDelete"He [Mike FW] gives no details of his research and I was just wondering if anybody knows what form it took?"
Two books, 'The Face of Home-based Education: Who Why and How', and 'The Face of Home-based Education: Numbers, Support, Special Needs', they are both on Amazon and detailed on Mike's web site. I thought you reviewed HE research as part of your book. How did you miss these?
Simon wrote,
ReplyDelete"this would still only give a maximum figure of 0.84% of children aged between five and sixteen, well below the 0.1 which I claimed yesterday."
Isn't 0.84 over 8 times greater than 0.1? I'm beginning to doubt my own maths now.
Dear me, I can't have been firing on all cylinders this morning and no mistake! If we take the figure os 16,000 home educated children known to local authorities and then assume that a similar number are unknown, then we have a total of about 32,000 children. This would be about 0.4% of the total number of children of school age in this country. So when I said that 99.9% of children went to school, it would have been more accurate had I said 99.6%. I am happy to make this clear.
ReplyDeleteWhere are you taking the 16,000 figure from? Tania mentioned this figure but not all LAs responded to the FOI. Once estimates for the missing authorities are added, the total known home educated children is about 18,900, so again, quite close to the DFES's own estimate of 20,000. Either way it's unlikely that the number of known home educated children is as low as 16,000. In my experience of groups at least half are unknown and it's usually closer to two-thirds (including a religious group). Three times 19,000 gives us 57000 or 0.76% of school age population.
ReplyDeleteSimon seems to pick the figure that suits his current argument best. For his article in the Independent he was happy to go with 80,000 home educated children:
ReplyDelete"According to the recent review of home education conducted by Graham Badman, there may be as many as 80,000 home-educated children in Britain. Under current arrangements, nobody has the slightest idea what sort of education, if any, many of these children are receiving."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/simon-webb-we-must-get-tough-on-home-schooling-1764348.html
'According to the recent review of home education conducted by Graham Badman, there may be as many as 80,000 home-educated children in Britain.'
ReplyDeleteOf course there may be as many as eighty thousand. There may also be as few as twelve thousand. Nobody knows; we are all relying upon various pieces of gueswork. I said 'according to the recent review of home education conducted by Graham Badman'. He uses this figure. I was quoting what he said and I not saying that it was necessarily correct. That's why I said, 'may be'.
But you picked the highest number from the range Badman suggested rather than quoting the range because a higher number of unknown children is more alarming making it more suitable for your alarmist article than the 40,000-80,000 range.
ReplyDeleteOver the last couple of days you wanted to put across the idea that there are very few home educators because this suits your current point, so you have chosen the lowest possible figure you could find despite being told that it does not include figures from all LAs. It's something that most people do when pushing one side of an argument, I was just pointing out that you had done this - it's something you seem to do it more often than most.
I hope you have been less selective and partial in your 'academic' book - though if you managed to miss a couple of research books in a book that is supposed largely to be a summary of research doesn't sound promising.
'I hope you have been less selective and partial in your 'academic' book - though if you managed to miss a couple of research books in a book that is supposed largely to be a summary of research doesn't sound promising.'
ReplyDeleteRead it and find out for yourself! One has to be selective in the sources and as far as the actual numbers of home educated children in the country are concerned, I limited myself to citing properly conducted research.
Shame you don't appear to know about all the properly conducted research that has been carried out and published.
ReplyDelete'Shame you don't appear to know about all the properly conducted research that has been carried out and published.'
ReplyDeleteRead the book. I quote Mike Fortune-wood's book, The face of home based Education, when discussing the numbers of home educated children. It is cited in the references. Since you have obviously not read my own book, it is hard to know how you feel able to make any comment upon it.
"I quote Mike Fortune-wood's book, The face of home based Education, when discussing the numbers of home educated children."
ReplyDeleteSo doesn't he give details of how he reached his estimate in the book? It was you comment above,
"I notice that in his revamped website, Mike Fortune-Wood is suggesting that there might be eighty thousand children being educated at home. I am curious to know upon what he bases this figure."
that made me wonder if you had read his two books (not 'book').
"Since you have obviously not read my own book, it is hard to know how you feel able to make any comment upon it."
I wasn't commenting on your book, my comment was in response to comments in this blog article and impression that you hadn't read Mike's books about his research. Glad you've managed to read at least one of them. Which one was it?
You say of your book,
"One has to be selective in the sources"
One wonders how you can afford to be selective with sources when you have remarked repeatedly on the dearth of research into home education in the UK. How can you afford to be selective when there is so little to choose from?
