What will a change in the law mean for home educators?

The short answer to the above question is that nobody knows. In the first place, we have no idea what the regulations will look like by the time they have been subjected to various amendments as the Bill passes through both houses. Either house might change the wording, leave out different passages and so on. Once this is done and if it receives Royal Assent, then it will become law. This is where the real excitement begins. Because however clear the provisions of the act are, the courts will end up being called to rule upon it. Does it conflict with any existing laws? Is it in conflict with European law? Human Rights? Is there a deep principle at stake?

We have to bear in mind that although we all believe that the words of the 1944 Education Act that talked of "Either by regular attendance or otherwise" were actually the foundation of our right to home educate, for years these same words were taken by local education authorities as meaning precisely the opposite; in other words that they meant that parents could not teach their own children at home. It was not until people like Joy Baker challenged the Act in the courts that this interpretation by local authorities was ruled to be wrong. Exactly the same thing will happen with any new law. Some local authority will look at specific phrases and say, "Well that's quite clear". A parent will interpret the words in a different way and the case will end up in court and then a magistrate will have to decide on the matter. Often such cases end up at the Crown Court or higher and the final ruling can be quite unexpected.

It is next door to impossible, just by looking at the original words of an act to guess how they will be interpreted in the courts. As I say, today we look at those few words from the 1944 Act and they seem so obviously to give us the right to teach our children at home. Yet for years, those same words were thought to make home education illegal! There is a long way to go yet before we need to get anxious and worked up about this.