The futility of giving home educators a public platform

Last month, I wrote here about the All-Party Parliamentary Group on home education and Graham Stuart’s  idea for some sort of committee of professionals concerned with home education. I had serious reservations about this and said so on November 16th. Now there’s a great difference between thinking that something is a bad idea and believing it to be part of a sinister plot against home educators.  A conspiracy theory is currently emerging which sees the APPG’s plans as part of some Europe-wide attack on home education. Even this blog, it has been suggested, plays a role in this scheme; it being, apparently, no coincidence that I should be saying unflattering things about Lisa Amphlett, so soon after she wrote that peculiar letter to Graham Stuart.

For the last few weeks, I have been trying to look at the real reasons that local authorities are sometimes uneasy about home education. This has not proved an easy task, because of course the sort of militant home educating parents that one encounters on the internet are not infrequently a little excitable and irrational. They have difficulty concentrating as well; combined with a tendency to wander off and lose track of what is being said. I feel like saying sharply, ‘Stop chattering and face the front, militant home educators and listen to what I am saying. It’s your time you’re wasting!’ However, I recollect in time that these people are supposedly adults and stop myself before making grossly inappropriate remarks of this sort. 

It is only by understanding why many people have concerns about home education that any sort of modus vivendi will be reached with those professionals in the field of education who are pressing for regulation. Perhaps if home educating parents could listen to these people, then they might be able to respond intelligently and allay their fears. As I say, over the last few weeks, I have been setting out some aspects of home education which are seen  as being a problem. I have talked to many teachers about this and have also been in touch with local authority officers who deal with elective home education.  Some of the views which  I have expressed here on this subject were my own; some were those which have been put to me by teachers and others. It has been a hopeless enterprise. Yesterday, for instance, I posted about the phenomenon of parents who take their children out of school because the  teachers say that their children are falling behind or disrupting the class; then find that they are unable to provide a reasonable education. This is something which worries quite a few teachers. You might have thought that this was the perfect opportunity for home educators who are dissatisfied with the way that local authorities feel, to speak out on a public forum and set them straight.  If education professionals are wrong about this; why not explain why they are wrong? But no. Out of sixty comments, only three addressed the subject of the post. The others would rather concern themselves with fantasies about me masturbating or claim that I was mentally ill.   In other words, around 95% of the comments had nothing to do with home education; although that was the topic of the post. I have already received a couple of emails from people about this and their view was that it is pointless to try and debate with those people. They don’t really have any sensible views about the matter.

In recent months, there have been many people from the world of mainstream education coming to view this blog. I suggested to some of these people that I would try and draw out home educating parents to give their views and opinions on what they wanted from local authorities. There has been very little of a constructive nature and the overall impression that the visitors have had has not been at all favourable to home educators in general. To speak bluntly; most of them were shocked and dismayed at what they saw here. Any sort of dialogue is impossible and the best that they can do is to make any arrangements unilaterally, without worrying over-much about upsetting the more aggressive type of home educating parent. 

How to obtain information about home education from Graham Stuart; the right way and the wrong way

Some readers have been asking today  about Graham Stuart’s reply to Lisa Amphlett. I thought that it was worth talking a little about this and publishing it here. There were hints that my post  yesterday  was part of a coordinated attempt to smear a group of home educators in the Midlands. It wasn’t of course, it’s just that there is no such thing as coincidence in the Looking-glass world inhabited by these characters. Still, it gives me a chance to look at the correct way to find things out from MPs and also to look at the wrong way of going about the business. The hint was, you see, that because one of this group had failed to extract answers from an MP about something to do with home education, that must be why I had posted about a woman who had been in Ireland and is now in the midlands. (Yes, I realise that this makes no sense at all, but you know what these people are like!)

A couple of weeks back, I wanted to know  three things about Graham Stuart’s intentions,  and also about  the  functioning of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on home education.  The best way to find things out, is of course simply to ask. If you are going to do this, it is better by far to limit your enquiries to one simple question at a time. Once this has been asked, you can leave it a week or two and then ask another question. It might take a few weeks, but that way you tend to find out what you want to know. The first thing I wanted was a written statement of Graham Stuart’s plans, if any, for new regulations about home education. I emailed him on November 22nd, saying;

Dear Mr Stuart,      I'm sorry to trouble you, but a number of people are concerned that you might be in favour of some new regulation for home education in this country. I wonder if you could just confirm whether this is true or not? Thanks a lot.
                                            Simon Webb.

