Mr Williams of Hampshire explains how to avoid legal problems with your local authority

Peter Williams has been explaining to readers here how letting in an official from the local authority can create legal problems at a later stage. He says:

The LA officer will be judging your home is it tidy to his standard and if he believes the education is not good enough he can then go on to cause you a lot of problems because his report about you will be used in a court of law to attempt to prove the education your giving your child is not up to standard once stuff is writing down by an LA officer it is almost impossible to get it changed.

Well, that seems quite plain. To avoid any legal action, just refuse to let the local authority officer in the house in the first place. Oh, wait a minute. let's look at this:

Oh so that's how you avoided legal problems with your local authority so successfully, Mr Williams! I'm sure that other readers will be grateful for your hints on this subject.

What is wrong with people???

Today’s post will not be the carefully reasoned and meticulously researched observations on British home education that readers are used to finding on this blog. Instead, it is little more than  a mad rant. This is such an unusual occurrence that I feel it necessary to apologise in advance.

On one of the main home education lists, a new member has posted, seeking advice. He is separated from his partner and their child lives with him and is educated at home. The kid’s mother has contacted the local authority and expressed fears about the child’s health and the educational provision being made.  Somebody from the local EHE department came round to visit, but was denied sight of the child, because he or she did not wish to see the local authority officer. Now, the superior of the person who visited has insisted on physically seeing the child. 

Now to my mind, this is a complete mare’s nest anyway. If the child is fit and healthy, then all the father needed to do was to say to his son or daughter, “Look, I know this is a damned nuisance, but these idiots will not leave us alone until they have checked that I am not beating or starving you. Let’s just humour them and then they will go away.” I speak here as a man who did not notify the local authority of his provision and felt it easier for all concerned just to let them poke their head around the door when we bumped into a truancy patrol. I said something to my eight year old daughter very much  along the lines which I suggest above and it worked a treat. It is not a question of rights; it is dealing with an irritating problem in the most straightforward way that one can manage.

What advice did he actually receive? Well, that welfare is not any concern of the team who supervise or inspect elective home education. That in any case, the local authority have no legal right to insist upon seeing the child. That he should write a snotty letter to the local authority and try and put their backs up by quoting the law to them. These are all such appalling ideas that you cannot help wondering if the men who gave them are trying to cause problems for this fellow out of sheer mischief! Here is a child about whom concerns have been raised. Of course it is not the proper business of an EHE advisor to act on welfare or safeguarding concerns; that goes without saying. Ask yourself this though. If the father sticks to his guns and refuses to let them see his child, what do you think the next step will be; bearing in mind that quite apart from any genuine concern,  the people dealing with EHE will wish to cover their backs? Yes, that’s right. They will pass the enquiry over to social services. Here is another question. Which would you prefer; to deal informally and on a purely voluntary basis with your local EHE department or to have social services open a file on your child and start sniffing around your house? Anybody prefer the second of these two options?

I cannot believe that anybody could give this poor fellow such awful advice and wait with a sense of horrible anticipation for his next post, which will be along the lines of, “Social services are investigating my family; how can I get them to back off?”

Home educated children missing from education

As some readers may be aware, there has recently been a consultation about revising the statutory guidance on Children Missing from Education or CME. Needless to say, this has provoked anger among certain home educators who are concerned that the CME agenda might end up with local authorities chasing home educating parents. This would be absurd, wouldn’t it, because home educated children are not missing from education at all?

This is really an etymological and perhaps philosophical problem. Can we change the essential nature of a thing by altering its name? To make this clear, I want to look at a specific case and then invite readers to suggest their own solutions. Local authority officers read this blog, as do civil servants working for the Department for Education; so this is an opportunity to explain to them where they are going wrong!

Fourteen year-old Jack has a history of playing truant and under-achieving at school. He has very limited literacy; barely enough to read the simplest of texts. This is not caused by dyslexia, he has been tested for this, but because he mucks about in class and misses a lot of school. His mother has to leave for work early and Jack is left to get himself up and to school. He often does not manage to do so. Soon after his fourteenth birthday, Jack stopped going to school altogether. He is over six feet tall and his mother cannot physically make him get up. He usually rises at about one or two in the afternoon and then watches TV or plays on the Xbox until his mates finish school. Then he hangs round with them. He seldom gets to bed before two or three in the morning.

