More about changing the law on home education

I feel a little sorry for the Welsh home educator who commented here yesterday, saying what a pleasure it was to find a place where home education could be discussed without the quarrelsome and ill -mannered antics of those on some of the home education lists and forums. No sooner had she said this, than some of the more aggressive types zoomed in and showed her that this blog was not a safe space after all! It would be interesting, incidentally, to know how many of those commenting here are, like her, Welsh and so likely to be affected by the laws being proposed by the Welsh Assembly. Anyway, back to the desirability or otherwise of changing the law.


When the Children Schools and Families Bill was about to be passed a couple of years ago, with its provision for the compulsory registration of home education, the assertion was made that such registration and monitoring would harm home educated children. The same suggestion is now being made about the proposed measures in Wales. Commenting here yesterday, somebody claimed that this sort of thing was bad because:



less confident home-educators, who are, nevertheless, doing a better job than schools, may be harmed, along with their children.



This is the sort of thing home educators often say whenever anybody wants to change the law.  I was myself mentioned in the blog Dare to Know, as somebody who would have 'blood on his hands'  if the parts of the CSF Bill relating to home education were to be passed! Statements like this are a bit true, but wholly misleading. For example, I might say that black people are lazy. Well, this is true as far as it goes; after all there are lazy black people. It is misleading though, because of course not all black people are lazy. So suggesting that home educated children will be harmed by this or that new regulation or law may be true, but misleading because not all children will be harmed. Some may be harmed, but others will benefit. So in a sense, both the local authorities and the more militant home educators are both right. The LAs say that registration and monitoring will benefit some home educated children and home educators say that some children will be harmed. This is what it is like in the real world; nothing is black and white and whatever you do, there will be bad consequences for somebody!

Let us draw a comparison with the introduction of compulsory seat belts some years ago. If at the time, I had campaigned against the proposed legislation by claiming that children would be killed and injured as a direct result of this law, I would have appeared to be a bit of a crank. Still, that is probably what has happened. Because drivers feel safer when they and their passengers are wearing seatbelts, they tend to drive faster. This is bad news for pedestrians in built up areas and is likely to end in more pedestrian casualties than when the cars were travelling more slowly. This of course has led to campaigns to reduce the speed limit in certain places. However, those actually in cars are far less likely to be killed and injured when they are wearing seatbelts, so on balance it was a good idea. This is because lots of children travel in cars and there are fewer on bicycles or foot; the net result is fewer children being injured in road accidents.

Introducing a law to regulate home education would be very similar to this situation. Some children would suffer harm, but others would benefit. In order to work out if it is a good plan or not, we have to consider a number of factors. For example, some home educated children are already suffering harm, although others are benefiting enormously from being home educated. A new law would change the balance, with perhaps more children benefiting and fewer suffering harm. Or perhaps it would be the other way round!

Simply stating that home educated children would suffer harm if new legislation were to be passed is utterly meaningless. Of course some will suffer harm, just as some are already suffering. What we must do, and it is not at all an easy proposition, is discover the relative proportions of the increase or decrease in those likely to suffer harm and those who will probably benefit. Then we must somehow calculate the proportions of those being benefited and harmed under the current arrangements. We also need to define just what we mean by 'harm' and 'benefit'.

None of this is straightforward and many of the suggested benefits and much of the supposed harm is pretty vague and intangible. In a sense, there is no fundamental difference between the views of home educating parents and those of most local authorities. Both sides know that some home educated children benefit from the education they receive. Both know also that some children are harmed by being withdrawn from school and educated at home. The debate hinges around the exact proportions involved and this is where the crux of the matter lies.

There is no such thing as a perfect human system or institution. Always, there are victims and winners. This is true of home education, just as it is with schools. I do not see this as grounds for doing nothing and declaring that no change should ever be undertaken. I can see ways that I think that schools could be improved and I can also see scope for new ways of organising home education. My suspicion is that those who oppose any change in the field of education are probably the sort of reactionaries who just do not like new ideas and new ways of doing things. I can understand this; the older I get, the less fond I am of change myself! However, there is a powerful reason for changing the law and this is that the present legal situation is not at all clear. This ambiguity leads to conflict, because sometimes local authorities overstep the mark because they genuinely believe that they have powers which they do not possess. If the precise duties of both parents and local authorities were to be set out in plain language, then I think it likely that there would be less antagonism and confrontation as a consequence, because everybody would know where they stood.

On compelling and forbidding children

Commenting here recently, somebody expressed interest in how I had been able to forbid my child certain things without creating arguments and tension. This strikes me as such a simple business, that I was at first reluctant to devote a piece to the subject. Assuming that the question was meant seriously though, I shall outline the methods used to ensure that a child does not do or even ask for those things of which you, as parent, disapprove. I will not go into the ethics of the case, merely the mechanics of the process.

My daughter was forbidden to watch television or eat ice cream or sweets. Television was a simple and straightforward matter. Because she did not go to nursery or school, she was unaware that slumping alone in front of a screen, watching cartoons and other rubbish, was the main and preferred leisure activity of many children, and adults too for that matter. We have only a fourteen inch screen, anyway, so it is hardly a prominent feature in the home. She grew up never once seeing her parents watch television. If there was something we wished to see, we recorded it and watched it once she was in bed. For her, the very concept of watching a live broadcast was wholly unknown and so she did not know that she was missing out on anything. She would not even have asked to watch television, because she did not realise that ’watching television’ was an activity in itself.

Films about nature and programmes about science are a valuable learning tool and so I used to tape those and let her watch them with me as a treat. It was invariably a shared activity and she never once sat down alone in front of the television. She enjoyed seeing things like the ’Science in Action’ schools’ programmes and David Attenborough and I used these as a reward, a way that we could unwind together. Because this was how our home was constituted, it did not seem odd to her and she never once asked to ’watch television’. Now that she is home for the summer at the age of eighteen, there are of course no restrictions at all upon what she may or may not do. Since she returned a month ago, she has not once switched on the television set. The virtues of early conditioning!

Ice creams were a slightly different case. I would only let her have one when we visited the seaside in the summer. She never asked for one at any other time, because she knew it would have been pointless.

