Motives for traditional education, as opposed to home education

I was last night reading the Scoping Research Project on Elective Home Education in Bridgend, Vale of Glamorgan and Neath Port Talbot, which was commissioned a couple of years ago by the Welsh Assembly Government.  Yes, I do realise that this was a colossally sad thing to be doing on a Saturday night; especially for somebody who hasn’t been a home educator for over four years! I was particularly struck by the fact that, at least according to this report, I must be practically unique among home educating parents. 

Nearly all the parents in this country, well over 99% of them, send their  children to school. There are two basic choices about types of school; which boil down essentially to independent or maintained. Those who give any thought to the matter, who are not content with just any old school for their kids,  usually make their choices on educational grounds. Perhaps they want their children to go to a school which is high in the so-called ‘league tables’ or maybe they choose a secondary school which has a good record of getting children to universities in the Russell Group. Those who can afford it, pay enormous sums of money to give their children an educational advantage in this way, by sending them to an independent school. Those forced to depend upon maintained schools will feign religious devotion, lie to the local authority about their address or even move house in order to get their children to the ‘right’ school; that is to say one which seems academically excellent. In other words, for parents who send their children to school; education is by far and away the most important motive in selecting their educational setting.

I was precisely the same. I was determined that my daughter should have the very best education that I could cause her to receive. After weighing up carefully the merits of traditional schools and considering the matter for five years, I then plumped for individual, one-to-one tuition as being the most effective way of providing her with an education. My motives were never anything other than educational. Mind, that accorded perfectly with my religious views, but  education was the prime consideration.

Looking now at the Welsh survey, I was reading the four main motivations that the researchers found. Here they are:

Response to behavioural /attendance issues
The extreme stance expressed by some authorities that the majority of HE parents choose HE to avoid prosecution when they and/or their children simply disengage with education is not endorsed by this initial scoping, but it is the primary experience of the EWS in relation to HE and, as such, is perceived to be a much more significant motivation than it is in actuality.

Lifestyle choices
At the other end of the spectrum, the political position of some home educators is that the family unit and not the state has primary responsibility for the education of the child and therefore that education is most suitably and efficiently delivered in the family context. Other ‘alternative’ lifestyle choices include those of the traveller communities, or various religious perspectives.

Curricular/structural issues
Between these two poles are children and families opting out of the mainstream, not to disengage from education, but after struggling with, and giving up on, the curriculum or structural difficulties of school life, be it the size, the length of day or the interaction with some teachers. 

Special social, emotional, health or learning needs
Towards the choice of HE as a lifestyle are those opting out of the mainstream because of social, emotional or other learning challenges, delicate health issues, difficulties with transition, or, most particularly, the experience of bullying. This appears to be the largest group in the spectrum. Many of these, though originally choosing reactively away from school, do seem to find HE particularly suitable to meeting, or allowing for, those particular needs and come to embrace this alternative educational experience as a proactive and positive decision.


We did not, 'struggle with and then give up on’ school, we had no  ‘political position’. It was a simple decision based upon nothing but the desire to give the child the best possible education. I don’t fit in anywhere among home educators, at least according to this survey!

Other research, by people like Paula Rothermel and also Education Otherwise, has found the same thing. When Education Otherwise sent out 2500 questionnaires, they found that the commonest reason for home education was family lifestyle, rather than education. 

I am not drawing any sort of conclusion from all this, other than to point out that for parents sending their children to school; educational considerations seem to be paramount. For home educating parents in general, on the other hand, they appear to be insignificant. I find this interesting.

Sharp practice by Education Otherwise

During the fuss about the Badman report and its aftermath in 2009, many home educators complained bitterly that the proponents of increased regulation for home education were using  dubious and in some cases downright dishonest statistics to support their case. Leading the fight against this practice was of course Education Otherwise. It is therefore particularly sad to see that organisation using precisely the same tactics, despite having their attention drawn to what they were doing, over a year ago.

Readers will probably be aware that Education Otherwise was heavily involved in fighting the proposals in Wales for the registration and monitoring of home educated children. They circulated a document to every member of the Welsh Assembly Government. Here is the page from the Education Otherwise site which explains all this;

http://www.educationotherwise.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=334&Itemid=335

Note particularly the following;

Trustees are in the process of drafting an EO response to the proposals.  In the meantime, a briefing paper is being printed and sent to all Assembly Members.  Drafts of this have been circulated widely, but the final text is here (or see download link at foot of page).  We hope that Welsh home educators will be able to make good use of this well-informed document, in considering their own responses to the consultation.  