Naturally, his mother was  worried about being prosecuted for truancy, but a friend told her that if Jack was registered as being home educated, then she won’t need to worry. She accordingly downloaded a template for a deregistration letter from an internet site and sent it to the school. When the local authority asked to visit, she also downloaded and adapted an educational philosophy for an autonomous education and then sent them that, declining a visit.

Here then is the real situation. A semi-literate child is receiving no education of any sort whatsoever. He will not only pass no GCSEs, he is unlikely to attend college and his mother is not the type to arrange an Open University course. His older friends are all unemployed and make a living from a combination of benefits and petty crime. Jack is moving in the same direction. He is, without a shadow of a doubt, a child missing from education. The question is, should describing a child missing from education in this way as being ‘home educated’ be enough to prevent the local authority from taking any further action?

I invite readers now to take the role of a local authority officer and decide what to do next. Should they issue a School Attendance Order? On what grounds could they do so? They have no solid evidence that Jack is not receiving an education. Should they turn up on the doorstep and try to speak to the mother or child? We all know how some home educators view the practice of ‘doorstepping’! Perhaps they should simply write the kid off and forget him? Do we really want local authorities to abandon a vulnerable child in this way? Should they send another letter?

I will be interested to know how readers think that a local authority should actually deal with a child of this sort who is missing from education. As I said earlier, this is a golden opportunity for you to tell local authority officers where they are going wrong and how they should deal with cases like this without resorting to doorstepping or other unacceptable strategies.

Good and bad advice

I have been musing today on the disadvantages for home educated children, particularly the older ones, whose parents refuse to have any dealings with their local authority. I have been prompted to do this by my recent exchanges in the comments on this blog with a person who believes that a teenager who takes no examinations and learns about nothing but housework will be in a better position to gain employment than a graduate of Oxford University. Now before we go any further, I am quite prepared to believe that the person expressing these views is a muddle-headed crank, but there is a little more to the case than that. Let us see what was said and why this has a bearing on home education in general.

After discussing the case of a woman, Joy Baker, who refused to enter her children for any examinations and felt that girls should only learn about cooking and childcare, the comment was made that:



I'll warrant then that Joy's girls would have had to learn cookery, nutrition, household management, child care and basic account keeping - all valuable life skills and skills that would have enabled them to earn a living since these are services people pay for. On the other hand Simon Webb managed to equip his daughter to take a degree in the "non-subject" of philosophy. On balance I know which education seems to have been the most suitable.



He or she then went on to say:




A philosophy graduate may be lucky enough to find a reasonably well paid job. I doubt they will ever actually produce anything and most likely they will forever be a burden on the public purse - I suspect there are not too many openings for philosophy graduates in the private sector.





Now it is plain that here is a person who believes that a child raised at home without taking any examinations, or even studying conventional academic subjects, will be better placed in the job market than an Oxford graduate. This is an utterly bizarre notion and the evidence is wholly against it.

There are several problems with this point of view, which is not a particularly uncommon one to see expressed by some home educating parents. First, it is false. All the evidence is that university graduates in general earn far more over their lifetime than those who do not attend university. There is an added ‘premium’ for universities in the Russell Group. Graduates from these places are viewed with particular favour by potential employers. The subject of the degree is not all that important. Few of those who study history go on to become historians, just as few of those who study philosophy become philosophers! It is the degree itself and the nature of the university from which it was obtained that count highly.

The idea that there could be any advantage in not studying academic subjects or having GCSEs or A levels, is also a strange one. There is a direct and strong correlation between the possession of five GCSEs and employment prospects, to say nothing of life chances in general. The same person who felt that a childhood spent learning domestic drudgery was a better education than one spent at university said;



A person who can make their own clothes, grow, cook and preserve their own food, account for and manage money will have a skillset that is not only saleable but will ensure they can ever after provide for their needs without falling back on the public purse.




This may be true if you are living in the Middle Ages, but for city dwellers in a 21st Century, industrial society, it is something of a fantasy.

Where do visits from the local authority come into this? If a parent were to be in contact with her local authority and having visits from an adviser, she would be far less likely to believe foolish and dangerous nonsense of this sort. At the very least, she would have access to somebody who could explain to her that a girl learning about nothing but cooking and taking care of babies, one who studied no academic subjects nor took any examinations, would not really be receiving a better education than one who went on to university. Nor would she really be in a better situation for getting a job. Although, as I said, the person commenting here was clearly a little strange, this attitude about education is by no means unknown among British home educators.