Short and to the point, you see. An hour and  half later,  one of his advisers replied, saying:


Dear Mr Webb,

Thank you for your email. 

The APPG for Home Education, which Graham chairs, is encouraging local authority home education officers to form a national organisation so that they can build expertise, and also challenge bad practice and ignorance in their authorities.

There is no question whatever of Graham suggesting or supporting new regulation regarding home education.  The aim is precisely to avoid some of the problems which arise through local authority officials misinterpreting the existing regulations (whether by accident or design).

Kind regards,

Simon


You see? Easy peasy and now I have a written statement about this MP’s intentions; ’ There is no question whatever of Graham suggesting or supporting new regulation regarding home education.‘ Working in this way, I shall  eventually have simple answers to all my questions. Now let’s look at the wrong way to go about it.  Here is another email to Graham Stuart, this one sent the day after my own:


Dear Graham,
Thank you for taking the time to engage with me on Twitter and invite communication via email. In the interests of openness and transparency, this is an open letter that I will publish on my blog along with any response.
I write with reference to two points:
1. The APPG and its structure, and
2. The proposal that you mentioned at the end of the last APPG meeting in October 2013.
I will deal with them separately for clarity’s sake.
I appreciate that the APPG has been functioning for some time without widespread interest from the HE community. However, your minuted suggestion that  ”home education experts from local authority areas” should come together to form a national organisation to “build expertise and challenge bad practice and ignorance” has precipitated interest, criticism and concern. This is, I believe, largely because of the potentially negative outcomes of such a proposal, which I will expand upon below.
A key concern for me is the unelected nature of the APPG, its secretariat (HEAS) and the “secretariat support”. I can only find the APPG minutes on the secretariat support’s personal website, and from reading those minutes I have deduced that she is responsible for the preparation of delegate lists, invites, agendas, supporting/briefing papers and minutes. I tried to communicate directly with this individual, to be told that my questions would not be answered.
My questions regarding the structure of the APPG are below:
How and when was the secretariat and secretariat function proposed, agreed and clarified? By whom? What were the terms of reference?
To whom do I direct my request for a full client list of the secretariat/secretariat support, as per P11 of the HoC Guide to the Rules on All-Party Groups?
How do I arrange for all future delegate lists/agendas, supporting/briefing papers and minutes to be either made publicly available at the time of their production or sent directly to me and any other interested parties?
What is the formal position of the APPG with regard to proposals that are made and taken forward through the APPG without consultation with and representation of the home education community, especially when such proposals have the potential to negatively impact upon all home educating families?
Is there a procedure for challenging/appeal against the decision to incorporate a secretariat and/or “secretariat support” — on the grounds of, say, a lack of neutrality, conflict of interest, or unprofessionalism when dealing with key stakeholders?
With regard to the proposal itself, I outlined my concerns in my blog post “Questions arising from the home education APPG” (hyperlink here). The professionalisation of “home education” will legitimise and validate what is currently an optional role (and rightly so) within local authorities.
A national organisation has the potential to rubber stamp local authorities as “good” (whatever “good” is defined as; surely operating within the law does not require national organisation?) without maintaining adequate oversight of developing problems or bad practice — this happens surprisingly quickly, and even local authorities with “good” reputations continue to make mistakes.
It could well block home educators from tackling local problems at a local level, effectively funnelling all efforts through a monolithic, “official” body. This is the antithesis of localism and it is incredibly disempowering and destructive in the medium to long term (it happened in my own local authority area when “experts” intervened without the consent of many active local home educators). Having seen the detailed and complex level at which home educators have had to operate in “good practice” areas, I fail to see how a national organisation could hope to replicate the levels of application, dedication and diversity needed to turn local authorities round.
The most worrying aspect, for me at least, is the potential this association has to cause significant harm in the hands of a government that has few sympathies with the importance of families and the primacy of the parent with regard to welfare and education. You and I tweeted about Barry Sheerman’s perspective (hyperlink here) a week or two ago, and it is precisely this entrenched attitude towards home education, also seen in many local authority officers, that could turn any professional organisation into a powerful lobbying group against freedom in education after the next general election.
It is true that there is nothing to stop officers organising if they so wish. However, I think it is totally unacceptable to organise and/or additionally resource this through an unelected and unaccountable body in the face of significant opposition from the affected community, and I would like to express my opposition to this in the strongest terms.
My questions regarding your proposal are below:
Have you had discussions about this national organisation prior to proposing it at the end of the last APPG?
When you referred to “home education experts from local authorities” did you mean local authority officers, consultants or individuals from the home education community?
What is your definition of “home education expert”?
What exactly is the purpose of the next APPG? Is it to scope the proposal, or actively take it forward? Has there been or will there be an evidence based impact assessment?
Are there formal mechanisms in place to deal with opposition from key stakeholders?
I am conscious of asking so many questions but I think they are reasonable and pertinent to the current situation, so thank you for your patience. Should you need any clarification regarding any of the points I have raised, please let me know. I look forward to hearing from you and sharing any responses.
Lisa Amphlett