'you have remarked repeatedly on the dearth of research into home education in the UK. '
ReplyDeleteThe dearth is of properly conducted research reported in peer reviewed journals and academic publications. Mike Fortune-Wood's research does not fall into this category, but for want of better material, I included it.
'Glad you've managed to read at least one of them. Which one was it?'
ReplyDeleteI did not say that I had read one of them. I said I quoted from his book and gave the title. If I say that I have quoted from Charle's Dickens' book, Oliver Twist, the implication is not that I believe that Dickens only wrote one book or that I have only read one of his books. The clear meaning is that I am writing of that one at the moment.
Mike Fortune Wood has an intellect, talent, knowledge, real experience of Home Educators and resources that you will never have.
ReplyDeleteKnowledgeable people would certainly support the figure 80,000 Home Educated children. Whilst you claim to have been selective in the sources used for your book, this hides the truth that you are unaware of many and barred from access to even more resources.
Whilst it may suit your strange mind to marginalise the perception of how many people home educate , a very recent survey (denied to you) probed how many people were actively involved in contributing to Home Educated children The statistical average was twenty. So, based upon a core of 80,000 children the total number of people involved would be 800,000. Not small enough to be extinguished by your Ballsian government cronies and certainly not small enough to be marginalised by your anachronistic book.
Sorry should have read
ReplyDeleteso based upon a core of even half that number it would be 800.000
not always easy sending from mobile phone on a train!
"I did not say that I had read one of them. I said I quoted from his book and gave the title."
ReplyDeleteBut there are two books whose titles begin with the part title you gave. That's why I asked which one you'd read. I'll try again, which of the two books whose part title is "The face of home based Education", did you read/quote from? I also asked how Mike reached his estimate of HE numbers according to his book. You seemed not to know despite having read the book. Or maybe you read the wrong one?
"The dearth is of properly conducted research reported in peer reviewed journals and academic publications."
ReplyDeleteHow do you define 'academic publications'? How would I know if a book I'm looking at is in this privileged position?
'not always easy sending from mobile phone on a train!'
ReplyDeleteI am immensely flattered that you are so addicted to my blog that you are unable to wait until you get home in order to see what I have been saying. It is heartening to know that I have such avid followers!
' How would I know if a book I'm looking at is in this privileged position?'
ReplyDeleteIt's not really a privileged position. You might start by seeing whether it has been properly referenced; that is to say when the author asserts something as a fact, he gives a reference which you can check. This is done in several ways. There might be a small superscript number or a name and year in brackets. At the end of the chapter, foot of the page or in a list of references at the end of the book, you will be able to see why the author thinks that such and such a thing is so. It is good to check a few of these references for accuracy and to see if he is quoting reputable journals and books. Using a system of this sort means that you can be sure that the author is not just giving you his own opinions. In my own book, for example, I followed the Harvard referencing system. What system of referencing do you suppose Mike Fortune-Wood followed in the two books which have been recommended here?
But referencing if used when you are talking about other people's research or work. Mike's books were about his research, so it wouldn't be referenced in this way, would it? They are in the Institute of Education library. Does this count for anything?
ReplyDelete"Read the book."
ReplyDeleteNot at our library so I doubt I will. I have better things to spend my money on.
P.S.
ReplyDeleteWhich of the two books whose part title is "The face of home based Education", did you read/quote from?
I also asked how Mike reached his estimate of HE numbers according to his book. You must know this if you quoted it in your book.
'Mike's books were about his research, so it wouldn't be referenced in this way, would it? They are in the Institute of Education library. Does this count for anything?'
ReplyDeleteOooh, this is a tricky one! Can anybody think of a visiting fellow at the University of London, where the Institute of education library is? Somebody who might have suggested that they acquire copies of Mike Fortune-Wood's books? Australian? Name of Alan Thomas ring any bells?
LOL! I would think Alan Thomas would have better things to do that advise the librarian on what books to buy! Would Alan Thomas also work at Birmingham University, because their library also has it, though sadly not yours (you'll be glad to hear that the Institute does have yours). Or what about Oxford University, Cardiff University, or Trinity College Dublin? Does Alan Thomas advise all of their librarians too?
ReplyDeleteBTW, Mike's book also appears in academic search engines and was reviewed in the TES. Does it qualify as an academic book now?
ReplyDeleteYour book doesn't yet, but I suppose it's early days for yours.