A new conspiracy theory

The world of British home education is often swept by conspiracy theories, in which the simple and obvious explanations for things are thought to conceal deeper and more sinister motives. I have written of such ideas on here several times. I quite often receive emails from home educators which offer me information or advice; much of it about my personal character and disposition. A number of readers have contacted me, for example, to point out that I am a complete fuckwit. This assessment of my mental abilities, although doubtless meant kindly, is superfluous; my family already remind me regularly of this aspect of my personality. I am nevertheless grateful for all such feedback. On other occasions, people contact me to draw my attention to things that they think I should know about and mention in my blog. Recently, I have had three emails, all suggesting the same thing. Two were from fairly well known names on the home educating scene and so I thought that I would set out the theory they propound and see what others make of it.

I have written before about the strange business of the new guidelines which were being prepared and which were apparently intended to replace the existing 2007 guidelines to local authorities on dealing with home education. Alison Sauer was involved with this project, as were Imran Shah and Tania Berlow. The whole thing was supposedly being done in cooperation with Graham Stuart MP, Chair of the Commons select committee on families and children, who had received the go-ahead from Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister. We were told at the end of last year that a first draft would be ready after Christmas and that we would all be able then to offer our criticism. While this was happening, Alison Sauer and Imran Shah, stopped posting on the various lists and forums, presumably, as it was widely suggested, to avoid answering questions about this business. They then reappeared and nothing was ever said about the new guidelines. That was three months ago and we have heard nothing since. It is assumed that the thing is dead in the water.

A week or so ago, it came to light that the Department for Education intends to implement one of the recommendations of the Badman report, something which was included in Schedule 1 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill; the bit about children's names being retained on the school register for twenty days after their parents have de-registered them.

What my correspondents say is that these two events are linked in some way. The idea seems to be that the story about the new guidelines was a red herring and that while home educating parents were occupied with this, behind the scenes civil servants at the DfE were actually drawing up plans to implement Badman's ideas piecemeal. The hint is being made that either Alison Sauer and her friends knew about this and are hoping for well paid jobs in connection with some new monitoring regime, or that they have been used as fall guys and tricked by Nick Gibb, who all along intended to introduce new monitoring requirements for home education. So in one version of the theory, those working with Graham Stuart are dupes and in the other villains who are selling out other home educators in order to obtain jobs with the DfE. Nick Gibb and Graham Stuart emerge as Machiavellian conspirators, whose plots are of such Byzantine complexity as to bewilder a Borgia.

I can believe that Nick Gibb intends and has always intended to bring in new regulations around home education, but I am not so sure about Graham Stuart, Alison Sauer et al. It would help allay any such suspicions if these people would explain openly what was actually going on last year and what has happened since. In the meantime, I shall keep readers posted of any new developments of which I hear.

On the legality of routine monitoring

I think it fair to say that there is considerable opposition among some home educators to the idea of regular or routine monitoring by local authorities of the education which they may be providing for their children. Some parents, and we saw one commenting here yesterday, take the view that having told the local authority that they are home educating should be the end of the matter. Yesterday, somebody said here;

'If the LA knows nothing about a child, and have concerns about the child receiving a suitable education, they are entitled to ask. In most cases, the parent saying that the child is home educated should be sufficient for the LA'

This gambit was tried as long ago as 1977. It was not a success. In the summer of that year, Leeds Local Education Authority became aware that a child called Oak Reah was not attending school. They contacted his parents and asked why. The parents told them that they were teaching him themselves and that his education was nobody's business but theirs. Pretty much the line that some parents still advocate, in fact. Leeds did not go away and mind their business. They served a School Attendance Order and prosecuted the parents. Eventually, in 1980, the parents managed to get a Judicial Review. Lord Donaldson ruled that the LEA was quite justified in making enquiries of the parents about their child's education and that while they were entitled to refuse to provide any information, this might result in the LEA issuing an SAO.