I suppose that I should at this point remind readers that I am not saying that any child who does not take A levels and go to university is a failure. One of my daughters left school at sixteen and started work at once. The other went to university. Both are successful in their own fields. It would have been sad though if neither had realised the opportunities available to her, if one had wanted to go to college say, and then found that this required GCSEs which she hadn't taken because nobody told her that she would need them.  Fortunately, both girls  had access to careers advice through school and college and were able to weigh up their future options. The home educated teenager who has no contact with either school or the local authority might not have access to impartial advice about further or higher education. It is possible that her parents too will tell her, ‘Don’t worry dear, learning about cookery and childcare at home and not taking any examinations is a much more suitable education for you than trying to get a place at Oxford.’ You couldn’t, as they say, make it up!

British home education; examining the mythos

Most political, religious and social movements have their heroes and martyrs; people who stood up for what they believed in, no matter what the cost. British home education is no exception to this general rule. Many home educating parents today are able glibly to quote the judgements upon which they believe their ‘right’ to home educate is founded; Phillips v Brown 1980, Harrison and Harrison v Stevenson 1981 and the rest. These are the key cases which a lot of home educators today feel established home education in this country as a recognised alternative to school. This is not really true and the fact that the idea has become ossified into almost an article of faith sheds an interesting light upon home education as it is often practiced today.


The first thing to remember is that parents in this country have been home educating without any problem for centuries. That parents were the best people to teach their children was taken for granted. It has often been remarked that our present queen was home educated, but the practice was not restricted to the wealthy and privileged. Throughout the years following the Second World War, there were parents who taught their children at home quite openly and with no interference from their local authorities. This continued up to the 1970s. It was then that things took a turn for the worse or became immeasurably better, depending upon your point of view.

During the 1970s, there were quite a few people teaching their own children. Some did not send their children in the first place, while others took them out of school to teach them at home. The general attitude of local authorities was that as long as the kids were being taught at least as well as they would be at school, there was no problem. In the early 1970s, a number of parents of this sort banded together to rent premises and start home educating groups. I was involved in one or two projects of this sort.

Some of the home educators at that time later became famous. Harry Lawrence, father of Ruth was one such. Home education was being undertaken openly and without conflict with the authorities. Until that is, several high profile cases which created confrontation with local authorities and made them suspicious of the whole business. At about the same time that Harry Lawrence was home educating his daughter, two parents in Leeds were asked by their local authority for some account of the education which they were providing for their son, whose name was Oak. The local authority had no problem with home education as such, there were others doing it in Leeds. They just wanted to assure themselves that the child was receiving an education and not being left to his own devices. The parents refused to say anything at all about the education being provided and as a result, the case came to court.

While this was going on, Iris Harrison’s children were also not attending school. She made it clear that she was not teaching her children, preferring for them to decide for themselves what they wished to do. It is worth bearing in mind that the local authority were worried about her children because they had been diagnosed as being educationally sub-normal. They were thought to be in need of specialised education and the authority was concerned that they might not be receiving this.

There were other reasons to be concerned. Mrs Harrison had told the children that they should fire a rifle at the feet of any local authority officers who tried to approach the home. With the best will in the world, any local authority which failed to investigate children with special educational needs whose parents were encouraging this sort of reckless behaviour would be negligent. We must also remember that the Harrison children were very unusual in other ways. As adults, they told their mother that if they had not been home educated, then they would all have been in mental hospitals or prisons when they grew up. There was more to this story than met the eye.

In short, up until around 1980, local authorities accepted the right of parents to teach their own children at home and the practice was viewed as being unremarkable. All that was asked was that some account of the education should be given and that parents would be prepared to discuss the matter. People like Harry Lawrence had no problems with his local authority because rather than urging Ruth to shoot at local authority officers, he was teaching her mathematics.

The main thing that the cases in the late 1970s and early 1980s were about was not home education as such. That ’right’ was never in doubt. These landmark cases were to do with whether or not parents had to teach their children and also tell their local authorities what they were teaching. This is quite a different matter and it is perfectly possible to be a fervent supporter of home education, while at the same time accepting that local authorities need to know what is going on.   It was, according to the views of some, at this point that things began to go wrong. Up until that time, home education had been concerned only with the teaching and education of children. It was in the late 1970s that not sending children to school became a political act; frequently undertaken by those with an axe to grind and who tended to be opposed, as a matter of principle, to authority in general.

