Clearing the ground…

One of the frustrating things about this blog is that I often assume that readers, being composed in the main of home educators and former home educators, will share with me a common knowledge about the situation regarding home education in this country. Many do not and I find myself having to explain even the most basic details before I can even think of progressing to a discussion of more complex matters, such as the possible need for new legislation. To give one example of this, somebody is still arguing on a thread which began a few days ago as to whether the five outcomes of the Every Child Matters agenda are binding in law. This is important, because any and all debates at every child protection conference in England will be dominated by Every Child Matters and the five outcomes. If the five outcomes are, as some described them in the comments here, no more than, ‘a policy of the last government’ or part of ‘a discussion paper’, then why on earth are social workers, teachers and local authority legal departments behaving as though they are the law of the land? It is this kind of nonsense that makes it very hard to get a proper discussion going here.

Every Child Matters was a green paper, largely concerned with child protection. One of its key recommendations was that professionals involved with children, including local authorities as a whole, should work actively to ensure that every child had access to five outcomes. These are; to be healthy, to stay safe, to enjoy and achieve, to make a positive contribution and to achieve economic wellbeing. The green paper gave rise to an act; the Children Act 2004. This enshrined in law some of the Every Child Matters agenda. For instance, the five outcomes became legal duties for local authorities to work towards. The wording was changed slightly and so the original five outcomes from ECM became;



physical and mental health and emotional well-being; .
protection from harm and neglect; .
education, training and recreation; .
the contribution made by them to society; .
social and economic well-being.


This means that the five outcomes of Every Child Matters are now part of the law of England and everybody working with children is mindful of this. Local authorities have a duty to work towards ensuring that all children in their area have access to these outcomes. It will be observed that education is one of them. The section about economic well-being is also connected with education, because the more qualifications a child gains, the more likely she is to get a good job and stop being poor.

I am aware, and so are local authorities, that some non- statutory guidance suggests that the 2004 Act lays no new duty upon local authorities as regards elective home education, but there is more to the case than that. I don’t propose to discuss that in detail; all that I felt I needed to do was demonstrate that the five outcomes of the Every Child Matters agenda are alive and well and that local authorities have a binding legal duty to ensure that every single child in their area, not just those at school, have access to them.

Having cleared up this misunderstanding, I hope in the next few days to return to the question of the urgent need for new legislation.

Ludicrous home education propaganda

Everywhere I look lately - on emails, websites, posters, even postcards - I seem to be seeing the text below;

Every Child Matters?
Each week: 450,000 children are bullied in school.
Each year: more than 360,000 children injured in schools
Each year: at least 16 children commit suicide as a result of schoolbullying
Each year: an estimated 1 million children truant
Each year: more than 1 in 6 children leave school unable to read, write or add up

Although primarily designed to draw attention to the problem of bullying, this has now been adopted by many home educators. This is so completely mad, that it is hard to know where to begin. For one thing, these figures are a greater condemnation of home education than they are of schools. Let me explain.

Looking first at the statistic that one in six children leave school unable to read write and add up; this is a quotation from a speech made by David Cameron on December 6th 2006. The figures relate to GCSE passes, not the measure of education usually favoured by home educators! Do home educators really believe that a child who has not taken and passed GCSEs in English and Mathematics by the age of sixteen is unable to read, write and add up? I rather suspect that the relevant figure among home educated children would be considerably higher than one in six. I have met a number of home educated teenagers who have not taken GCSEs in these subjects. Is it really true that they were unable to read and write? One doubts it.

Looking now at the claim that 360,000 children are injured each year in schools. This is almost true, but horribly misleading. The figure is from 2002 and relates to children aged between five and fourteen. I really think that it is about time that more up to date statistics were used. In that same year 2002, 900,000, that is to say almost one million children in the five to fourteen age bracket, were injured so badly at home that they required hospital treatment. The situation for younger children was even worse. Almost a quarter of a million falls in the home by children under five were bad enough to require hospital treatment - a horrifying indictment of the standards of care in ordinary homes! Another 26,000 children under five were treated in hospital for poisoning. These figures are shocking and suggest strongly that children are safer in schools and nurseries than they are at home with their parents.

