Wednesday 8 December 2010

Other reasons for professionals to badger home educating parents

I recently wrote a bout the unitary authority in Poole and their attempts to doorstep parents in order to catch sight of their home educated children. I expressed the view that no matter how annoying and intrusive such actions were, they were almost certainly motivated ultimately by concern for the children's welfare. Of course, this was a little optimistic. I tend to assume that most people have good will and good intentions. While leafing through the transcript of the select committee hearing on Graham Badman's review of elective home education and the Children, Schools and Families Bill; I came across this gem. Peter Traves of the Association of Directors of Children's Services is speaking about the reasons for anxiety among some education professionals around home education. He said:

'If something happens to a child in terms of any of those five outcomes,
we are held directly to account. This is not some kind of button
counting. We have seen recently what happens to directors of children's
services when things go seriously wrong. It is not only a case of sacking;
it is public humiliation. It is a very serious matter.'

This was presumably a reference to the treatment of Sharon Shoesmith, former Director of Children's Services for the London Borough of Haringey. Ms Shoesmith was peremptorily sacked following the case of Baby P, the little boy killed in the appalling circumstances. Of course, a toddler having his back broken by sadistic maniacs is also a 'very serious matter', although not apparently in the same league as the public humiliation and loss of pension of a Director of Children's Services. In short, Traves is expressing here a fear that some professionals will lose their jobs if a home educated child comes to harm. This is very revealing.

There is also a nagging fear at the back of the minds of some local authorities that an adult who was home educated will pursue a legal claim against them in later life on the grounds that the education which he received from his parents was inadequate. If the local authority were supposed to be monitoring the education, it is not inconceivable that they could be held liable.

Both these things could provide reasons for lcoal authority officers to make a nuisance of themselves, quite apart from the more obvious motive of the welfare of the children involved.

19 comments:

  1. Simon said <>

    The Local Authorities are not supposed to be monitoring the education. They should read the statutory Guidance (Children Missing Education 2009) and the current EHE 2007 guideliens)

    Both these documents below make that clear.


    Children Missing Education 2009-
    87. Section 436A of the Education Act 1996 requires local authorities to make arrangements to establish (so far as it is possible to do so) the identities of children who are not pupils at schools and who are not otherwise receiving suitable education. In order to comply with this duty local authorities need to make arrangements which will as far as possible enable them to determine whether any children who are not pupils at schools, such as those being educated at home, are receiving suitable education. In order to do this local authorities should make inquiries with parents educating children at home about the educational provision being made for them. The procedures to be followed with respect to such investigations are set out in the EHE Guidelines, 2.7-2.11 and 3.4-3.6.

    91. Local authorities should keep a record of children who are known to be educated at home by parents. Parents are not, however, required to inform the local authority if they decide to home educate a child who has not previously attended school.

    92. In order to discharge their duties in relation to children not receiving an education, local authorities should make inquiries with parents about whether their home educated children are receiving a suitable education. The Elective Home Education Guidelines for Local Authorities make clear that parents who home educate may take a number of equally valid approaches to educational provision for their children.

    EHE guidelines 2007-
    2.7 Local authorities have no statutory duties in relation to monitoring the quality of home
    education on a routine basis.

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  2. Simon wrote,
    "I tend to assume that most people have good will and good intentions. "

    LOL, good one, Simon!

    Simon wrote,
    "There is also a nagging fear at the back of the minds of some local authorities that an adult who was home educated will pursue a legal claim against them in later life on the grounds that the education which he received from his parents was inadequate. If the local authority were supposed to be monitoring the education, it is not inconceivable that they could be held liable."

    This just shows how little they understand the law, doesn't it? The parent is responsible for providing the child's education and the LA is not required in law to monitor HE (as anonymous demonstrates so clearly above) so how could the be held responsible for not doing it? Attempts to sue by ex-school children, whose parents delegated complete responsibility for the provision of education to the LA, have failed because it is ultimately the parent's responsibility. How can they think it's possible they would be held to account when they haven't even had the task delegated to them?

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  3. Webb you are stupid and continue to invent nonsense.

    If LA's had any liability for failing with education provision then they would have thirty million cases against them from half of the population for the failure of schools - You just try to give credence to the LA's despicable conduct ion order to boost sales of your trashy ranting book which by the way is far from ever being classified as an academic work which you delude yourself about.

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  4. "way is far from ever being classified as an academic work"

    Well said the person (lady I think).

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  5. >Webb you are stupid

    Nice to see some truth telling on this 'bog' for once :)

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  6. >> Other reasons for professionals to badger home educating parents

    There is no excuse for anyone to Badger HE families - the truth is that they open up a liability for so doing under several aspects of human rights legislation. At least there is one group preparing to seek a high court case against an LA for this conduct - which you foster more of. You are not turning out to the be the friend of LA's in the way that you would like - just to get personal gain from your utterly stupid book

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  7. 'utterly stupid book'

    brilliant

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  8. Anonymous said...