Oh, dear! Can anybody spot the difference between this email and my own? Yes, that’s right, mine was a couple of dozen words, containing a single question. Lisa Amphlett’s, on the other hand, is a long, rambling communication, with no fewer than thirteen questions embedded in it.  What do readers think are the chances of anybody ploughing through all that and answering all the  questions? That’s right; practically zero!  So it proved, because here is the answer which she received ten days later:


Dear Lisa
Thank you for your letter of 23 November about the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Home Education.
APPGs are designed to provide an opportunity for Parliamentarians to learn more about a topic, and that is the function served by the Home Education group.
As you may know, I have been engaged in highlighting and challenging inappropriate behaviour by local authority officers regarding home education for some years. This can sometimes feel like an uphill struggle. It is my belief, and that of the APPG, that an association of local authority officers dealing with Home Education would make it easier to share best practice, stamp out misunderstanding and ensure fair treatment of home educating families.
Any such association would determine its own priorities but could provide local authority officers with guidance to help them challenge the sometimes unnecessarily defensive approach adopted by some local authorities towards home educating parents.
Yours sincerely,
Graham


This all illustrates the  two cardinal rules for such endeavours. First, keep it short and secondly, ask only one simple question at a time.  I have a suspicion that Lisa Amphlett will never receive answers to her questions, whereas I have now the answers to the two most important questions I wished to ask. The third, I shall have in another few days. 

Already, the rage is mounting about this and the conspiracy theorists are gearing up. I fear that the only real mystery is why anybody would think for a moment that such a long winded and prolix communication had the remotest chance of being answered!

Lisa Amphlett's open letter to Graham Stuart

One of the women who signed the appeal for money to help a mother skip the country, at which we looked yesterday, has now published an open letter to Graham Stuart:

http://www.lisaamphlett.com/2013/11/23/letter-to-graham-stuart-appg/

Just ask!

I have been looking lately at the facebook pages and twitter feeds of various angry and discontented home educators. Much of their annoyance is directed currently not at local authorities, but rather towards the All-Party Parliamentary Group for home education. We have seen comments posted here, expressing these same feelings. 

Now there are, it seems to me, two entirely different points to consider. The first is that the people who now form the secretariat of that group were not elected to the post. This is a perfectly fair matter to debate and I have mentioned it here. The second point is that some people are now complaining that they have all sorts of questions that they wish to ask of the APPG, but that these remain unanswered.  Hints are made that Fiona Nicholson and Jane Lowe are blocking their enquiries and that Graham Stuart  won’t answer their questions. I have seen quite a few exchanges on facebook saying this kind of thing. The only problem is, none of these people will say, even when chatting to their mates on the internet, just what it is that they wish to know! Generally speaking, when people wish to find out about things like this, a straightforward question will receive an answer. I have always found it so and we saw Anne who comments here, using the same strategy successfully a few days ago.

I know that Graham Stuart comes on this blog and so does Fiona Nicholson. Here is what I suggest. Those who have any sort of question to ask the APPG, why not put it on the comments here? Tell us what it is that you would know and then I strongly suspect that somebody else commenting, will be able to answer. If the answer is not forthcoming in a day or two, then I will ask the relevant people in the APPG and, if need be, badger them until I find out. There’s no point in a whispering campaign, whereby people are complaining that they are being shut out and not told what they wish to know, unless a chance is given for others to answer the questions. So let’s all just explain clearly what it is that we wish to know of the APPG and that might be the best way to bring forth the information.