Since Phillips V Brown, most parents have cooperated to some extent with their local authority; if only by providing a so-called 'educational philosophy'. Recently, we have seen a number of parents getting annoyed because their local authority has been coming back after a year or two and asking for an update. These parents are adopting the line that this sort of thing amounts to regular monitoring and that local authorities have been specifically told that they have no duty to this, at least according to the 2007 guidelines for local authorities on elective home education. These were issued by the then DCSF and so should be authoritative as far as the law is concerned. . There are two points to bear in mind about this. Section 2.7 of the guidelines says;

'Local authorities have no statutory duties in relation to monitoring the quality of home education on a routine basis.'

This seems clear enough! They have no duties in relation to routine monitoring. Unfortunately, this is completely vague and quite ambiguous. They may have no duties, in the sense that they don't have to do this, but this does not mean to say that they can't do it. All that this means is that they don't have to. In other words, there is nothing in this to suggest that it would actually run counter to the law if they did choose to monitor the quality of home education on a routine basis. This is the first fly in that particular ointment. Local authorities do lots of things that they don't have a statutory duty to do; their statutory duties are a bare minimum that they must do. Many local authorities do more than this legal minimum and most people are very pleased about it. Few people are pleased to ring up their council with some problem, only to be told, in effect, 'We don't have to do that; it's not part of our statutory duties and so we refuse to help you.' In other words most councils go beyond that bare and irreducible minimum.

The second point to consider is this. The 2007 guidelines do not define what is meant by 'routine monitoring'. Many local authorities have sought their own legal advice on this and the generally accepted view is that the passage of time alone constitutes a change in the suitability of the educational provision being made for a child. Let us take an extreme case and see what this means.

Let us suppose that the local authority become aware of a five year-old child who is being educated at home by his parents. They contact the parents who provide them with chapter and verse of a marvellous, structured and appropriate education. they tell them the name of the reading scheme being used, cuisenaire rods, the whole works. That's great; the local authority are quite satisfied that this child is receiving a suitable education. They do nothing for ten years, perhaps they forget about the child. Now he is fifteen. they knew that his parents were teaching him to read and perform basic arithmetical functions at the age of five, but would that still constitute a suitable education at the age of fifteen? Perhaps not and so they contact the family asking for an update. Nobody could say that this was regular monitoring. Now let us suppose that rather than a ten year gap, the gap is five years. Or three years. Or even one or two years. Does this count as routine monitoring? Without a definition of the term 'routine monitoring', it is impossible to say.

There are signs that a number of local authorities are moving in this direction, that is to say coming back to people who have given them educational philosophies and asking for further information after a year or two. This is because of the points which I have outlined above. I make no comment at all on whether they are right to do so, but it is worth bearing in mind that they have taken legal advice before doing so. Those parents who adopt an intransigent attitude towards such requests based upon what they have read on internet support groups may not be acting their own best interests.

The 'secret group'

I have watched with interest as the main representative of the home educating community in this country, at least as far as the Department for Education are concerned, has changed from being Education Otherwise to the so-called 'secret group' led by Alison Sauer. I am sure that we are all aware that EO has been in a somewhat chaotic state lately, but even so this is a remarkable change in perspective.

I was at first a little puzzled when I read the document which Alison Sauer circulated. It had the appearance of something put together a little hastily and rushed out in a hurry. I think that in this case, appearances were not deceptive. Her stock may have been rising very high with the Department for Education, various MPs and Lords and quite a few local authorities; it had however plummeted with many home educating parents themselves, some of whom were viewing her as little better than a Quisling. This was not good. If she wishes to persuade those in the government like Nick Gibb, the schools Minister, that she is their vital link with the home educators, she cannot afford to become too unpopular with the very people she claims to represent. When the business with Suffolk blew up, she saw the chance to rehabilitate herself with some of those parents who were beginning to doubt her motives. As well as rushing out the document denouncing the ultra vires practices of local authorities, she also joined the HE-UK list under her real name. Her posts are a little smug and evasive; she reminds me of an infuriating child chanting, 'I know something you don't know, I know something you don't know!' By an odd coincidence, Ruth O'Hare also joined the HE-UK list under her real name at precisely the same time. For years she has posted as Firebird2110 and now she too is using her own name.