How can we simply refuse monitoring?

A couple of days ago, somebody asked here for advice on frustrating the best efforts of her local authority to ensure that all the children within their area were receiving a suitable education. The question asked was, 'How can we simply refuse monitoring?' This is a common enough desire on the part of some home educating parents and although I have dealt with this question before, it will do no harm to run over the basics again for newcomers to home education.

The first rule is to make it quite clear to your local authority right from the start that they are dealing with a troublesome crank, rather than an ordinary parent. Sometimes just refusing to allow a local authority officer to visit your home will be enough to give this impression, but if this doesn't work then telling them 'We're autonomous!' will usually do the trick. It is as well that they know from the very beginning what sort of person they are dealing with. This is important, because you want the local authority to realise early on that you are the kind of person who will be complaining to her MP or getting the local paper involved if they hassle you too much by asking questions or trying to insist on visiting your home. Here's an old dodge which some have found useful. Why not simply quote chapter and verse of the relevant legislation when replying to an informal enquiry about your child's education? This will leave nobody in any doubt at all that you are a bloody minded, barrack-room lawyer type.

How can one get away with providing no evidence whatsoever to the local authority? This is not really as hard as it sounds. Begin by downloading an educational philosophy from ;

http://www.home-education.org.uk/ed-philos.htm


These have proved a great hit in the past. Just add your kid's name to the document and you're in business! You will end up with something along these lines;

Our approach to John's education is in the main opportunity-based,
child-led and very flexible. It is impossible to provide a timetable or to
specify in advance which activities we shall be undertaking.
We work to keep a good balance between child-led, informal learning
and a more directed approach. In general, it is our aim to facilitate
learning through John's interests rather than artificially contrived
situations to reach pre-determined outcomes. We are always vigilant for any gaps which should arise in our provision and ready, willing and able
to make the necessary adjustments to fill them.

Notice the cunning way in which you can avoid actually saying what your child is doing or learning. He could be an infant prodigy who also excels at athletics; he could equally well be blind, non-verbal, learning disabled and in a wheelchair. This is a vital gambit in your attempts to keep the local authority at bay. By keeping it completely vague in this way, you ensure that your local authority won't be able to work out what level your child should actually be working at. This is of course why it was essential to oppose vigorously the recommendation in Graham Badman's report which suggested that parents should provide a statement of educational intent for the coming year. Heavens, if once the local authority had that in their hands, they might be able to work out next year that your child hadn't learned a damned thing over the last twelve months!

Sometimes local authorities will ask for more 'evidence'. No need to panic. Why not take a photograph of your child looking at a tree or doing some baking? You can then claim that these are evidence of studying the environment in a scientific way and doing maths by measuring and calculating in a practical, life-based setting. Impossible to prove you wrong about that! The 'diary' is another popular ruse that many parents have found to pay dividends. Just get an old exercise book and write down dates. Under each date, put down some educational activities. This can be going to the library, visiting a museum, conducting experiments in the kitchen; almost anything at all really. Don't worry about being too accurate or truthful, it's not as though anybody is going to check up on all this.

Occasionally, you may get a stubborn local authority officer who is not prepared to take your word for it that your child is being educated. This can be a real pain. In such a case, try this. You should already by this stage have sent a succession of strange, oddly worded and angry letters full of long words to your local authority. (Always remember to copy these to the comments sections of Internet lists and blogs. Other home educators will get a real buzz from seeing how cleverly you have managed to portray yourself to non-home educators as somebody suffering from a massive social skills deficit combined with borderline personality disorder!) Presumably by now you will also have dazzled them with your knowledge of Section 7 of the 1996 Education Act, the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006, Education and Inspections Act 2006, Children Act 2004 and Sections 436a and 437 of the education Act 1996. You should also have demonstrated a mastery of the relevant case law. Now go in for the kill by reminding the local authority of the 2007 Guidelines for local authorities on elective home education. You can find them here;

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


These contain some wonderful stuff about local authorities not being able to insist on visits and so on. This ought to get them off your case; after all, this is official government advice to them.

Any reasonably inventive parent should have no difficulty at all in refusing to be monitored by their local authority by following the simple points which I have outlined above. If you really find yourself stuck, then why not join the EO and HE-UK Internet lists? There you will find groups of like minded individuals. People just like you, who are all obsessively anxious to avoid having their children's education scrutinised by those best placed to judge its efficacy; i.e. the education department of the local authority. It has only been possible to sketch out the main points of strategy in this piece, but on the EO and HE-UK lists you will find plenty of people ready to help you with more specific advice.