Maire Stafford becomes a fan of mine...

I genuinely am beginning to wonder how many  people are using this blog as their primary source of information about home education! Since I wrote here about Graham Stuart's idea for an 'expert' group of local authority officers, there has been frantic activity on twitter about this very topic. The suggestion was made on October 22nd, but only since I blogged about it, the other day, have people been badgering Graham Stuart and asking what is going on. Another scoop for Home Education Heretic! Astonishingly, even Maire Stafford thinks that I am the boy to watch:

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2. Maire Stafford ‏@Maire527h

   @untwining @ema_flutterbyit is the end days indeed when Simon Webb is largely spot on with his commentary on this issue Indeed #homeed #APPG

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A specific proposal emerges from the APPG on home education

No broad consensus emerged from the discussions here on the subject of the APPG.  Seeing that this is essentially a forum for home educators, I would have been remarkably surprised had it done so! I want today to look at one specific idea which was mooted at the last meeting of the APPG, held on October 22nd. 

As many readers will know, some local authorities operate an informal network, whereby officers involved with home education exchange notes and sometimes plan a common strategy. This happens with travellers’ education too, by the way. On the face of it, this appears to be a good idea. After all, it is a chance for best practice to spread, isn’t it? Those authorities who are doing things well, can share their expertise with other local authorities, who will then improve. What could be wrong with that? Well, for one thing, all too often this works in the opposite direction. If you put a load of sound apples next to a rotten one, the good, healthy apples might just cause the bad one to grow better; more often, the rotten apples taints the others. I have seen this happen with home education, caused by just such a loose affiliation of local authorities.

A few years ago, there used to be regular meetings between local authority EHE departments in south-east England. These meetings took place at Hastingwood, near Harlow in Essex and EHE officers from as far away as Southampton attended them. Unfortunately, at that time, about six or seven years ago, Essex had a fellow called Mike Allpress working for their EHE department and his ideas were a little extreme, even for somebody like me! In fact, I refused to let him visit our home.  I took the trouble to ring up EHE officers in Southampton and so on and soon found that those meetings at Hasting wood were dominated by Mike Allpress and that he more or less told the others what they should be doing. This may have been because he was a man and the other local authority officers present were women; I don’t know. The upshot was that this one character was able to set the agenda on home education  for many of the local authorities in south-east England; even to the extent of getting them to put what he wanted on their responses to consultations.

What does this have to do with the last meeting of the APPG? Graham Stuart mentioned casually that he would be happy to help with the launch of:

The development of a more formalised professional association of, and/or annual  conference for, home education officers, driven by those in the profession  themselves, could be a welcome step in terms of sharing best practice nationally

This sounded so uncannily similar to those meetings which used to take place in Essex, that it at once caught my attention.  Such an organisation might indeed be, ‘a welcome step in sharing best practice nationally’. Then again; it may not. It might equally well turn, just as the regular meetings in Essex did, into a way of sharing worst practice!  I think that a good deal of thought should be given to this suggestion and in particular, readers should ask themselves whether, at the next and closed, meeting of the APPG in February, this might be established and then presented at the subsequent meeting a few months later  as a fait accompli.

Finally, while looking through my records, during  the preparation of this piece, I found a letter which I sent to Mike Allpress at Essex County Council, when he thought that he would be visiting my house. I have an idea that some readers think that I was always toadying round my local authority and slavishly following their requests. This letter should disabuse anybody of such an idea!


                                                                   Loughton,
                                                                   Essex.
                                                                   IG10 
        
                                                                      8/3/07

Dear Mr. Allpress,
           Thank you for your recent letter, the contents of which have been noted. Although I should have been delighted to meet with you on Tuesday March 13th, I am afraid that this will not be possible. 
     I observe from your letter that the reason for your visit is to advise me about my daughter’s education. You will,  I am sure,  forgive my remarking that I find myself wholly at a loss to know what advice you could possibly be intending to dispense with regard to a child whom you have never met and know nothing about. However, I dare say that you know your own business best and you may rest assured that I shall pay keen attention to any advice which you feel competent to give. It occurs to me that if any of this advice is particularly urgent, then you could perhaps send it by post, rather than waiting until we  meet. It is only a thought.
     In the meantime, I enclose a brief summary of my daughter’s progress since last we were fortunate enough to receive the attention of your office. 

