Thursday 28 February 2013

More about flexi-schooling





There are any number of activities of questionable legality which may be safely undertaken; provided of course that you just get on and do them quietly, without shooting your mouth off.  The use of cannabis for relieving the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis is one of these; registering your child as a pupil at a maintained school and then not sending her every day, so that you can teach her at home for part of the week, is another. As long as you don’t make too much fuss, then neither of these things is likely to attract unfavorable attention and nobody will try and stop you doing them. Of course, if some fool starts shouting about these things in parliament and advertising conferences at which such activities are openly boasted about, then sooner or later, authority will step in and perhaps crack down on things a bit. We have seen this happen in recent days.

      As I have already said, I took my own daughter out of school for two or three days a week and taught her at home on those days. This was around twenty years ago and I was not the only person doing this at that time. The great thing about undertaking a dubious scheme of this sort is not to draw attention to what is going on. Unless that is, you actually want trouble. 

     As is now widely known, the Department for Education has  announced that the practice of flexi-schooling is probably unlawful and will not be allowed in maintained schools. The responsibility for the scuppering of arrangements of this sort may be laid fairly and squarely at the door of one person; namely, Alison Sauer. Now I have been accused of running a vendetta against Alison Sauer, but this is not really true. It is just that the woman is a bit of a nuisance and the harm that she causes home educators greatly outweighs any good she might have done. Take the present case, for instance.

     There was not a huge amount of money to be made by running the occasional training session for local authorities and explaining to them about home education. Alison Sauer decided therefore  that encouraging flexi-schooling was a more practical commercial proposition.  Her partners in this venture were not parents, but schools. The aim of the whole thing was to make money. With this end in mind, she organised a conference in the Midlands last year. Attending this one-day conference cost £150, which showed plainly that it was meant for professionals and not parents. This was the point, I think, at which alarm bells began ringing at the Department for Education. The suggestion was being openly made that schools could get full funding for pupils who were not attending every day. The scope for financial abuse of the system was pretty clear. Schools could end up claiming funding for twice as many pupils as they actually had attending each day. Obviously, this was a situation that would make the Department for Education unhappy. 

     Now as I said earlier, as long as people just get on quietly and do something, it is often the case that nobody will take much notice. So it has been with flexi-schooling over the years. When you start a business with the aim of turning this into an enterprise  on an industrial scale which will affect many schools; then people sit up and take notice, they ask what is going on. So it proved with Alison Sauer’s efforts.

     I think that most of us will remember Alison’s attempts to replace the 2007 Guidelines on Elective Home Education with a set that she wrote herself.  This of course failed. Now though, she has achieved  her aim, in that the 2007 Guidelines are being  rewritten to take into account her activities. Specifically, section 5.6 on page 17 is being changed to reflect the fact that the practice of flexi-schooling has now been declared unlawful. An announcement about this was made the day before yesterday;

http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/pupilsupport/parents/involvement/homeeducation/a0073367/elective-home-education-guidelines

It is success  of a sort, I suppose, for Alison Sauer. Her ambition was to change the 2007 Guidelines and now this is actually being done. Nice one, Alison!

      I am sorry for parents who have made arrangements of this kind for their children’s benefit. I think we may safely assume that all such arrangements will soon be coming to an end. Any time now, a circular will be sent from the DfE ‘reminding’ maintained schools that registered pupils must attend the school full-time and that it is not acceptable to allow children to be partly schooled and partly home educated. Readers adversely  affected by this should be sure that the next time they find a useful loophole of this sort, that they do their very best not to let Alison Sauer hear about it!  

26 comments:

  1. A head teacher can grant as much time off from a school as is needed for off site education.
    A circular from DfE does not change this fact

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  2. 'A head teacher can grant as much time off from a school as is needed for off site education.
    A circular from DfE does not change this fact'

    Well of course, it can. All that would be necessary would be to specify that off-site education had to take place in certain locations or under the supervision of people holding certain qualifications. It would be easy enough to frame such guidance in a way that excluded parents and ordinary homes.

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    1. It would be easy enough to frame such guidance in a way that excluded parents and ordinary homes.

      Guidance is not law and a head can just allow the off site education to take place and would have no need to inform any one.

      People do not take much notice of DfE circular and most likely just chuck them in the school bin.

      A level Physics is going well for Peter 82% in mock exam i bet your pleased to hear that Webb.
      He also on the gifted and talented program.
      I taught him GCSE level physics appears to have paid off!