The way to establish such routines and ensure that the child obeys them unquestioningly is by absolute consistency. If you fall into that all too common habit of intermittent reinforcement, whereby you sometimes give in to your child’s requests for a generally forbidden item or activity; then you are lost. Like a gambler who has once won the jackpot, the child will get into the way of nagging and pleading until you give in. I never once varied these rules when she was small and she accordingly knew that there was no point even raising the subject.

I had supposed that things like this were common knowledge among the more enlightened type of parent, but judging from a few comments here, this is perhaps not always the case. There is no cruelty involved in the thing; the child who grows up without ever watching a television broadcast, will not miss it. She cannot possibly do so; the very concept is unknown to her. We cannot miss what we have never known. The case of ice creams is a little different, as my daughter did see other children enjoying them. She knew though that the rule was as fixed and immutable as that of the Medes and Persians. Even if she felt any longing for such a thing at times other than when we were visiting the seaside; she knew that it was hopeless to ask. I do not think it at all a bad thing for children to learn that there are things that they cannot have, no matter how much they might want them. As God He knows, this is a lesson that they need to learn in life and the sooner the better!

Will the Children, Schools and Families Bill kill children?

I have been grappling recently with the assertion made on several lists and blogs that the passage of the CSF Bill will result in the death of children who will commit suicide if forced to attend school. It sounded very implausible to me, but I thought it worth looking into the question in a little depth. To begin with, I telephoned an old friend to whom I have not spoken for a couple of years. She is a Community Psychiatric Nurse who works with adolescents. I put to her the thesis that problems at school or the fear of school were major factors in the suicide or attempted suicide of children and young people. I have to report that she laughed unpleasantly at the idea and gave the kind of snort which is usually rendered as, 'Huh!' Her view was that most of the kids who attempt suicide are disturbed and that their parents often blame schools or bullying as a way of diverting attention from problems at home which have actually had more bearing on the matter. She pointed out that an awful lot of bullying actually takes place within families! She then directed me towards a lot of research, which I am bound to say seems to bear out her opinion. I have listed some of this at the bottom of the post for those who wish to check for themselves.

To begin with, over 90% of children and adolescents who attempt suicide are indeed suffering from psychiatric disorders. Chief among these are emotional disorders including anxiety and depression. Mental illness in children is associated with a number of risk factors such as family conflict, living in rented housing, having a parent with mental heath problems and having a low reading age. A very big factor is the child living apart from the father; in other words being part of a fractured family. This increases the risk of mental illness in a child by 40%. Normal, well balanced and healthy adolescents do not tend to attempt suicide in response to stressful life events, whether involving school or anything else.

It seems to me, after looking into this carefully, that the idea that home educated children would kill themselves if sent back to school is pretty unlikely. I suppose that there would be a slight risk with any such child who was already suffering from a mental illness. Since only 4% of children are in this category, I should think that the chances of any child actually dying as a result of the passage of the Children, Schools and Families Bill is remote in the extreme. It must also be borne in mind that suicide in this age group is very rare, with only eleven cases a year being recorded. This means that on average each year only one child without a psychiatric problem commits suicide. Those wishing to look into this matter for themselves, rather than relying upon Internet gossip, could start by reading Ford, Goodman and Meltzer's article; The relative importance of child, family, school and neighbourhood correlates of childhood psychiatric disorder. This may be found in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 39, 487-96 2004. They might also care to read a publication by the Office of National Statistics called, Mental Health of Children and Young People in Great Britain, 2004.

I am sorry to dispel a popular myth, but suicides of this sort do seem, as my friend suggested, to be connected with psychiatric disorders and unfavourable home circumstances rather than schools. I find it interesting that living with a single mother is the greatest risk factor of all in such conditions and I would be curious to know whether the proportion of home educated children living apart from their fathers is higher than in the general population. The fact that having a low reading age is associated with mental health problems in children and adolescents might also prove of interest to some home educating parents. I think that these would be more productive lines of enquiry than looking at the educational setting itself as a precipitating factor for suicide.

Blood on my hands!

I posted a few days ago about the way that those in favour of new legislation for home education were being accused of having blood on their hands. I now find that I too am in this category. On a blog called Dare to Know, some fool has put the following;

"Wednesday, March 17, 2010
To all supporters of Schedule 1
...of the CSF bill, Deech, Soley, Badman, Ed Balls, Simon Webb, whoever you may be. Be very aware that by forcing children, either because of some administrative error on the part of parents, or because an ignorant LA officer says so and without any chance to offer a defence in court, back into school, you will almost certainly have blood on your hands"

It is not, as readers of this blog will be aware, my habit to be insulting about others, but I cannot help saying that this ill-informed idiot should be set in the pillory and pelted with offal. I have never read such rubbish in my life. Let's examine her claims.

Firstly she says, 'without any chance to offer a defence in court'. This is sheer nonsense. The mechanism for compelling a child to attend school will remain precisely the same as it is now; the issuing of a School Attendance Order. If this is ignored, then the local authority will have to bring a prosecution to enforce it. This is as a result of the case of Bevan V Shears in 1911, a key case of binding precedent which should be familiar to all home educators. Lord Alverstone, in delivering his judgement said,

"In the absence of anything in the bye-laws providing that a child of a
given age shall receive instruction in given subjects, in my view it cannot be said that there is a standard of education by which the child must be taught. The court has to decide whether in their opinion the child is being taught efficiently so far as that particular child is concerned."

It is as a result of Lord Alverstone's judgement that schools and local authorities cannot just force a child to go to school. they must go through the courts. This will not change. Indeed, under the new law another layer of protection is added to the parent who does not wish her child to attend school. They will initially, before a School Attendance Order is even issued, be able to appeal against the refusal or revocation of registration as home educators. See,

" 19 G
Appeal against authority’s decision
(1)
Regulations made under this section shall—
(a)
confer a right of appeal on a parent to whom a local authority
in England have given notice under section 19B(5)(b) or (c) or
19F(3)"


This is from Schedule 1 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill 2009.

As far as the suicide rate among young people aged between eleven and seventeen is concerned, the suggestion is made that this might rise as a result of the passage of this bill. I suppose that this is possible, although it would be very hard to make a direct causal link between the passing of an Act of Parliament and the subsequent suicide of a disturbed adolescent. According to the Office of National Statistics eleven young people a year kill themselves in this country. I suppose that another one or two might commit suicide if they were forced to go to school, but this would probably be countered by saving the lives of children who might kill themselves as a result of abuse suffered at the hands of their parents while being kept away from school. In other words, increasing regulation of home education would probably not increase the overall death rate among young people; simply alter the categories in which the deaths occurred. Actually, the numbers are so tiny that it is unlikely that any noticeable difference would be made. One can never reduce rates of suicide, homicide or abuse to zero.