One of the problems with Alison Sauer being accepted as the authentic face of elective home education in this country is that she is actually in opposition to much of what many parents in this country believe in. Let us look at one particular aspect of these differences and see where Alison Sauer's views might be leading her in her negotiations with the administration at Westminster. Many home educating parents are opposed to regular monitoring. When their local authority contacts them after a year or two and asks for further information and to see how the education is progressing, the standard response by many is that nothing has changed and that the LA are only justified in making further enquiries if they think that something has changed. In other words, many home educators believe that the local authority should simply assume that the education is still suitable unless new evidence emerges to the contrary. This is in sharp opposition to what Alison Sauer is teaching local authorities and saying to people as varied as Graham Badman and Graham Stuart. She says;

' Periodic review of provision is allowed for in law (time being a change in circumstance).'

In other words, she believes that it is quite OK for local authorities to come back regularly year after year for new information about the nature of the educational provision being provided. This is because, contray to what is often warmly asserted on the various Internet lists, there has been a change in circumstances after a year or two. For many, this is indistinguishable from regular monitoring.

Actually, Alison Sauer agrees with me on many points and a lot of the things which I have said here and been savagely denounced for are actually identical with her views. Take this:

'Mr Badman confuses rights with duties with regard to education. There is frequent reference to balancing the rights of the child against those of the parent. However there is no conflict. Home education is not a right of parents per se, in fact the child has a right to education in both English, European and International law. In England that right gives rise to a duty on behalf of the parent to provide an education.'

There now, I could not have put it better myself! I am intrigued by what is currently taking place in the world of home education and the shift from Education Otherwise to the 'secret group'. I broadly agree with a lot of what is being planned, but my objection is that it is not being done democratically. If this group of individuals would now declare themselves and state their aims clearly, then I have an idea that although many would oppose what they are doing, others would support them. The problem is that we are not being given the opportunity to do this, because we do not even know who these people are and what they stand for. This makes me profoundly uneasy when their actions may affect so many others. I am certainly not against a change in the legal arrangements for home education, but I would like to see in detail just what is being proposed and who is involved in proposing it.

Alison Sauer presents the first fruits of the 'secret group'

I have been looking at the document which Alison Sauer has been circulating about certain local authorities. Before I discuss it, I must mention that this has cleared up a puzzling little incident which occurred a couple of weeks ago. On December 8th, Tania Berlow drew people's attention to a website on home education. It may be found here;

https://sites.google.com/site/thehomeofeducation/educational



There was some pretty negative reaction to this website from some members of the EO list and as a result, a few things have been deleted from it. A couple of people said that it came across like a hostile spoof and somebody told me that she thought it could be a deliberate attempt to discredit home education. For instance, the site gave some slogans which it was thought that home educating parents might want to use. Among these was, ''Better Than Sex. Get Turned On with Home Education' . (Don't use this one when local authorities or the NSPCC are fretting about home education being used as a cover for child abuse!) Another one suggested that parents who didn't home educate their children, didn't really love them. This is a great line to take when building bridges with the wider community; tell everybody with a kid at school that they don't love their children. That should make them receptive to anything else you have to say!

The reason that I mention this site is that Alison Sauer's document contains a link to it. As far as I can see, this is where she collected the quotations which she uses. I am assuming this means that she is connected with the site and that she and other members of the so-called 'secret group' wrote the material to be found there.

Looking at the document itself, it is hard to know where to begin. It may be found here;

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx0aGVob21lb2ZlZHVjYXRpb258Z3g6M2QzODc2MDdhMjQzZWY5ZQ&pli=1


Working as I do in a very diverse part of the East End of London, I was taken aback by one of the very first sentences. This talks of concern about 'ultra vires practices by Local Authorities being deployed against British Citizens'. I work with Asylum Seekers and refugees, many of whom have questionable status. Are the authors of the document saying that ultra vires practices would be acceptable against these individuals, because they are not British citizens? Perhaps saying 'people in Britain' would have been better than 'British citizens.