One million children do not truant each year! There are no figures for truancy. These statistics relate to unauthorised absences from school. As truancy patrols have found again and again, the majority of children taking such unauthorised absences are with their parents; shopping trips, days out, holidays and so on. A two week holiday in term time would account for twenty unauthorised half days of absence from school. Again, do home educators really think that a child would be better off and learning more at school than he would be on holiday or even having a day out with his family? You would think then that they would all rush to enroll their kids at the local school!

I do not think it at all wise for home educating parents to spread this sort of nonsense. A number of local authority officers known to me have been laughing about this and poking even more holes in the thing than I have. There are many good reasons for choosing to educate one's own children at home; none of the figures in this text provide a sound justification for doing so. Taking the figures at face value, home educated children are even worse off than those at school.

Every Child Matters

After Victoria Climbie's death at the hand of her aunt, an enquiry was set up with Lord Laming at its head. Victoria Climbie had been known to practically every service provided for children, from social services to the police, from her local hospital to the London Borough of Haringey's education department. Despite this, she had fallen between the cracks and nobody prevented her murder. At the same time that Lord Laming published his report, the Government brought out a Green Paper called Every Child Matters. This was intended to give an outline of what every child in the country should be entitled to; the so-called five outcomes. These are to be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and to achieve economic wellbeing. These outcomes were underpinned by new legislation, the Children Act 2004.

Now we come to the problem as far as some parents of home educated children are concerned. Local authorities had responsibilities, via new Children's Trusts, for seeing to it that all the children in their area were being given the chance to achieve the five outcomes listed above. All the children. Not just all the children at school, but every child, including those educated at home. This of course put local authorities into a bit of a tricky position, because as we all know many parents don't trouble to notify their local authority or Children's Trust that they are educating their children at home. Nor do they tell anybody when they move to another local authority area. Never the less, the local authority is still technically responsible for the wellbeing and safety of all those children who they never see and do not even know about. This is a regular conundrum! If one of these children should be murdered or abused, the local authority will still be held to account, just as they will for any such children who are not achieving the five outcomes.

The solution for local authorities was a simple one; to agitate for new legislation to enable them to keep track of the children in their district. ContactPoint will help, as will the lists of rising fives that they have. These are not infallible though. I can think of half a dozen ways of evading these measures if I had a child and wished to do so. The answer was, as far as local authorities were concerned, compulsory registration of all children in their area who were not at school. Once they were registered, then people could pop round their homes and see what was happening to them.

None of this has anything at all to do with education. It is purely safeguarding and also, of course, local authority officers covering their backs. Peter Traves, from the Association of Directors of Children's Services, summed this up rather neatly when he gave evidence before the Department of Children, Schools and Families select committee in October. He said;

"We have seen recently what happens to director's 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."

Of course in the case to which he was referring here, a little boy had his back broken by a homicidal maniac. This is also a very serious matter, but not presumably in the same league as a director of Children's Services being humiliated!

There is not the remotest chance of the current situation with regard to elective home education remaining as it has for the last century or two. Ironically, the main concern is not the standard of education being provided, but the extent to which the children can meet the outcomes of Every Child matters. This is quite irrespective of my view on the matter or what Education Otherwise says or how passionately some parents may feel on the subject. There is going to be a change and by my way of thinking it would make sense for home educators to be part of that change and influence its direction. If they opt out and refuse all co-operation, then the changes will still come, but without the input of the parents themselves. I cannot think that this would be a good or desirable outcome.

The safety of kiddies is a very emotive topic and trumps all else. By playing this card, the Government has ensured that the law on home education will not remain the same. My own concern is purely educational, but this is becoming sidelined by the whole child protection thing. I seriously wonder whether or not a lot of home educators are in tune with the public mood on this. If they were, then I suspect that more of them would be bending with the wind, instead of digging in and taking to the barricades!