The fact is that whatever we do or don't do, a certain number of children and young people will be murdered and abused. A small number will also commit suicide. If we tightened the regulations of home education or relaxed them, the overall death rate would be unlikely to change. (There is a booby prize waiting for the first person to either use the expression "Bullycide" or cite the figure of sixteen suicides a year caused by bullying).

The CSF Bill

I find it quite ironic that while many home educators are campaigning furiously for the Children, Schools and families Bill to be scrapped, other groups are campaigning just as vigorously for it to be passed at top speed. The Red Cross is one such organisation. They have arranged for MPs to be deluged with demands that the bill be passed. Below is an example of the letter which they are urging people to send to their MP;

1. Visit the WriteToThem website and enter your postcode to find your local MP.2. Click on your local Member of Parliament.3. Fill in your personal details, then paste the pre-written text (provided below) into the message box.4. Email your MP.
Re: Children, Schools and Families Bill 2009
I am writing to you regarding the Children, Schools and Families Bill as it contains a proposal to make first aid training – within PSHE – a statutory part of the national curriculum.
First aid saves lives, reduces the impact of serious injury and can play a significant role in reducing the burden on the healthcare system. It should play a central role in any preventative health education programme. This is particularly pressing as more than half of the 5.5 million attendees at accident and emergency departments could have benefited from first aid.
For example, more than 100 young people (aged under 15) attend accident and emergency departments every day in the UK with a scald or burn injury. Such injuries are quite easy to treat and benefit greatly from imediate attention, but sadly most people lack the necessary basic skills.
The importance of basic first aid training makes the inclusion of statutory first aid training in the bill a welcome step forward. I am aware that there is a small window of opportunity for this Bill to become law before an expected General Election. As such I would urge you to support the Bill in the upcoming report stage on the 23 February.
Yours sincerely,
(Insert your name)

Actually, others have also been bombarding MPs with letters asking them to spped up the passage of this bill. I just thought that readers might be amused by this and was also wondering whether a big organisation like Red Cross has been able to muster more letters in support of the thing than home educators have against!

The dangers of home education

One of the problems when reading about some risk or danger, is that the jumble of figures produced to back up the claim often means little or nothing to most of us. 0.002%, 1 in 10,000, and so on don't really tell us what we wish to know. Also, to make sense of the figures, we often need a little background information which most of us lack. For example, every year a certain number of people in this country are killed by cows. Suppose we see a newspaper article which tells us;

"Deaths caused by cattle have soared, with a 100% increase this year in Southern England alone"

Scary stuff! Does this mean that we should avoid the countryside for a while until the cows have calmed down a little? The background information necessary to make sense of this, is that around six or seven people a year are killed by cows in the entire country. One or two are killed in Southern England. This means that an increase of 100% means only that one or two more people have been killed. This is roughly the same number of people killed by lightning in Southern England each year; it is an insignificant risk. Only a very neurotic person would cancel a picnic because of a risk like that!

Much the same thing has happened with the figures produced which purport to show that home educated children are at greater risk of abuse. The numbers are so vanishingly small that even if we took at face value the assertion that the rate is double in home educated children, it would still be about as insignificant as being struck by lightning or trampled to death by a cow. This is the problem with very small numbers; even doubling them means that they are still very small numbers.

The real danger for home educated children is not being murdered or abused by one's parents. It is rather that an inferior education might be provided; one even less efficient than that on offer at the local maintained school. Working out the number of such children who are not being properly educated is not going to be an easy task. For one thing, we have no solid data upon which to work. The information held by local authorities is laughably inadequate. I have remarked before that whereas the local authority ceases to have any sort of legitimate interest in home educated children after the last Friday in June of the academic year in which they turn sixteen, the GCSE results don't arrive for another couple of months. Most local authorities never hear how home educated children did in their exams.

The NEET thing, about which so much has been made, is utterly absurd, as an example from my personal experience should demonstrate. Friends of mine, more fanatical, over-achieving home educating parents, coached their son through no fewer than eleven IGCSEs. (The family actually regard me as something of a slacker and a complete sell-out for sending my daughter to college to do her A levels). Their child is studying at home for four A levels and they still have some dealings with their local authority. Because the child is not registered in a school, nor does he have a job, they discovered recently that he is officially listed as a NEET! I think we may safely ignore the figures for NEETs among home educated teenagers.

I strongly suspect that many home educated children don't even take any GCSEs, much less pass five at grades A*-C. I have no hard evidence for this belief, except what I observe of other home educators. I see a few who take many and some who take none at all. Actually, I don't know any who are midway between those two extremes. I can lay my hands on a few who have eight or ten IGCSEs and I also know some who have taken none at all. Perhaps the result is that as a group, home educated children average out at about five each?

I can quite see why local authorities and the DCSF have felt it necessary to conjure up this chimera of child abuse and I don't really blame them at all. It provides a sense of urgency to the debate and encourages all concerned to view this as a matter of safeguarding little kiddies, rather than focusing upon the true reason why this legislation is needed, which is purely educational. Because the fact is that home educated children are in danger. There is a clear and present danger that their education will be neglected or harmed by those who adhere to outdated, crackpot educational theories which many of us left behind in the sixties. But with so many children failing miserably in maintained schools, this perfectly valid argument hardly looks forceful enough. Far better to hint darkly that home educating parents are more likely than most to be starving and beating their children to death! That's the way to get your laws through.

The Children, Schools and Families Bill 2009

This new piece of legislation seems to be the subject of quite a few myths. On television and in newspaper articles, two claims are still being regularly made; local authorities will have a right to enter people's homes and that they will be able to speak to children alone. It is true that both these ideas were suggested by Graham Badman, but there was never the slightest chance of their becoming law. Let's have a look at the reality

Myth 1 Local authorities will be required to visit homes

Reality Here is what the bill actually says;

"Arrangements made by an authority under this section shall include
arrangements made with a view to their—
visiting, at least once in the registration period, the place (or
at least one of the places) where education is provided to the
child."