    >Webb you are stupid

    >Nice to see some truth telling on this 'bog' for once :)

    HAHAHAHALLELUIAH!

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  9. 'This just shows how little they understand the law, doesn't it? The parent is responsible for providing the child's education and the LA is not required in law to monitor HE (as anonymous demonstrates so clearly above) so how could the be held responsible for not doing it?'

    Very easily. If the child was not recieving a suitable education and the local authority was aware of this and did nothing.

    'Webb you are stupid and continue to invent nonsense.'

    Possibly. On the other hand, I could just be pointing out the concerns which prompt certain actions from local authorities.

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  10. 'Anonymous said...
    'utterly stupid book'

    brilliant'

    Is the person saying brilliant attempting to contradict the one who feels that the book is utterly stupid, or is he praising the comment as being brilliant. A little ambiguous.

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  11. 'utterly stupid book'

    'trashy ranting book '

    Are we to assume from these comments that these individuals have actually read the book? If so, perhaps they would like to offer some sort of critique.

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  12. I confess myself surprised that this post has attracted such venom. I would have thought that many home educating parents would have agreed that Peter Traves showed a most appallingly cynical attitude here. Apparently not!

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  13. "I would have thought that many home educating parents would have agreed that Peter Traves showed a most appallingly cynical attitude here. Apparently not!"

    Of course we agree, but it's not new information. We know they want to cover their backs, we've been saying this for years. How have you missed it till now?

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  14. I wrote,
    "But even if they do nothing it's doubtful that the child could successfully sue. Take a look at this report, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/516092.stm"

    Correcting myself, it looks as though it may be possible for dyslexics to sue - will research further - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/852919.stm

    Still don't think that this would apply to not monitoring HE for the reasons mentioned above. If the LA knows an education is not being provided and does nothing, it may make a difference but the child would have to prove harm. However, as LAs are not currently required to know about all home educators, they cannot be sued for not knowing about them.

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  15. Interesting report on this page, http://www.teachingexpertise.com/articles/how-to-approach-failure-to-educate-claims-3081

    The claims of these ex-pupils failed partly because the judge decided that the pupil's own lack of motivation meant that, even if their disability had been fully recognised and appropriate help given, they would have done no better - he classed it as contributory negligence. Great get out clause for most claims I'd guess. How does the pupil prove that they lacked motivation because they were not given appropriate help?

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  16. The same page also states:

    "Compensation claims alleging negligence by education professionals in schools and local authorities are less common these days. And where cases do come to trial, there are usually positive outcomes for the school or local authority, as two recent decisions show."

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  17. continued comment...

    However, that's a different situation to the one you initially describe. You said that it would not be inconceivable that someone might take legal action if the local authority were supposed to be monitoring the education but didn't. As they are not legally required to monitor and, under current law cannot even reasonably be expected to know about all home educators, they could not be sued.

    If anything, they open themselves to being sued by taking greater powers, especially if those powers include the right to remove parental control of education (as Schedule 1 did when it listed grounds for refusing or revoking HE registration). I suspect a child would have more right to sue if an LA takes out an Education Supervision Order in their name. The Schedule 1 power to refuse registration seems like a move in that direction to me.

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  18. It is perfectly conceivable that is a child were not receiving an eduation and the local authority knew about this and did nothing, then in later life this child might find a lawyer prepared to take on the case pro bono and try to sue the council. This is a fear among at least four local authorites of which I know. It may be ill founded, but they are nevertheless uneasy about it.

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  19. Simon wrote,
    "It is perfectly conceivable that is a child were not receiving an eduation and the local authority knew about this and did nothing, then in later life this child might find a lawyer prepared to take on the case pro bono and try to sue the council."

    I have attempted to answer this several times but Blogger keeps deleting it! I'll try again.

    It's possible this could happen but, in this case, the LA can and should take action. If they know a suitable education is not being provided they obviously don't need extra powers to monitor so this doesn't support the argument for greater monitoring powers. Even if the LA do nothing it's doubtful that the child could successfully sue. Very few 'failure to educate' claims against LAs are successful even when the parent has delegated their child's education to the LA. The person would have to demonstrate harm as a result of the LAs inaction and also that the child's lack of motivation did not contribute to or cause the problem.

    However, this is a different situation to the one you initially describe. You said that it would not be inconceivable that someone might take legal action if the local authority were supposed to be monitoring the education but didn't. As they are not legally required to monitor and, under current law cannot even reasonably be expected to know about all home educators, they could not be sued. As mentioned above, if they are given the duty to monitor, they are much more likely to be held to account if they don't.

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