      When you going to do a post on why LEA officers tell lies?

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  3. I think you'll find the 'off-site' definition has already been tightened up too. (See page 10 of the pdf but here it is.)

    Code B: Off-site educational activity
    This code should be used when pupils are present at an off-site educational activity that has been approved by the school. Ultimately schools are responsible for the safeguarding and welfare of pupils educated off-site. Therefore by using code B, schools are certifying that the education is supervised and measures have been taken to
    safeguard pupils. This code should not be used for any unsupervised educational activity or where a pupil is at home doing school work. Schools should ensure that they have in place arrangements whereby the provider of the alternative activity notifies the school of any absences by individual pupils. The school should record the pupil’s absence using the relevant absence code.

    Somehow, I can't see any school wanting to certify that HE is satisfactory and that the child is being safeguarded. After all, they don't have to certify that for their own provision, do they?

    Sorry. I'd really like to be wrong...
    Anne


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    1. yes code B This code should be used when pupils are present at an off-site educational activity that has been approved by the school.

      If its been approved by the school then it would be accepted by the school that child was safe should anything happen to this child it would be the person who the child was with at the time of harm who would be held to account!

      Delete
  4. I think you've got a point...Darn it!

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  5. Somehow, I can't see any school wanting to certify that HE is satisfactory and that the child is being safeguarded. After all, they don't have to certify that for their own provision, do they?

    Sorry. I'd really like to be wrong...'

    I don't think that you are wrong, Anne. Annoying as it is, I think that flexi-schooling will now be effectively banned in state schools. It is a great pity and we can only hope that some schools will allow the practice to continue, 'under the counter' as it were. I would not hold out too much hope for this though. If the DfE specifically warns schools not to do it, then they will be put in an impossible situation. I am pretty irritated about this business and would like to see somebody come up with a way which would allow it to carry on.

    'Ultimately schools are responsible for the safeguarding and welfare of pupils educated off-site. Therefore by using code B, schools are certifying that the education is supervised and measures have been taken to
    safeguard pupils.'

    This means that if a child being flexi-schooled has an accident at home on a school day; the school is liable. Not a great encouragement for schools to agree to allow flexi-schooling!

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    1. If the DfE specifically warns schools not to do it, then they will be put in an impossible situation.

      A warming with nothing in law to state that a head may not grant off site education for a child a paper threat like most of the nonsense that comes from the DfE


      Delete
  6. Simon said:

    "I am pretty irritated about this business and would like to see somebody come up with a way which would allow it to carry on."

    I agree wholeheartedly with you, Simon! I am one of the many families affected by this change.

    I remember reading somewhere that that a deterrent for schools was the issue of the attendance code. Code C, authorised absence, affects the attendance records and the OFSTED rating etc.

    There is not a set code for flexi-schooling that won't skew the school's attendance records. I can't remember where I read this, but now that this new attendance guidance/advice (whatever it's called) has been released, I do have to wonder if someone pointed that out to them.

    I also noticed this new statement in the Code B description: "This code should not be used for any unsupervised educational activity or where a pupil is at home doing school work."

    Schools could have used and did use code B without ruining their attendance percentages. I just find it too much of a coincidence that the one good code has been changed to stipulate that children can't be at home doing their school work and that the practice has been completely disallowed and ruled illegal.

    Things that make you go hmmm

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  7. I can't remember where I read this, but now that this new attendance guidance/advice (whatever it's called) has been released, I do have to wonder if someone pointed that out to them.

    I blame that 'Bucket' woman

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    1. "I blame that 'Bucket' woman"

      That made me spit my coffee out!

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    2. She has been known to rub shoulders with Lords and MPs and then mention it on her Facebook statuses.

      Simon, from now on to lighten the mood of the depressing posts about Alison Sauer, can you please heretofore refer to her as "That 'Bucket' woman"?

      On second thought, that might get you slapped with a lawsuit because it could be seen to be a copyright infringement because that is from "Keeping Up Appearances".

      It's too bad though, it does seem to describe her quite well...

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    3. "Simon, from now on to lighten the mood of the depressing posts about Alison Sauer, can you please heretofore refer to her as "That 'Bucket' woman"? "

      Don't you mean henceforth? Heretofore means previously.