Unless parents are actually intent upon confrontation, the easiest thing to do will be to arrange to meet in the local library, on the grounds that this is, "one of the places where education is offered to the child". Some parents do this already, so the bill will not make any changes. The very fact that they have included the words, "at least one of the places" suggests that this is going to be fine.

Myth 2 Our children will be interviewed alone

Reality The bill says;

Arrangements made under subsection (3) may, unless the child or a
parent of the child objects, provide for a meeting with the child at
which no parent of the child or other person providing education to
the child is present

In other words, this will only happen if both you and your child are happy for it to happen.

Myth 3 The bill will not become law

Reality When this bill was introduced in the Queen's speech in November, the government knew perfectly well that an election would have to be called by June this year. They took that into account when announcing their programme. The Children, Schools and Families Bill has raced through the Commons with no changes at all to the bits on home education. It will probably clear the Lords in the same way. If it does not do so, then there may be a bit of haggling during the so called "Wash up". Some of the bills introduced in the Queen's speech would then need to be dropped. It is unlikely that the government will want to ditch a bill about improving schools . More likely is that they will abandon some of the less important stuff such as the Cluster Munitions Prohibition Bill or the Digital Economy Bill. The Conservatives are far more anxious to prevent the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill from getting onto the Statute Book, especially now that it includes a provision for the a referendum on AV. At a pinch, the government could force the thing through anyway in one day.


Something which I find a little odd is that home educators do not seem at all interested in any other aspect of this bill. They are very keen to sabotage it if possible and I get the impression that hardly anybody is bothered whether or not the proposals contained in it will actually be good for children. I am thinking of the reform of the primary curriculum following Jim Rose's review, the new pupil parent guarantees, the reform of schools, annual parent satisfaction surveys, wider reporting of proceedings in family courts and so on. One gets the impression that some home educators think that this bill is all about home education, but this is of course nonsense; that takes up a tiny part. Yet these other measure are at least as important for most parents, even home educating parents. I say that because very few children never attend school at all. It is quite possible that if the education system changed a little, fewer parents would feel the need to deregister their kids. From that point of view, the CSF bill is of interest to all parents.

Measuring an education

Over the last few millenia there have been many debates as to what constitutes "a good education". The Greeks had one idea, the Romans another. Through the Renaissance and into the Age of Enlightenment, learned men and women struggled to define just what we mean by "education" and what makes one type of education better than another. Her Majesty's Government are racked by no such doubts and concerns. They know that a good education is one which results in the passing of at least five GCSEs at grades A*-C, including English and Mathematics.

I would imagine that few home educators subscribe to such a narrow view of a good education as does our present government. We are left with a slight problem. How do we know if a home educated child has received, or is receiving, a "good education"? This is a question of more than academic importance. The suspicion is that if the Children, Schools and Families Bill is passed, then some home educated children will as a result find themselves compelled to return to school. If some of the less restrained parents are to be believed, this could end with nervous breakdowns and even suicides. That being so, the search for a definition of a "good education" could conceivably be regarded as a matter of life and death!

Many home educating parents speak glowingly of what one might call the intangible benefits of home education. The leisurely and stress-free pace of the process, the empathy and compassion which they see in their children, the freedom to develop as who they wish to be, rather than mindless robots taking the same string of GCSEs as the other thirty kids in their class. All this is well enough and I am sure that such parents have a point. However, Kindness and altruism are traits which most parents see in their children; these characteristics need not be limited to those taught at home. There is also an effort to allow children a greater choice in which examinations they will take, so that the children in a class of thirty might all have what are known as individualised learning plans. In other words, some of the supposed benefits of home education are, at least in theory, being extended to the state school system.

If parents of home educated children wish to persuade everybody else that their children are actually getting some benefit from home education, then they are going to have to come up with a demonstrable, objective measure of just what it is that those children are getting. This might prove relatively easy for children with special educational needs. Relaxed, one-to-one tuition and activities designed to stimulate the child can often be provided better at home than in a crowded and understaffed unit. Similarly, those whose children were bullied may well be able to make out a case on safeguarding grounds, although it remains to be seen how this will be viewed under the new laws. This still leaves the great mass of home educated children. Those of normal ability whose parents simply prefer having them at home. I am wondering what, if any reasons the parents of such children will be able to give for not coaching and entering their children for examinations, assuming of course that all the recommendations of the Badman Report are implemented and that access to GCSEs is assured.

In short, how will these parents show that their children are receiving a good education, at least as good as that offered by the local schools? If five GCSEs is not the preferred measure of education for such people, what is? What do most home educating parents mean by an education? How will they define it in such a way that the local authority will readily be able to distinguish the child at home who is not taking GCSEs and is never the less receiving a good education and another child who is not taking GCSEs because his parents don't want to go to all the trouble of teaching him? What is the defintion of a good home education, if not five GCSEs?

I am not the only person asking such questions and musing about this subject. If the Children, Schools and Families Bill does become law, then every home educating parent in the land will need to be considering this very question before too long. It might be as well to start now!

Should deregistering a child from school be so easy?

Yesterday evening we had a BBC crew round the house for a programme being made about home education. I was asked whether I thought that new regulations were needed and I replied that I was even more strongly in favour of this than I had been last year. A couple of posts on HE lists today have really given me food for thought in this direction. Lets look at them and see what we think.

On the HE-UK list, the mother of a fifteen year old boy who "hates school" is being pursued by her local authority. They are threatening to prosecute her for her son's truancy. Education does not get much of a mention by this mother. We are told that the son is being seen by the local mental health team and suffers from "anger problems". The whole family are apparently receiving therapy. If ever there was a case for a child being given help and support, this is it. The help could most easily be delivered at school, but of course the boy can, as things stand, be withdrawn at a moment's notice. There is little suggestion that his mother wishes to educate him; she is just seeking an easy way out of a tricky problem, namely the threat of prison.

Over on the EO list is a mother of two children, one nine and the other thirteen. Their mother has withdrawn them from school and since then;

"we're just taking it easy at the moment and not getting up to much, I supposed we will learn as we go along?"

Unbelievable. She goes on to say;

"I'd like to meet some more people in the local area so I can get some more ideas as to what to do with them."

Call me Mr. Fuddy Duddy, but might she not have considered "what to do with them" before, rather than after, they were deregistered ? The truth is that this is such a straightforward and simple procedure that there is very little incentive to so. Kid doesn't want to go to school? Hey, why not deregister him? It only takes the cost of a stamp!