The next paragraph talks of the cost for local authorities 'in both financial and human capital terms' of their supposedly unlawful actions. 'Financial' means money and so I think that the idea is to tell us how much their activities in the field of home education cost local authorities. I will hazard a guess that 'human capital' means 'people'; if so, why not just say people or staff? Why use this bizarre jargon? Weirdly, after talking of this at the beginning, no attempt is actually made to explain the cost of what the local authorities are doing. The document says that there will be 'G & A' costs and 'Lost-Opportunity cost'. What does this mean? What are 'G & A costs'? What on earth is a 'Lost-Opportunity cost'? Would this be measured in financial terms or in terms of 'human capital'? We are also told that there are 'Implications for Individual Personnel'. What are these implications? The contorted language used here suggests that more than one person was involved in writing it. This is confirmed at the bottom of the thing, where there is a reference to 'authors'. Could Tania Berlow be one of them? It sounds a bit like some of her productions.

This is one of the big problems with looking at this thing. It is couched in a really strange jargon and it is hard to make out just what the authors are trying to prove. The 'ultra vires' actions seem to amount to local authorities asking to visit families and in some cases warning parents that unless they satisfied the authority within fifteen days that an education was taking place, a School Attendance Order would be issued. These are not really unlawful things for the local authority to do. I have in front of me a letter which I received from Essex County Council nine years ago after we had run into a truancy patrol. It says;

'Mrs Joan Barclay, an Education Welfare Officer, has informed me that your daughter Simone does not attend school. I would like to come and talk to you and Simone about the education you are providing. I hope to visit you on the morning of March 18th. If this is not convenient, perhaps you could let me know.'

Now I suppose that this is what is described in Alison Sauer's document as a 'demand to allow access to the home'. Apparently, some parents who have received similar letters have endured, 'six weeks of terror' causing 'sleepless nights, tears and sadness'! I have to say that we were showing this letter to friends and laughing about it. I can't imagine offhand why I would have been, 'bursting into uncontrollable tears' or regard this letter as a 'terrifying threat'. We need to know more about the details here, before we can judge whether or not these are ludicrous over-reactions by parents to ordinary life. In other words, without being told the specific circumstances, we cannot judge whether or not a local authority has behaved unreasonably. It is possible that these are just very sensitive parents who react badly to any sort of questions from anybody who they see as being in authority. One of the difficulties with what are described as ultra vires actions in this peculiar document is that the some of the things are far from being unlawful or ultra vires; they are in fact duties which the local authority is legally obliged to undertake. Take one of the practices which the author complains of; 'written threats of taking legal action to send the children to school unless the parents comply with the demands which were being made'. Now this might be distressing or unwelcome behaviour of the part of the local authority, but it is hardly unlawful. As a matter of fact, they have to do this under certain circumstances. The relevant law says;

'If it appears to a local education authority that a child of compulsory
school age in their area is not receiving suitable education, either by
regular attendance at school or otherwise, they shall serve a notice in
writing on the parent requiring him to satisfy them within the period
specified in the notice that the child is receiving such education'

It is to be hoped that the guidelines for local authorities on elective home education which La Sauer has been writing have been put together with a little more care than the above document. (It would, to say the least of it, be unfortunate if they begin by suggesting that abuses of state power are more acceptable when directed against foreigners and stateless persons in this country than if they were to be used against those who had citizenship!) We must hope too that the guidelines are not littered with jargon such as 'human capital' and 'G & A costs'. None of this bodes particularly well for the guidelines themselves!


For those who cannot access the document via the above link, I reproduce it below.

Ultra Vires Activities by Local Authorities in Relation to
Elective Home Education

Impact Assessment

Part One [Extract 18.12.2010]

Situation Analysis

Impact upon the Victims of Abusive Conduct by Local Authorities
Immediate Victims of Harassment
A Legal Context
The Damage to Children
The Damage to Parents
Impact upon Home Educators in General
Impact upon the Wider Society

Impact upon Local Authorities
G & A Costs
Lost-Opportunity Cost
Implications for Individual Personnel
Human Resource Implications
Liabilities
Legal Costs
Reputational Damage

Summary and Conclusions
Addendums & Appendices

Situation Analysis

Suffolk, Oxford, Birmingham, Gwent. Gateshead and Bournemouth are all recent examples
of ultra vires practices by Local Authorities being deployed against British citizens. These are
citizens that have made the personal sacrifice and law abiding commitment to Elective
Home Education for their children.