Everybody lies

One of the recommendations in Graham Badman's report which irritated home educating parents was that when their children were deregistered from school to be home educated, then the school would be expected to send the local authority a record of their child's achievement and also their expected future achievement. It was felt that the schools might give an unrealistic assessment of the child and thus put the parents into the position of fulfilling unrealistic goals for their children's development.

This was a quite understandable fear. As those foolish enough to send their children to school will know, schools habitually lie their heads off about the ability of pupils. A child who can barely string two words together in French will be described as, 'One of our most able linguists'. One will be told that 'Jimmy has a good understanding of all the major world faiths' or that 'Mary has the makings of a first rate historian'. Of course parents usually know that these statements are completely untrue and make allowance for this. The fact that everybody knows that they are complete falsehoods is simply a fact of life for parents whose children attend school. The fear was that if such reports had been sent to the local authority, then their officers would actually have expected the children to behave like able linguists or first rate historians. An alarming thought indeed!

Still, everybody lies. Parents too lie their heads off about the children in their care. They claim that their own children are more artistic, more sensitive, articulate, compassionate, musical or what have you than the kids next door. This, after all, is human nature. You would hardly expect to take a parent's word for her child's ability and talents. I have been prompted to reflect upon this by a spate of parents posting on some of the Internet lists, parents who are determined to provide their local authorities with any information about their child's progress or academic work. Their attitude seems to be, 'I have told the local authority that Jimmy is receiving a suitable education and that should be good enough for them'. As I remarked above, everybody lies. Why on earth should the local authority take the parents word for this?

I remember when we came to the attention of the local authority and they began asking questions about my daughter's work. Now of course, I could have told them to mind their own business and take my word for it that she was being educated, but why would I do that? Life is very short and I wouldn't really want to be engaged in a battle with my local authority. It was far easier for all concerned simply to let them know what was going on and invite them to come and see for themselves. After all, their concerns were pretty much the same as mine; they wanted to be sure that an eight year old girl was being educated. Leaving aside the precise legal duties involved, it seemed a reasonable enough wish on the part of local authority officers from the education department. I accordingly sent them copies of my daughter's work and allowed them to visit for an hour or so once a year. I could see no reason not to do so.

Everybody lies. We lie about our income and our own achievements. We lie about what our children are capable of. We lie about our relationships and our beliefs. Why should we suddenly feel that we should tell the truth when the local authority is asking what our children are up to? the answer is that we probably wouldn't. If at the age of twelve our son were still unable to read and write properly, we would probably lie about it and tell the local authority that he had just finished The Forsythe Saga. If he spent all day on the computer, we would lie about that too and invent a flourishing social life and sporting activities for him. This is human nature; of course the local authority wants to see for themselves!

As I get older, I wish for an easier and less troublesome life. There are many occasions when I could stand on my rights and behave like a barrack-room lawyer, but then my life will become one long struggle. I really can't see why parents would want to deny the local authority access to their children and give them some idea of what they were up to. The only thing which would make this worthwhile would be if there was a real reason for not wanting the local authority to see one's home or speak to one's children. otherwise, the easiest and most straightforward course for all concerned would be to welcome them in once a year.( And yes, I am perfectly well aware that the case is quite different for children with elective mutism, Asperger's and so on. I am talking of children without special educational needs.)

Local authority monitoring of home education

One of the great bones of contention between local authorities and the home educating parents who live in their areas, is the extent to which parents can be expected to supply information to those charged with monitoring elective home education. I want to look at extracts from two actual documents submitted to a local authority which requested information about the education being provided to home educated children. Here is the first one, which was sent in by the parents of a fourteen year old girl;