You will of course observe that this document is, 'well informed' and that Education Otherwise endorse it fully. When they express the wish that home educators , 'will be able to make good use of this', presumably it is hoped that these parents will quote from it and use the figures which it contains.   Far from being well informed, it is a truly dreadful piece of work; riddled with errors, exaggerations, distortions, inaccuracies and falsehoods. Many of the figures it contains are false. I do not have the time or energy to go through this long paper point by point, but last October I drew attention to a couple of really bad examples; deliberate lies which had been inserted into the thing in order to mislead those who were unfamiliar with home education. Shena Deuchars, at one time Chair and currently a trustee of Education Otherwise, came on here and agreed with much of what I had said. You might have thought that having had these matters pointed out over a year ago, Education Otherwise would have either withdrawn or at the very least amended the briefing paper. They did not and still have not. This suggests to me that they are happy to spread falsehoods and phony statistics about home education if it will advance their own point of view. 

What were the two points to which I drew attention over a year ago? Here is one of them. This is a quotation from the document which Education Otherwise are still touting on their website:

 A 2002 study of 419 EHE families in the UK found: 
‘The results show that 64% of the home-educated Reception aged children scored over 75% on their PIPS Baseline Assessments as opposed to 5.1% of children nationally. 

This is completely untrue. The PIPS were actually administered not to 419 families but to 35 children. What is the motive for increasing the number twelve-fold in this way? It is a deliberate and cynical attempt to make the research look a good deal more extensive than was in fact the case. It can hardly be a simple mistake, because of the way that it has been edited to leave out the actual number of children assessed using PIPS.

Here is the other instance which I gave;


A Wiltshire based home education support group has kept records of children in the group since 2002. They found that the 52 older children involved had achieved 199 formal qualifications in 50 subjects with 69% of those qualifications being GCSE or IGCSE, 13% were A levels and others in Tertiary or performance. 50% of those qualifications were taken under the age of 16 years.  33% of those students achieving performing arts qualifications were awarded distinctions and 96% of other grades were at A* -C. (N.Wilts).


This is even more awful! Far from these figures relating to one home education group, they are actually  for the entire population of home educated children in the United Kingdom; perhaps 50,000 children. The reference to , ' the 52 older children involved', is intended to conceal this, by making it seem that we are talking about children involved with this one group. Again, this cannot be an innocent mistake, because the author has gone on to the site and copied the figures. As soon as the person writing this document went onto the site, it would be seen immediately that  anybody in the world can upload anything they please to this site and make whatever claims that they wish. Nobody checks what is put there. Pretending that the results relate to records kept by a single  group  was designed to make them look like verified and typical outcomes for home educated children. There really can be no excuse at all for Education Otherwise not to know about this, because of course the site was set up by Shena Deuchars, formerly their Chair.   Here is the site:


http://www.nwilts-he.org.uk/he_exams_wiki/index.php/Exam_results

I do hope that the irony of this does not escape readers. In 2009, Education Otherwise are filled with righteous indignation at the idea of anybody using false and misleading figures during the course of a debate on home education. Three years later and they are caught playing exactly the same game themselves! Not only that, by encouraging home educators to, 'make good use of this well informed document', they are trying to make others spread misinformation.

The great home educating con-trick

One of the great  pleasures in life is watching how  a thousand or so home educating parents, perhaps 2% or 3% of the total number of home educators in this country, manage to make themselves appear to be an overwhelming majority and thus set the agenda for home education in this country. For those who do not know how this trick is played, it is a fascinating story.  

A small minority of home educating parents in this country belong to organisations, support groups, internet lists and so on connected with home edcuation. These often have a prevailing ideology or orthodoxy; frequently being opposed to visits from local authorities and broadly in favour of autonomous education. Those who disagree with such views usually drift off elsewhere. Such groups are crucial in maintaining the illusion of unanimity among home educators. Those belonging to them get caught up in a kind of hysteria and begin to believe the line that there is a witch-hunt against home education and that the practice might be banned, unless we all fight each and every proposed change. This is why any consultation touching upon home education elicits so much opposition. It is not, as appears to those who do not know how the gag is being worked, a spontaneous outpouring of popular anger against new plans. It is rather that a party line has been established and those associated with this or that support group or members of various internet lists are instructed what to say in their responses and to flood any consultation with furious  denunciations of any plan which promises to make the least alteration to the status quo. Frequently, these people enlist the aid of their friends and families, so that one genuine, home educating parent can be responsible for generating a dozen email responses, all rejecting the new scheme. We saw this happen with the plans in Wales recently and it is still going on.