                                       Yours faithfully,
                                                   

                                                    Simon Webb.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Home education

I have heard from one or two readers this morning,  who feel that they have been left behind by the recent discussion here about the APPG on home education. Perhaps I should give a little background. There are dozens of informal groups at parliament, where MPs, peers  and members of various charities, special-interest groups and so on get together to discuss anything from football and farming to brass bands. Or, in this case, home education. Although such groups have no real, official status, they can exert a certain amount of power especially when they are led by the Chair of the relevant select committee.  Graham Stuart, for those who didn’t know. 

Because MPs and peers are usually busy, the actual running of the groups is often delegated to a secretariat; a few people who arrange meetings, issue invitations, take minutes and sometimes act as gatekeepers. These individuals can really shape the APPG in their own image. In the case of the APPG on home education, these gatekeepers are Fiona Nicholson and Jane Lowe.  Now immediately, some people can see a problem with that; or really two problems. The first is of course that nobody elected these two people to that role. It looks to some as though Fiona and Jane simply had the sharpest elbows and were shrewd enough at intriguing to get themselves into this position. The second problem that some have, is even bigger. It is that Fiona Nicholson and Jane Lowe share something in common with the present writer. (And no, for those who have been reading the awful things that Maire Stafford and her cronies have been saying about me, it is not that we all dye our hair!) The fact is that any new legislation or changes in regulations will not affect Fiona and Jane, because they are no longer home educators. It will be recalled that when I was invited to give evidence to the select committee in 2009, a great fuss was made about this and it was thought that the fact that my daughter was no longer being educated at home should have been enough to disqualify me from expressing an opinion on the subject. The same thing is now being said about Fiona Nicholson and Jane Lowe.

Some current home educators have another difficulty,  as far as Fiona Nicholson is concerned.  In 2009, she and a few friends, such as Ian Dowty, submitted this document during the Badman enquiry.  


http://www.educationotherwise.net/attachments/article/151/Prospectus%20For%20Improving%20Support%20to%20Home%20Educating%20Families%200409.pdf


Among other things, it recommended:


4. Recommendation: that the DCSF Elective Home Education Team should 
work with home education support organisations to set up a national 
Committee for Home Education, remit to include contributing to 
Government policy initiatives related to home education, contributing to 
Impact Assessments and making recommendations related to Home 
Education policy. 

This national committee was to have a far-ranging but rather vague role and relationship to the government. It was not unnaturally assumed that Fiona visualised herself as heading this committee, which was to some sort of Quango. This belief was strengthened when she gave evidence to the Children, Schools and Families select committee on October 14th 2009. I was also giving evidence that day and one thing which struck me very powerfully was Fiona’s inability to say whether or not she approved of compulsory registration for home educators. Barry Sheerman, the Chair, pressed her repeatedly on this point, but she waffled on for some time, finally saying:

I am not taking a position on whether I think it would be a good or bad thing

Call me an old cynic, but the construction which I put upon that was that Fiona was in favour of registration, but reluctant to say so out loud, in case it alienated too many other home educators. 

In short, there are those who are suspicious of Fiona Nicholson’s  involvement in the APPG, because rather than being a home educating parent, she now has a commercial interest in the subject and is apparently being paid by at least one local authority to give advice. Incidentally, the APPG apparently has a website, about which few seem aware. If there really is such a thing, one guesses that it was set up by Fiona’s son Theo, who is something of a whiz about computer and internet related matters.

I must make one final point, which is that on a personal level, I am very much a fan of Fiona’s. She is an enthusiast for both the Molesworth and William books and I never knew anybody who enjoyed those books to be otherwise than fundamentally sound!

Secret meeting alert

While we are watching Barry Sheerman, we must be careful that we do not take our eyes off Graham Stuart for too long. He is now the Chair of the Education select committee and also runs the APPG for home education matters. Yesterday, he tweeted to let people know that the next meeting of the APPG would be behind closed doors, by invitation only;

https://twitter.com/grahamstuart


This is so that he can bring together, 'home education experts from local authorities to set up a group to exchange info'. This sounds interesting, but something that we should all know more about. In particular, which local authorities have experts on home education working for them? We should be told!