I have to say that this is a truly shocking state of affairs. I am passionately committed to home education and always have been. But that parents would withdraw their children from school to avoid prosecution for truancy in this way or deregister two children and only then start thinking about "what to do with them" is utterly appalling. So when the programme on home education is screened in a couple of weeks time, I hope that viewers will understand why I was so vehement. There is something dreadfully wrong with the present arrangements for home education in this country. It is not that I am all in favour of structured education and opposed to autonomous learning. It is that I have seen and still see parents like those mentioned above who withdraw their children from school simply because it is so easy. In both cases, there is no talk at all of providing an education. Withdrawing the children from school is the object of the exercise and only once it has been done will anybody consider what the children might need next. The sooner the Children, Schools and Families Bill 2009 becomes law, the better.

Amendments to the Children, Schools and Families Bill

As far as I can gather, those home educators opposed to the above piece of legislation have two hopes; two possible courses of events which they believe might prevent the provisions relating to home education ever reaching the Statute Book.

The first of these possibilities is that the bill will simply run out of time. That is to say that things will drag on until the election in May and that the Government will be forced to abandon some of the legislation which was announced in the Queen's speech in November. It is possible that this will happen, but rather unlikely. For one thing, this bill is about education and so very popular with many people, including the electorate. It was designed to be that way. All the talk of increased power for parents and the licensing of teachers has gone down very well with a lot of parents. Educational standards are still plummeting and somebody must be to blame. Hey, it must be the schools and teachers! Hurray, the Government is going to give more power to us to call schools to account. I simply cannot see this bill being abandoned and it is currently moving very quickly through the system.

The other hope is that some amendments will be made to the clauses which specifically relate to home education. There is another problem here. This is a very long bill and most of the amendments concern all sorts of other things that have nothing at all to do with home education. Since the Government will be in a hurry during the run up to the election, they are liable to grow increasingly impatient with delays. The Equalities Bill, currently with the Lords, had over two hundred amendments scheduled. Discussion of all these was allocated just one day. I doubt if the amendments relating to home education will even be discussed in the end. It is true that some MPs are determined to draw attention to the new regulations, but they may not get a chance. It is entirely possible that the Government will impose a guillotine on the business. This means that there will be a certain fixed time for the amendments and then the talking ends and the bill goes to the Lords. If the House have not reached the amendments relating to home education by that time; that's just too bad.

It is true that it then needs to clear the Lords, but with the quickening pace over the next few months, that will perhaps not delay it for long. All the MPs who are ringing their hands and telling home educators that they share their pain at these iniquitous proposals know all this very well. They know that the Tory whips are already getting together with the Labour whips and working out a deal about what will go through in the wash up and what will not. People like Barry Sheerman will emerge looking like heroic strugglers for the rights of home educators, a man who did his best but was ultimately defeated by the faceless men in grey suits who did a deal behind his back. I'm sure that he'll still pick up a few votes as a result, as well as gaining a reputation as the champion of civil rights.

My own feeling is that this bill will almost certainly go through and that home educating parents should be aiming at a rather different target. The Children, Schools and Families Bill is essentially an enabling act. It is a bare framework which says very roughly what will be happening. It does not say in any detail how these things will happen. These details will be fleshed out later in a series of Statutory Instruments. In other words, a statement of educational provision is mentioned in the bill, but nobody has the least idea of what is meant by this. Most of the provisions are similarly vague. Here is where there is scope for parents to work together with local authorities to thrash out a deal which both sides could live with. Before the DCSF starts handing out Statutory Instruments to define this aspect or that, perhaps such things as what constitutes a "suitable education", they will consult with the local authorities. If the local authorities then announced that they had reached an amicable agreement with home educators as to what both sides could live with, then the Government of the day would be delighted; it would mean one less area of conflict.

I am no longer a home educator, but if I were I should be thinking very seriously about starting a dialogue with local authorities now and working alongside them to present a programme to central government which all parties agreed on. If this is not done, then the local authorities and the DCSF will simply sit down together and work out what is best for home educated children and parents will have no say in it at all.

The Children, Schools and Families Bill

Those trusting folk who were foolish enough to rely upon Conservative and Liberal Democrat promises for help in opposing the passage of the new Children, Schools and Families Bill might perhaps have received a nasty shock yesterday. The chamber was all but deserted during the Second Reading of the bill. Presumably all those MPs who swore solemnly to uphold the rights of home educating parents had remembered that they had other, more urgent, business to attend to that day; like getting ready for a general election in four months.

Personally, I have nothing at all against the new legislation, but I always thought that from a tactical viewpoint it was a great mistake to put everything into a "No Surrender" policy which left no room for manoeuvre. If only home educators and the organisations which represent them had shown a willingness to negotiate, a bit of give and take, then the provisions made in Schedule 1 of this bill could probably have been altered a little. As it is, they will get the whole package of measures as designed by Ed Balls and his civil servants.

Things are now moving along with the inevitability of Greek tragedy, those who hoped to stop this piece of legislation having massively underestimated this Government's ability to ram through laws that they want, disregarding any opposition. The new Equality Bill, for example, had no fewer than two hundred amendments scheduled for debate. The Government allowed just one day for this. As we approach the general election, plans are already being made between the two main parties for what is known as "Wash up Week". This means that the Government and the opposition engage in a lot of horse trading to establish which bits of the Government agenda will get through parliament before the election is called. The Tories will certainly wish to block some of the intended legislation, perhaps that relating to banks. The price for this will be allowing other bills, such as the Children, Schools and Families Bill to pass in their entirety. This decision has probably been taken already, which would explain why Tory MPs didn't think it worth sticking around for the Second Reading yesterday.

When all's said and done, the new bill is likely to be pretty popular with ordinary people, including MPs. It offers more power to parents, brings in the Rose primary curriculum and offers one-to-one tuition for failing pupils. The licensing system for teachers is likely to be viewed favourably as well. Most people will think that if teachers need to be checked regularly to see if they are up to the job, then why not parents who are also acting as teachers?