There is a public consultation taking place until October 25th in Wales, about revised guidance on the safeguarding of children in education. Inevitably, it is being bombarded by hundreds of virtually identical responses, all of them concerned with home education.  Those wishing to object, do not even need to think up their own answers to the questions asked in the consultation. Fiona Nicholson in Sheffield, (yes, I wondered why somebody in Sheffield was so concerned about something which would only affect children in Wales, as well!), has helpfully told those on the Home Education UK and Education Otherwise internet lists what they should think and say about it:

Question 1 – Does the glossary in the Preface provide clear, useful definitions of relevant key terms? If not, what could be improved and how?
Response 1: The definition of "Harm" is a partial quote from the Children Act 1989 and should be reinstated in full. In addition "Significant harm" must be prefaced by the caveat that there is no statutory definition of significant harm and care must be taken to ensure there is no implication that "significant harm" simply means a child whose development is delayed, as otherwise this would have a profound impact on children with learning difficulties and physical disabilities.

Question 4 – Is the guidance in Chapter 2 on the roles and responsibilities of different agencies clear, accurate and helpful? If not, how could it be improved?
Response 4: Firstly, it is not helpful to repeat a meaningless phrase from an English guidance document dating from 2004. Secondly, there should be a reference to children with special needs, making it clear that this is not in itself a reason to question parents' decision to educate at home.

Question 5 – Is the information provided in Chapter 3 clear and helpful? If not, how could it be improved?
Response 5: Firstly, it should be stated that schools are required to notify the authority when a child leaves the school and starts being home educated. Secondly, a crucial phrase has been left out of the quote from Children Missing Education Guidance, namely "the duty does not apply to children and young people whose parents have chosen to electively home educate them." Thirdly, the Children Missing Education Guidance has been paraphrased inaccurately to suggest erroneously that home educated children are "a vulnerable group" and that home education is "a risk factor." Fourthly, the draft guidance has missed out an important reference to the School Attendance Order process. Fifthly, the link to supplementary guidance on Fabricated Illness is broken.


Let’s hope that the Welsh Assembly see through this barefaced plan to allow people in England to dictate to Wales what their educational policies should look like!

Do parents in this country have a right to educate their children at home?

The debate about the Welsh proposals to regulate home education have inevitably brought forth the usual talk of a parental ’right’ to home educate. This is so at odds with the actual state of affairs in England and Wales that I feel it is time once more to shoot down this absurd notion.

We have various rights in this country; for example the right to a fair trial. We are the passive recipients of this right no matter who or what we are. We can be clever or stupid, deaf or blind, confined to a wheelchair or mentally ill, foreign or British; we all have a right, guaranteed by law, to receive a fair trial. The same situation applies to children and education. They have a right, guaranteed under law, to a full-time education. This is irrespective of whether they are clever or stupid, disabled, foreign or anything else; it is a right they all enjoy between the ages of five and sixteen.

Rights are enjoyed by all, but this is not the case with duties. These often entail some activity on the part of those upon whom they are imposed. Take sitting as a juror. This is not a right but a duty. If a potential juror were to be unable to undertake the duty, then he would not be called upon to perform it. Suppose somebody called for jury service were to be deaf, blind, unable to speak and also suffering from a psychosis. Few of us would want such a person to sit in judgement upon us. A person of this sort would not be allowed to undertake the duty of jury service. This is because sitting on a jury is a duty and not a right. Because it entails an activity, it is quite reasonable to enquire whether or not the person concerned is capable of fulfilling the duty. Of course, being deaf, blind, unable to speak and being also mentally ill would not affect somebody’s right to a fair trial. This is the difference between a right and a duty.

Wherever there is a right, there are corresponding duties. In other words, if we have a right to a fair trial, then others have a duty to make sure that we get it. If I have a right to walk down the street, then that right must be protected and others have a duty not to impede me as I stroll down the high road. Rights and duties again, you see; two very different things.