The true cost in human terms for the family victims of such abuses and in both financial and
human capital terms for the local authorities is far more significant than most politicians,
members of the public and particularly Local Authorities realise. This document explores
the reasons for both the human cost and financial costs resulting from practices that are not
supported by law and in many cases are contraventions of law.

Whilst remedial changes to guidelines and Statutory Instruments are being considered,
there is a significant need for Local Authorities to recognise all aspects of the damage to
society being caused by ultra vires pursuits.

1. Impact – the Victims of Abusive Conduct by Local Authorities

a. Immediate Victims of Harassment

Serious impact upon the lives of parents of and children occurs with unwarranted and
clumsy interventions into the peaceful harmony of family life, for which there is no legal
basis. It is obvious from LA reactions to complaints that they are oblivious to the impact of
their actions.

b. A Legal Context

A basic tenet of criminal law in the UK is that the threat is no less a crime than action. This
reflects the real impact of threatening conduct. If you use a toy gun to threaten, it has the
same impact as a real gun upon the victim. The Prevention of Harassment Act does not
accept that the perpetrator did not know of the impact that would result. It simply and
rightly rules; they ought to have known. (section ‘7 Liabilities for the LA’ & section ‘8 Legal
costs for the LA’ of this document refer).

i.

Extract from the Prevention of Harassment Act:

1. Prohibition of harassment.
(1)A person must not pursue a course of conduct—
(a) which amounts to harassment of another, and
(b) which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.
(2)For the purposes of this section, the person whose course of conduct is in
question ought to know that it amounts to harassment of another if a reasonable
person in possession of the same information would think the course of conduct
amounted to harassment of the other.

ii.

Guilty until Proven Innocent?

An even more fundamental tenet enshrined into British law is the presumption of
innocence until proven guilty. This has been aggressively and wantonly brushed aside by
the recent activities of certain local authorities. (Addendum 1 refers).

c. The Damage to Children

Whilst direct impact upon parents may be shielded from the children in the family, there is
nevertheless an indirect impact upon the children to some greater or lesser extent.

Even when circumstances allow the children to be shielded from the exact nature of the
threat, serious impact upon the children occurs indirectly by causing stress and anxiety to
the parents which of course the children sense.

The psychological effects upon children of such indirect stress are far greater. The impact
caused to parents becomes more real and personal to the child, who is disturbed by seeing
distressed parents. Indirect impact is less understandable to a child and thereby more
troubling. It is less removed and adversely effects the people whom the child has the
greatest emotional and security attachment to in life. Whilst the child may not have the
verbal skills to enunciate their feelings, the feelings of anxiety exist regardless. Such anxiety
manifests its presence to the parents in uncharacteristic behaviour patterns.

In addition and somewhat paradoxically, by deflecting the parents and demoralising them,
the quality of home education is compromised too.

With older children, the seeds of long-term disaffection with the state may well be fertilised.

It is difficult to evaluate the qualitative or quantitative effect of such indirect impact upon
children.

d. The Damage to Parents (and Family)

A third party definition of stress to parents is less meaningful than listening to parents own
description of how they characterise the impact. The following remarks were made by
parents that had varying experiences from, demands to allow access to the home, threats to
bring the police to an unscheduled home visit, demands to prove that education was
‘suitable’ to the LA’s satisfaction, to written threats of taking legal action to send the
children to school unless parents comply with demands that were being made which were
ultra vires in nature. It speaks volumes:-

https://sites.google.com/site/thehomeofeducation/impact-assessment-call


“Completely frightening threats to deprive my children of home education”

“For a law abiding person to be threatened with the police is demoralising and made me
feel really scared”

“They were deliberately intimidating and totally insensitive to my feelings.”

“It was obvious form the very start that they were completely anti-home educators and
showed not even a n ounce of respect to me.”

“It made me very angry and upset to think that people could be like this”

“Terrifying threats from people that are ignorant about home education”

“After everything I have done to help develop well brought-up children, well educated,
safe and happy, it was a point of abject despair to be verbally threatened with the police
and the law courts and worse the thought of my children being forced into a bad
school.”

“Looking back, the six weeks of terror caused sleepless nights, tears and sadness that I
sometimes could not hide from my two children. It has changed my view of Britain being
a fair place to live.”