As I say, this does not bother me much. I find it slightly irritating though that those campaigning for this bill to be stopped should not have realised what was going to happen. Do they really know nothing about guillotines on debates? Did they not know that the proximity to a general election would make it more likely that this bill would be passed rather then less likely? Did it not occur to anybody that if home educators were prepared to compromise, then they might have salvaged something from all this? Were they really so innocent as to take what a load of Tory MPs were telling them at face value? I do not know the answers to any of these questions, but I have not the least doubt that the Children, Schools and Families Bill will be passed before the beginning of May.

Should home education be discouraged?

I said in a recent post that I had a fairly light hearted attitude towards the fact that my local authority has an extremely misleading policy about elective home education. This led to a stern reproach from somebody who made the comment that this could discourage parents from choosing to educate their own children. This may well be so, but would it necessarily be a bad thing?

Educating one's own child is an enormously time consuming task which occupies the whole of one's life. When first I embarked upon it, I had a vague idea at the back of my mind that I would be able to write and do other things at the same time, that the education might perhaps fit in around my other interests. This was ridiculously optimistic and the reality has been that for fifteen years, I have had to put almost everything on hold. I cannot imagine that I could have done any less and still delivered a first class education. I don't think that it would have stopped me from home educating, knowing what a huge job it was, but it would not have been a bad thing to know in advance. Some of the provisions of the new Children, Schools and Families Bill are designed specifically with this end in mind; to impress upon those who are considering home education, just what a time consuming, lifestyle changing business it will be.

The twenty day cooling off period is supposed to do this, to give the parents a few weeks to think things over before making the final, irrevocable step of deregistering their child from school. The requirement to submit a statement of approach also tends to this end. At the moment, parents can just dash off letters to their children's school, pull them out and that's pretty much it. This is an appalling state of affairs. I had been a supporter of home education for years before my own children were born and had read a great deal about it, even so the reality was a bit of a shock for me. I had no idea how intense it would be. I think anything that prepares parents for this culture shock must be a good thing, as is anything which makes the decision more serious and causes a parent to stop and think about what she is about to do.

For this reason, I cannot see anything wrong in local authorities having stuff on their websites which make the process of deregistering a child and teaching her at home seem a little daunting. It think it a good thing. Those who are determined to do so will of course persevere, but it might well discourage some who have thought about home education simply as a reaction to some problem they are encountering. Of course, once you look into the matter, you will soon find out that the process of deregistering is straightforward and that the powers of the local authority are in fact quite limited. Never the less, the sort of thing that many local authorities put on their websites will give food for thought to those who might be about to embark upon this course of action.

Those awfully nice Tories

There seems to be great rejoicing over the fact that the Tories have revealed themselves to be the friends of the home educators. Also, I observe, a good deal is being made of the petitions which have been presented in parliament and how well all this bodes. Well, yes........and no.

In the first place, it has to be borne in mind that Conservative MPs would cheerfully support the Waffen SS and their right to ethnically cleanse Poland, if they thought it would enable them to score a couple of points against the government. Any cause will do at the moment, provided that it makes the Tory party look as though they care about the rights of the ordinary person in this country. Home education fits the bill a treat. Fortunately, none of this makes a blind bit of difference to the actual outcome of the present administration's legislative programme. With the majority they currently enjoy, the Government could force anything through the House at the moment. The Conservatives know this, which is why they feel able to play these games and present themselves as the party of principle.

As far as the high level of support for opposition to the provisions of the new Children, Schools and Families Bill, how many people have actually signed these petitions so far? I know that the latest online petition has two or three thousand signatures, but what of the ones presented by the MPs? Does anybody know the total number there?

I do not wish to appear a Jeremiah, but I would not personally trust the Conservatives too much on this issue, when once they get into power. Being tough on standards of education is very popular these days and I would be very surprised if a similar proposal did not crop up under the next Tory administration. The point to remember with our democracy is that a lot of the time the laws that are brought in do actually reflect the concerns and wishes of the man in the street. Of course, the man in the street might be an idiot, but his vote does count and so governments like to pander to him whenever possible. I can remember many occasions when the opposition has denounced some government move as iniquitous, only to introduce an almost identical law as soon as the keys to ten Downing Street have changed hands. I suspect that this is what is likely to happen if the Conservatives get in before the Children, Schools and Families Bill has reached the Statute Book.

Special interest groups

There are a lot of good things about living in a representative democracy such as we have in this country and there are some bad things. A good thing is that we actually get a chance every few years to change the government. In practice, this means choosing between Labour and Conservative of course. We do not directly make the laws, we elect representatives to do it on our behalf. These are our MPs. By and large, the system works pretty well. It works at least as well as any other method and better than most, although it has its drawbacks. One of these is that it is easy for minority groups to get trampled down.

Sometimes governments decide to be tough on some minority or other deliberately, because it will be popular with everybody else and the actions they take distract people from the failure of the government in other areas. Cracking down on asylum seekers or benefit cheats are an example of this. It can serve to make your government look tough and determined to look after the interests of the ordinary citizen. It can also grab the headlines and make the voters forget how you are screwing up the economy or launching illegal wars. Banning hunting or the keeping of certain breeds of dog were also measures of this sort. Almost always, before they act in this way, the government of the day finds out how the masses will view this attack on a small, special interest group. The idea is to gain votes, not lose them!

Some of these attacks on small groups are greeted with wide approval. The ban on hunting was very popular with people living in the cities. Often, the members of the special interest group under attack are baffled by the public reaction. They are so used to belonging to this group and identify so closely with its aims and purposes, that they are honestly surprised to hear that many people do not like what they are doing and think it should be stopped. However, governments are quite clever at this sort of thing. In many cases, whatever their motives, and these are often cynical and populist, the end results of their clamping down on some group or other do tend towards the common good. This is how many people, including I am guessing many people who read this Blog, felt about the law on fox hunting.

Which brings us neatly to home education and the Children, Schools and Families Bill. There are two important points to consider here. Firstly, the present administration is onto a winner with this. Examining teachers' fitness to do their job regularly is likely to play very well with the electorate. So are pledges to raise educational standards in general. So to are action on safeguarding concerns about children taught at home. Now I have made it fairly plain I think that I do not believe that this is really a valid point at all, but that does not matter in the slightest. Everybody else send their kids to school and there is bound to be a certain amount of suspicion attached to those who don't. If they are making sure that schools and teachers are up to scratch, then why not check out those parents who are teaching their kids at the same time? Sounds good to Joe Public. When you combine this with spurious safeguarding fears, it becomes a classic case of working up a fear about the safety of kiddies and old folk, always a winner with voters.