      Delete
  8. It will be interesting to see whether there is a "compromise" prepared and ready to be rolled out following the predictable bruhaha from this. Possibly a modified form of flexischooling that will require input from experts, training, oversight and regulation...

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    1. And I am sure 'That "Bucket" woman' will be more than happy to do the training. Her silence on this matter is deafening really.

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  9. The silence is no more, she has spoken:

    Peter, Hafod and I are currently working on a briefing paper regarding the debarcle around flexischooling - will take a week or so.

    In the meantime is anyone in the constituencies of any of the shadow education ministers? Namely

    Stephen Twigg MP
    Kevin Brennan MP
    Sharon Hodgson MP
    Karen Buck MP
    Lisa Nandy MP

    or knows
    Rt Hon Baroness (Bev) Hughes
    Baroness (Maggie) Jones

    Question time and any questions. Anyone fancy going and raising a question??? We can help you word it.

    Timetable for Question Time:

    7 March - Dover
    14 March - Cardiff
    21 March - York

    For tickets http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17154440

    And for Any Questions

    1st March 2013
    St Margaret's Church/The Thornbury Centre, Bradford

    8th March 2013
    St George's Church, Brighton

    15th March 2013
    The Gaiety Theatre, Ayr

    22nd March 2013
    Whitby High School, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire

    29th March 2013
    St George's Centre, Medway, Kent

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  10. *passes bucket woman a dictionary to look up spelling of debacle*

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    1. I wish there was a "like" button on here for that one!

      Delete
  11. 'Peter, Hafod and I are currently working on a briefing paper regarding the debarcle around flexischooling - will take a week or so.'

    Peter is Peter Humphreys; Chair of the Centre for Personalised Education. Hafod is of course Wendy Charles-Warner. I have written before of the close connection which exists between Education Otherwise's official representative in Wales and Alison Sauer. I am curious to know why Wendy Charles-Warner should be working with Alison on a briefing paper about flexi-schooling. Do they have some sort of business relationship?

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    1. Simon be careful! You named she who must not be named.... (well unless it suits her to be named)

      Delete
    2. Is this Hafod the witch?

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  12. In case anyone hasn't seen it, this went up on Graham Stuart's Facebook wall yesterday -
    'The sudden change in flexi-schooling policy
    announced by the Government - without consultation or even notice -would, if left as is, cause huge disruption and upset to hundreds (if
    not thousands) of children. I have spoken to the responsible minister,Liz Truss, and hope and expect to have substantive news early next week. The overnight abolition of this long established practice cannot be justified and will, therefore, I predict, be reversed, whatever the longer term outcome may be.'

    I've also been in contact with him on a personal basis, pointing out that the new regulations about medical reasons being temporary don't include things like autism and epilepsy which are rather on the permanent side, and that particularly for high functioning autistics and epileptics where there are no learning difficulties, there ISN'T alternative provision so you will effectively be pushing more people into HE this way. I've asked if we could have a 'medical exemption' for children with this type of condition. I can but hope.

    ATB, and hope you don't mind me posting up what I've done, Simon.

    Anne

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  13. "you will effectively be pushing more people into HE this way."

    Something wrong with HE, then?

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    1. No, there's nothing at all wrong with HE but you shouldn't be doing it because you have nowhere else to go and a child who's so traumatised that the word 'learning' reduces them to tears and violent outbursts. Nor should it be seen as a convenient way for schools to get rid of expensive and difficult students.

      I'm happy to be HE now and think it's the best possible thing for our family, but it wasn't a free choice or a good way to start. My early days were, bluntly, pretty foul because I was struggling with a child who'd been messed up and a LA who were actively hostile because we'd clashed so often. It wasn't what I'd wanted, I'd had other plans for my life, I didn't have a clue what I was doing and the local groups weren't suitable for a child who was panicking at the sight of other children so I felt very lonely and afraid and inadequate.

      I wouldn't wish that year of my life on anyone. (Well, almost. I can think of one or two might benefit from it... but not if it hurt a child.)

      Anne

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    2. I suppose the problem is that we grow up seeing school and LA as the solution. It's hard to learn by direct experience that they often instead cause more problems. Sympathies.

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  14. All of the information and discussions on this site are very interesting. I am just about to apply to my daughters headmaster to allow flexischooling as I firmly believe it's in her best interest. After reading about all of the recent changes to 'marking of the register/marking a child absent' I can't see that the headteacher will agree, it won't be very favourable when OFSTED visit.... Not sure what to do next......

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