Now if children in this country have a right to an efficient, full-time education, then others must have a duty to see that they get it. The people who have this duty are usually the parents. They have a duty, which means that they must take active steps to ensure that the child’s rights are granted to it. Some undertake this duty by registering the child at school, others prefer to provide the education themselves. They are fulfilling a duty by doing this, not exercising a right.

Since, just as in the case of the disabled juror at whom we looked above, undertaking the duty of providing the child with an education is an active thing, something which parents do, not something to which they are entitled, it is perfectly reasonable that society check that they are in fact capable of carrying out this duty. We would not wish to impose a duty upon somebody who was not up to the job, would we? So it is that society, in the form of local authorities, might wish to reassure themselves that parents are able to perform what is a very arduous duty. Providing a full-time education for a child should not be lightly undertaken and our common sense tells us that just as in the case of the juror who could not be expected to fulfil his duty during a trial, so too will there be parents who are not really up to the job of providing an education for their child. That there should be a presumption that all parents are able to fulfil their duty in this way, would be ridiculous. Many would clearly not be able to do so.

All that is being proposed in Wales is that society enquire a little into the extent to which individual parents are able personally to provide their children with an education, rather than fulfilling their duty towards their child by handing the job over to trained professionals. This has nothing at all to do with the ’rights’ of the parents; they have none in this case. It is concerned solely and simply with protecting the right of the child to a suitable education. In other words, the aim will be to ensure that those charged with the duty of causing the child to receive an education, that is to say the parents, are in fact discharging this duty.

Any debate about the Welsh proposals which makes any mention whatsoever of the ’rights’ of parents has already taken a wrong turn. The only debate about the matter should be whether or not it is being claimed that all parents are actually capable of undertaking this duty, that of educating their children themselves at home. If we agree that some are not, and most of us would concede this, then the question arises as to the extent to which society is entitled to make enquiries and take action to safeguard the rights of children.

Campaigning against the Welsh proposals on home education; a slight problem

I can see a problem looming for those who are gearing up for a Badman style campaign against the Welsh Assembly’s new proposals to regulate home education. It is a very simple one and has perhaps already occurred to some people in Wales. It is this; most of those shooting their mouths off on the subject don’t actually live in Wales and will not be affected in the least by any measures implemented by the Welsh Assembly. I have an idea that this is likely to deal a death-blow to the organised opposition to the registration and inspection proposals which are currently being debated in the principality.

There are not all that many home educating families in Wales, at least compared with this country. Certainly not the tens of thousands that we have in England. Almost all the people who have so far been expressing opinions on the subject are living here in England. I can quite see their point. They fear, quite realistically, that if a regimen of monitoring and inspection is successfully instituted in Wales, then after a year or two, it will be the most natural thing in the world for the government in Westminster to point to it as a great idea that we should adopt here. They are right to fear this; I should say that it would be a racing certainty if the Welsh proposals go through.

Never the less, when meetings in Wales are packed with various English people, some of whom are not even home educators,  it is going to raise a few eyebrows. This will  look particularly odd when speakers from England at such conferences  outnumber the Welsh, as here:

http://www.ehew.co.uk/index.php/conference-oct-18th-2012

 It will also look a bit strange when the responses to the consultation there are found to be vastly more numerous than the total number of Welsh home educators! I am going to be interested to see who in the Welsh Assembly is the first to draw attention to this situation. I quite understand the motives of those in England who are mixing themselves up in this affair, but really it could be argued that  it is nobody else’s business, apart from those who actually live in Wales.

The fight for children’s rights

The struggle to provide children with rights and end their status as mere chattels or belongings of their parents has been a long and bitter one. At every stage, the cry by parents has been the same; ‘The state has no business intruding in family life and is harming the rights of parents by doing so.’

In the 19th Century, many children were forced to work down mines and up chimneys from an unbelievably early age. They had no rights in the matter at all. Each time some piece of legislation prevented, for example, children under the age of ten from going down coal mines; there was outrage, principally from parents. How dare the state dictate to mothers and fathers what their children should or should not do? This was an assault upon the rights of parents and indeed the very institution of the family. If a father could sell his eight year-old son to a chimney sweep for £5, what on earth business was it of anybody else?

Nowhere was this outrage more indignantly expressed than when the government tried to secure the right of children to receive an education. The 1861 Newcastle Report into the State of Popular Education in England summed the case up neatly. It said:



Any universal compulsory system appears to us neither attainable nor desirable. An attempt to replace an independent system of education by a compulsory system, managed by the government, would be met by objections, both political and religious.