“I am scarred by the experience.”

“Friends and family were incredibly supportive at a time where I felt devastated.”

“At my son’s birthday party I burst into uncontrollable tears just thinking about it.”

“Deeply disturbing.”

“I guess I never had experience of real fear in my life until then.”

“The implication was that I was not doing the best for my children and it made me feel
inadequate. I lost self-confidence which is still not where it was after all these weeks.”

“I am still frightened and I have cut down the times that I take [name removed] out
during school term.”

“When he said he thought that he would start the legal process against us to get our
children into school, my husband and I both cried together that night.”

“Bitter”

“Home edding our children is the centre of family life. What bloody effect do you think it
had?”

“I was ashamed by the thought that my daughter would be taken to school and didn’t
want to tell anyone. I found a forum on the internet that really helped because I was not
alone.“

“Fear, panic, anger and desperation that’s all I can say.”

e. Impact upon Home Educators in General

Abusive conduct from L.A.’s encourages ‘Defensive parenting’.
It breeds contempt for the L.A. and educational services.
It alienates parents of EHE children from the state (the L.A. is seen as being the
frontline representative of the state).
It encourages those EHE families that are not known to the LA to remain so.
It encourages adopters of EHE to decide in favour of keeping an ‘unknown’ status.

f. Impact upon the Wider Society


It leads to increased distrust and alienation towards the LA for people not even
necessarily directly involved in EHE but aware of it through family or friends.
It alienates those people who are suppliers to, contributors or active supporters of
and EHE families (i.e. relatives).
It spreads bad repute far and wide. Local Authorities are oblivious to the total
number of people involved not just directly but indirectly in EHE. Bad repute
spreads more quickly than good repute.

© 2010 This extracted document and its content are the protected copyright of it authors.
Loading... 5 / 5

The Lord Lucas connection

A couple of weeks ago, as I have mentioned before, I received an email containing details of Alison Sauer's accounts. Alison, it will be remembered is a key member of the so-called 'secret group' who are drawing up guidelines on elective home education for the use of local authorities. The email came for an address including the name Kaycee. There was a bit of a fuss about this on the HE-UK list and it was suggested that I had actually sent the email to myself, although why I should do such a thing is not at all clear! Everybody had forgotten about it until Friday, when the genuine Kaycee posted that the email address had been tracked down to St Albans, a town in Southern England. The curious aspect of this is that the email address used to find the location from which the original email was sent was that of a company with which Lord Lucas is associated; The Good Schools Guide. Here it is:

Forwarded Message ----
> > From: "kayceeb@cheerful.com " < > > goodschoolsguide@yahoo.com.donotreplythis.ReadNotify.com
> > >
> > To: goodschoolsguide@yahoo.com
> > Sent: Tue, 23 November, 2010 21:51:54
> > Subject: Read Notification:
> >
> > To
> > kayceeb@cheerful.com




Has everybody followed this so far? The obvious question here is who was sending this email and what on earth has Lord Lucas to do with the business? The original email sent to me was a bit of misinformation, trying to throw doubt upon the integrity of both Alison Sauer and a woman who comments here pretty regularly. I cannot for the life of me imagine how Lord Lucas has become mixed up with this. Yesterday, I received an email from the same source as that claiming that the original email was sent from St Albans. It is now claimed that there is not the slightest doubt that the email was in fact sent from Chorley. This is a town in Lancashire about twenty miles from where Alison Sauer lives! Here is what I was sent:

General IP Information
Top of Form 1
#Hostname: 95.148.111.180
ISP: Orange Home UK
Organization: Orange Home UK
Proxy: None detected
Type: Broadband
Assignment: Static IP
Blacklist:

Bottom of Form 1
Geolocation Information
untry: United Kingdom 
State/Region: Lancashire
City: Chorley
Latitude: 53.65
Longitude: -2.6167
Area Code:
Postal Code:



There is something decidedly funny about this whole business. Is the suggestion that Alison Sauer herself sent me her accounts under a false name? I am not the only person who has been sent stuff apparently about the 'secret group'. The fact that a commercial company connected with Lord Lucas is mixed up somehow in this, is very puzzling. Is he connected with the drawing up of the new guidelines? Does he have a financial interest in anything to do with home education? Is he a particular chum of Tania Berlow; who is of course the public face of the 'secret group'? I would be grateful to hear from any reader who knows what the connection is between Lord Lucas and the new guidelines. I am especially intrigued to know why somebody editing The Good Schools Guide would be lending his resources in this way to a member of the group drawing up the new guidelines.