Just as those who went hunting foxes did not really see the public mood, so too home educators appear to be a little out of touch. This is in the nature of special interest groups in any case; they assume everybody understands and shares their concerns. The Badman review of elective home education was very big news for home educators, for instance, but 99% of the public had not even heard of it. The Queen's speech was anxiously awaited to see what she would have to say on the subject of home education, but the newspapers and television did not bother overmuch with that aspect; it didn't matter to most people. Most coverage of the Children, Schools and Families Bill made no mention at all of the new regulations regarding home education. It was of little interest.

I suppose that I am observing this developing situation with a certain amount of detachment and wish that home educating parents would be a little more accommodating to local authorities. I suspect that if the bill does get passed before June, parents are going to find a system imposed upon that that they will have had no part in shaping. Many local authorities are prepared to work with home educators towards a new regimen, but the feeling seems to be that if everybody flatly rejects change, then it simply will not happen. I find this unduly optimistic.

A way forward?

I have been thinking today about the seemingly implacable hostility that exists between certain home educating parents and their local authorities. Without considering the rights and wrongs of the case, because I have not the slightest doubt that there are faults on both sides, I was wondering if there is any way of finding a compromise.

It is becoming increasingly likely that the Children, Schools and Families Bill will be passed before the next general election. There may be one or two MPs and Lords who are prepared for various reasons to oppose this measure and help try to prevent it reaching the Statute Book, but I would not think that they will be able to do this. A bill full of provisions designed to crack down on inefficient schools and useless teachers is not likely to face widespread opposition in either the Lords or Commons. Most of our legislature will hardly notice the few paragraphs which introduce registration and monitoring of home educators. Those who do spot them will probably approve.

Let us assume for a moment the bill actually becomes law. I am well aware that many parents are determined not to co-operate with local authority officers on various aspects of it. Is there room for meeting half way though? On the subject of registration, this is more or less a done deal. When ContactPoint is switched on, any child who has a blank field for "Educational Setting" will be receiving a letter from her local authority making enquiries. This will be de facto registration in itself. But what about the requirement for a statement of educational intent and so on?

I think I am right in saying that hardly any parents object to sending their local authority an educational philosophy. It seem to be a pretty standard response to enquiries and often used as a way to fend off a visit. It seems possible that this will not be considered sufficient in the future. An awful lot of parents are very much opposed to providing a curriculum, claiming that this would destroy the whole basis of autonomous education. Without going into the rights and wrongs of this position, is there a way that something more than an educational philosophy could be put together, which was a little more detailed as regards what the education was intended to provide for the child? Something less than a curriculum, certainly, but a good deal more than the sort of vague waffle which some parents currently submit to their LA? How far would parents be prepared to go in order to accommodate their local authority and avoid conflict on this particular matter?

At the moment, a lot of parents, perhaps the majority, seem to be against visits. I say the majority, because of course all those who are not at the moment known to their local authority presumably do not want visits. According to most estimates, these are at least as numerous as the parents who are known to local authorities. I can see that there will be trouble if local authority officers march into such homes and demand that little Johnny demonstrate that he knows his multiplication tables or has read Great Expectations . However, they will want to see the child and probably talk to him. What sort of model for these encounters would satisfy home educating parents? Assuming that is, that non-compliance is not an option and that a blanket refusal to engage with the LA might lead to court? Have parents any idea how this conflict could be resolved in a way which would satisfy both themselves and their local authorities?

I cannot think that an adversarial approach to these new regulations will benefit anybody, least of all the children concerned. If we take as given that change is coming and that home education in this country will be regulated and governed for the first time by laws which explicitly recognise its existence, then the only question remaining is how parents adapt to those laws and help mould the local authority practice. I do not wish to be a Cassandra, but I can easily see that if home educating parents launch a campaign of non-cooperation, this will ultimately lead to court proceedings and trauma for children who have been withdrawn from school for bullying. I don't think this will be to anybody's advantage.

A plot to destroy home education in this country?

Ever since Graham Badman's review of elective home education was launched in January, suggestions have been made that it was all part of a sinister and deeply laid plot, having as its ultimate aim the abolition of home education in this country. The publication of the Children, Schools and Families Bill, which contains draft regulations relating to home education, seems to have provoked even normally rational people into wild speculations upon the eventual outcome for home educators if things carry on like this. So let us bring this idea out into the open and examine it carefully to see if there might be any substance in the notion that certain members of the government actually hope to make home education impossible in England and Wales.

The first question we must ask is that classic enquiry when a suspected crime has occurred; cui bono? Who benefits from this thing? Well who would benefit if home education stopped being a viable option for parents in this country? In order to answer that, we might begin by asking ourselves what the practical consequences would be of the abolition of home education.

With schools currently at bursting point, the immediate result of something like 80,000 extra children suddenly being registered at school would be a demand for somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 new teachers. (Assuming roughly one teacher per thirty new pupils.) In the long term, fifty or sixty new schools would need to be built to accommodate all these pupils; so the first beneficiary might be the teaching profession. New jobs, new schools and an acknowledgement that education is a state monopoly, not something any Tom, Dick or Harry can just do in their kitchens whenever they feel like it! This is an interesting hypothesis, but it does not really hold water.

The new regulations regarding home education are contained in the Children, School and Families Bill. They are only a small part of it. Much is taken up with various initiatives designed to raise standards in schools. If the teaching profession were behind this new bill, and I have to say that I don't really buy into the idea of a teachers lobby forcing the government's hand, then it is surprising that so many of the bill's provisions are designed to make life more difficult for teachers. For example, the idea that teachers will need in to be re-examined every few years to see if they are still fit to teach. Why on earth would teachers wish to force measures like this onto the Statute Book? I'm not sure either how keen I would be as a teacher to have a load of home educated children suddenly foisted off on me. All those weird parents causing trouble and making complaints at every touch and turn! I would have thought that most teachers could do without the aggravation. So I must conclude that if there really is a plot, then teachers are not at the back of it.