Wiser counsels prevailed and in 1870 the Elementary Education Act was passed, popularly known as Forster’s Act. A decade later, education was made compulsory for all children between the ages of five and ten and there was a huge uproar. Parents led the complaints, comparing the British government with that of Prussia; a grave insult indeed! The crux of the matter was that this was an erosion of parents’ rights to raise their children as they saw fit. Compulsory education was an attack on the family. In the ten years following the making of education compulsory for children, prosecutions of parents for the non-attendance at school of their children were running at over a hundred thousand a year. It was the commonest offence in England, apart from drunkenness.

Every single attempt to increase the rights of children, which of course means giving greater duties to their parents, has been met by strong opposition by parents. The governments of the day have had to lead the way, fighting apathy, sloth and reactionary parents in order to furnish children with more legal rights and protection under the law.

In recent years, we have seen two examples of this tendency. One has been the efforts of the legislature to make it a criminal offence to strike children. This has met with only limited success. Parents have fought ferociously to retain their right to beat children. Incredibly, even now in the 21st Century, there are those in this country who feel that they should enjoy the ’right’ to hit their kids! Any attempt to abolish this ’right’ is met by howls of protest and the familiar claim that the state is intruding where it has no business to be; that is to say into family life.

The other recent example of this reactionary and backward-looking trend is of course the campaign by some parents a few years ago to force the state not to enquire to closely into whether or not children were receiving a suitable education. Again, parental ’rights’ were cited and the government was told that any move to check up if children not attending school were actually being educated was an attack on the family by the state. Just as when the 1870 Elementary Education Act was being planned, the case of Germany was brandished by parents fighting against any diminution of their supposed rights. That this was essentially about the rights of parents and not of children can easily be seen by the language being used. The right of children to an education was scarcely mentioned, it was all about the ’right’ of parents to home educate.

Although the calling of a general election in 2010 ended the hopes for this latest extension of children’s rights, the cause is not entirely lost. A first step would be at the very least the registration of all children who are not attending school. Such a move is now planned by Wales and there are signs that Scotland too has such a scheme in mind. If this happens in those two countries, then introducing such registration in England would be merely an exercise in bringing this country into line with what is happening elsewhere in the United Kingdom. As has always happened throughout history, the reactionaries will howl their protests, but we must hope that this time they do not get their own way and that one more step is taken in ensuring that the most vulnerable members of society are properly protected and furnished with the rights that they deserve.

Home education conference

Somebody remarked wryly that this conference in Wales on home education has only one Welsh home educating parent speaking. The rest are either professionals or people from outside Wales.

http://bridgendhomeeducators.org/blog/october-18th-2012-home-education-conference/


Interesting to note that while both Fiona Nicholson and  Louisa Haywood-Samuel are happy to acknowledge that they are home educating parents, Alison Sauer carefully avoids mentioning this; the reason being that she wishes to present herself as a professional and not a parent. Precisely why she is taking part in this conference when she does not live in Wales is a question which several people have raised in emails to me! I am beginning to see why she was irritated at my mentioning home education in Wales on this blog; she thought that I was poaching on her preserves.

Another Serious Case Review involving the death of a home educated child

A few days ago I posted details of a Serious Case Review from Barking and Dagenham which involved the death of a home educated child. Here is one from Wales, which apparently has some bearing on the decision of the Welsh Assembly to look at the compulsory registration of home educated children:

http://www.wrexham.gov.uk/assets/pdfs/lscb/case_review/child_siond.pdf

Home education in Wales

A few links so that those interested in the subject of home education in Wales can find out a little more.




http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education-news/2011/01/20/revealed-the-hundreds-of-welsh-children-being-educated-at-home-91466-28018759/




http://www.home-education.biz/forum/wales/14857-welsh-assembly-govt-sept-consultation-on-home-education.html




http://www.home-education.biz/forum/wales/14923-big-brother-wales-goes-for-compulsory-registration.html




http://edyourself.org/articles/EnglandandWales.php

Wales introducing registratation of home educators

Just on the offchance that nobody else has noticed, I thought that I would mention that next month a bill will be introduced in Wales which will require home educators to register with their local authority.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2012/07/17/carwyn-jones-sets-out-welsh-government-s-law-making-plans-91466-31414898/