The new guidelines; a summary to date

Judging from some of the questions being asked on Internet lists, there is confusion about what these guidelines are which Tania Berlow and her friends are working on. Let me just give a brief outline so that people can see what is going on.

The law relating to home education in this country is very muddled and confusing. So much so, that even lawyers cannot always agree on what the situation actually is. In addition to the basic bit of law which allows home education, Section 7 of the 1996 Education Act, there are various old precedents and also a number of more modern pieces of statute law. The Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006, Children Act 2004 and of course a new section added years later to the 1996 Education Act. Section 436A, laid upon all local authorities a duty to identify children missing from education. Section 437 goes on to specify that home educated children receiving a suitable education are not to be regarded as being missing from education. The result of all these laws is that local authorities sometimes get a bit mixed up about what their legal duties actually are when it comes to home education. For this reason, in 2006 it was decided to try and produce some guidelines for the local authorities, government approved guidelines which would explain their duties. Between August and November 2006, York Consulting Ltd. undertook a study for the Department of Education and Science, which in May 2010 became the Department for Education. Their brief was to examine elective home education in England and try to identify any perceptible trends.

The result of York Consulting's work was that in 2007 the Department issued the Guidelines for LAs on elective home education. They can be found here:

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


The aim of Tania Berlow's group is to rewrite these guidelines. There are two difficulties. Firstly, the guidelines are not statutory. This means that local authorities can ignore them is they wish. The second problem is that the current guidelines could hardly be made more favourable to home educators than they already are. For instance, they say;

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

Some parents may welcome the opportunity to discuss the provision that they are making for the child’s education during a home visit but parents are not legally required to give the local authority access to their home. They may choose to meet a local authority representative at a mutually convenient and neutral location instead, with or without the child being present, or choose not to meet at all.

3.11 Local authorities should bear in mind that, in the early stages, parents’ plans may not be detailed and they may not yet be in a position to demonstrate all the characteristics of an “efficient and suitable” educational provision.

3.14 It is important to recognise that there are many, equally valid, approaches to educational provision. Local authorities should, therefore, consider a wide range of information from home educating parents, in a range of formats. The information may be in the form of specific examples of learning e.g. pictures/paintings/models, diaries of educational activity,
projects, assessments, samples of work, books, educational visits etc.


In fact it is hard to see how these guidelines could be any better from the point of view of home educating parents. They already make it clear to the local authorities what they can and cannot do. Why do they need to be changed? Of course some parents are not happy with the law itself and want that to be changed. This is quite a different matter and there are, as far as we have been told, no plans for this.

So much for the background. The only public face of the changes to the 2007 guidelines is of course Tania Berlow. Two slightly alarming things have been noticed about her more recent posts on the Badman Review Action Group; one relating to form and the other to content. Tania seems to be falling into the habit of emphasising important words by the use of capital letters. Rather like THIS. This is SELDOM a good SIGN and unless she is CAREFUL, she might end up using GREEN or YELLOW ink like another well known home educator! The second and even more chilling feature of her latest post is mention of the New World Order. Now in my experience, once people begin talking of the New World Order it is only a matter of time before we start hearing about Rosslyn Chapel, the Illuminati, Area 51 and Prince Philip being responsible for Diana's murder. It is devoutly to be hoped that there will be no mention of either the New World Order or any of these other topics in the new guidelines!

If Alison Sauer's company, Sauer Consultancy, has been officially commissioned to do some work on behalf of the Department for Education, as York Consulting was in 2006, we should be told. It is high time to drop the secrecy and come out into the open. When York Consulting carried out their work in 2006, work which led to the publication of the 2007 guidelines for local authorities, there was none of this secrecy and I cannot for the life of me see why there should be now. The only reason which I can think which would explain this lack of openess is that something a bit fishy is going on.