Who else might be implicated? Could it be that the government, or even just an individual member of the cabinet like Ed Balls, is dead set on getting rid of home education? What would the government get out of it? How would they benefit? I suppose that it could serve to make them look as though they were very concerned about vulnerable children and determined to take robust steps to protect them. The only problem here is that most of the electorate have not even noticed that home education is facing new controls. If it was done as a publicity stunt, then I would have expected to see a little more publicity associated with it. In the event, it has been simply slipped past in a few obscure pages of the Children, Schools and Families Bill. Hardly anybody apart from home educating parents themselves even know that it has happened. For that reason, I think we can acquit the government of playing to the gallery on the child protection issue. They have not drawn enough attention to what they are doing for that to be the case.

What other culprits could be in the frame for this? It is hard to identify any one group or even a combination of groups who would benefit enough from the destruction of home education to make it worth their while. The medical profession? Big Pharma? Psychiatrists? The military-industrial complex? Area 51? I am quite open to hearing any suggestions as to who or what could be behind a plan to get rid of home education in Britain.

In the meantime, I shall continue to assume that the stated aim is the true one; to ensure that children withdrawn from school are in fact educated at home. I am quite prepared to believe that many parents disagree violently with Graham Badman, Ed Balls and many of the officers working for local authorities. I am also able to accept that people like Badman and Balls might be mistaken in what they think about home education and wrongheaded in their whole approach. I do not happen to believe personally that this is the case, but I am certainly open to the possibility that they, and of course me, are quite wrong. However, unless strong and convincing evidence emerges, I shall continue to think that they are actually acting honestly and that they have the best interests of children at heart.

More good news for autonomous home educators

There can be few spectacles less attractive than that of a man crowing, "I told you so, you idiots!" Fortunately, I am possessed of sufficient self control that I shall not be yielding to this enormous temptation. Ever since Graham Badman's report was published, excitable people have been claiming that all his recommendations would become law. There was, realistically, little chance for many of them. Badman is not a lawyer and many of his idea were hopelessly impractical, however desirable they might have been. I am surprised that others could not see this. On September 16th I posted a piece asking what changes in the law were likely. I concluded it by saying;

"To summarise, there is a long way to go before anybody needs to get het up about all this. My personal view is that some new legislation would not come at all amiss. I realise that not everyone agrees with me on that point, to say the least of it. But it does not really matter, because the chances of local authorities actually ending up with specific powers about interviewing children alone are negligible."

A number of individuals responded indignantly, telling me in effect that I did not know what I was talking about. I am saying this for a reason, not just as an act of odious and smug self-congratulation for my prescience, (although no doubt there is an element of that). Exactly the same thing is now happening again. People are reading the new guidelines and regulations and imagining that every jot and tittle will be as fixed and immutable as the laws of the Medes and Persians. It is not so.
Here is an example of the sort of thing which will provide a loophole;

"19E
Monitoring provision of home education to registered children
25
(1)
A local authority in England shall make arrangements with a view to
ascertaining, so far as is reasonably practicable—
(a)
whether the education provided to a child whose details are
entered on their home education register is suitable;"

At once, we focus upon those words, "so far as is reasonably practicable". In other words, there will not be an absolute duty on the local authority at all, only, "so far as is reasonably practicable". What will this mean? Perhaps families who do not co-operate fully with providing a statement of what they intend over the coming year will mean that it is not reasonably practicable to ascertain if their provision is suitable. Possibly awkward customers will not be able to be dealt with for the same reason. At the very least, we know that the local authority has a get out clause which will enable them to slacken off if they feel like it.
Here is another interesting bit;

"(3)
Arrangements made by an authority under this section shall include
arrangements made with a view to their—
40
(a)
holding at least one meeting with the child during the
registration period;"

Note that the law will not state unequivocally that local authorities must meet the child. Rather, they will make arrangements "with a view to" doing so. When laws are framed in this wooly way, there is usually a reason for it. After all, there was nothing to prevent the blunt statement, "The authority will hold at least one meeting with the child".

All the signs are that these regulations have been carefully worded so as to allow the local authorities plenty of space to manoeuvre and not enforce them too rigorously. Add to that the fact that the old School Attendance Order will remain as the primary tool for getting children back to school and that this must be enforced by a court and I can see that very few, if any, home educated children will in the end be forced unwillingly to school.

The new law - fears and realities

Ever since the publication of the Badman Report in the Summer, there has been great anxiety on the part of some home educating parent as to what changes there will be in the law relating to home education. Will children be interrogated alone? Will the local authority be given right of entry to our homes? Will they try and impose the National Curriculum of home educators?
Well the draft regulations have now been published and pretty tame they are too. What difference will they make to most home educators? None at all. Let us look at the original fears and then see how the law as set out in the Children, Schools and Families Bill will actually work.

Fear No. 1 Children will be interviewed without the parents being present.

Reality;

"Arrangements made under subsection (3) may, unless the child or a

parent of the child objects, provide for a meeting with the child at

which no parent of the child or other person providing education to

the child is present."

In other words, meetings without the parents will only take place by agreement with the parents and child.

Fear No. 2 The local authority will have the right to enter our homes.

Reality;

"visiting, at least once in the registration period, the place (or

at least one of the places) where education is provided to the

child."

This might be the local library, for instance. No mention at all of the home.

Fear No. 3 The definition of a "suitable education" will be tightened up.

Reality;

"For the purposes of this section a child’s education is suitable if it is
35
efficient full-time education suitable to—

(a)
the child’s age, ability and aptitude, and

(b)
any special educational needs the child may have."

The definition of a suitable education is unchanged.

Fear No. 4 Parents who don't notify the local authority may be guilty of a criminal offence

Reality;

The onus is firmly on the part of the local authority to track down and register children. There are no penalties for not announcing that you are home educating.

I could go on point by point, but I think this will do. Most parents will not even notice the difference. Local authorities will want to meet parents and children, but even that is hedged around with the proviso, "as far as is practical". This will give local authorities leeway not to insist upon it. True, the local authority will have the power to revoke registration if parents do not co-operate, but this does not alter the existing position either. If they revoke registration, then they will have to issue a School Attendance Order and the whole matter will move to the magistrates court. This will give the parents the chance to argue their case. There is nothing to stop LAs from doing this already with unco-operative home educators. I doubt it will become any more frequent.

All in all, this seems a very good outcome for home educating parents. I dare say that some will still manage to engineer confrontations with their local authority, but for the great majority, their minds will be put at rest and they can relax and carry on with their children's education.