" English
In English literature the focus this year has been very much on the twentieth century. Sophie has read a variety of novels, poetry and short stories by twentieth century writers in English; Evelyn Waugh, Vladimir Nabokov, Christopher Isherwood, Virginia Woolf, Robert Frost, E.M. Forster and James Joyce, to mention but a few. A favourite author is Terry Pratchett and Sophie attended a lecture by him. Visits to the theatre have also been largely limited to this period. The new RSC production of The Crucible was much enjoyed as was another production of this same play at the E15 Theatre School. Sophie saw the Beckett Centenary revival of Waiting for Godot at the Barbican. She has also seen Priestley’s An Inspector Calls and also When we are Married, by the same author, Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo and Suddenly last Summer by Tennessee Williams. In February this year she saw Peer Gynt, by Ibsen and the new production of The Dumb Waiter by Pinter. Studies in literature have of course not been limited to the English scene. Waiting for Godot led to an exploration of the Theatre of the Absurd, which in turn led naturally to Existentialism and the reading of Sartre and Camus. Where possible, studies in literature have been related to other areas of the curriculum. For instance The Crucible led to an examination of the phenomenon of McCarthyism and the Cold War in history. Reading Isherwood similarly led to Sophie’s seeing the new production of Cabaret in the West End. Over the course of the year Sophie has attended two week long drama courses at the E15 Theatre School. She has also acted at the Stratford Festival. Creative writing has not been neglected. Sophie has produced many poems, short stories and other material over the last year. She has joined a creative writing course associated with a local college and she attends this weekly. One of her sonnets and a couple of other pieces appeared in an anthology produced by this group. One of these poems also appeared in a magazine. She belongs to a reading group at the local library. "

This of course, is just the sort of thing that local authority officers love. It tells them what the child is doing and they can, in the course of conversation, draw the child out about her interests. They can be reasonably sure that this fourteen year old is working to at least the level which she would be were she to be at school and they can rest assured that here is a child who is receiving a full time education, suitable to her age and aptitude. Of course, the whole thing might be a tissue of lies, which is why they will want to visit the home and speak to the child. It shouldn't take long to see whether she really has done all the things listed in the report. It has to be said that such detailed reports are fairly rare. Far more common is something like this, sent by the parents of an eleven year old boy;

"Our approach to Zach's education is in the main opportunity based, child led and very flexible. It is impossible to provide a timetable or to specify in advance which activities we will shall be undertaking.
We work to keep a good balance between child led, informal learning and a more directed approach. In general, it is our aim to facilitate learning through Zach's interests rather than artificially to contrive situations to reach pre-determined outcomes. We are always vigilant for any gaps which should arise in our provision and ready, willing and able to make the necessary adjustments to fill them."

It goes on for four pages in this vein; I shall not weary the reader with the full text! Now, what's wrong with this picture, boys and girls? Well for one thing, it is quite impossible to say whether or not the child concerned is in fact receiving an education. He may be. On the other hand he may not be. Can he read? We are not told. Does he study history? Couldn't say. Will he sit GCSEs? No idea. This is quite a cunning move, because the local authority cannot really say that the child appears not to be receiving a full-time education suitable to his age and ability. This makes it hard for them to consider issuing a School Attendance Order. If the family continue to refuse a visit or give further information, then matters have reached an impasse.

This sort of waffle, frequently based upon an educational philosophy found on the Internet, is very common. It is infuriating for those monitoring the education because it does not really say anything at all. The child might, for all that anybody knows to the contrary, be a child prodigy. He may equally well be little better than a congenital idiot. One of the reasons that local authorities are irritated by documents like this is that it seems to be verging on bloody-mindedness to refuse to tell others what your child is capable of, what he is studying, how he is achieving. Why would anybody wish to conceal these things, either from a local authority officer or anybody else?

It is this which has been one of the driving forces behind the move to define a "suitable education". Local authorities wish for a rough guide which they can use to check if children are achieving well, falling badly behind, have special educational needs or just in need of a little extra help. Some people, and I am certainly one of them, cannot see why parents wish to be so secretive about their children's accomplishments.

What shall we tell the children?

Like most parents, I have always seen it as part of my duty not only to protect my child from harm, but also from worry and anxiety, at least where this is possible. For example, a few years ago it seemed that we might lose our house. This was very worrying for me as an adult, but I could see no earthly reason to make the children upset about the prospect of being turfed out of their home, especially as there was absolutely nothing they could do to help. I accordingly said nothing to them about it. In the event, matters resolved themselves. If it had been inevitable that we would have to move, then I might of course have adopted a slightly different strategy, slowly accustoming them to the idea of moving. I am circuitously approaching the subject of visits by local authority officers to home educating families, something about which many parents are up in arms.

The truth is, coverage of the Badman report in the newspapers and on television has been sparse in the extreme. Unless their parents had made a point of telling their children about it and explaining what they see as the hidden implications in the recommendations, it is unlikely that many children would even know anything of the matter. I find it strange then that so many children are apparently becoming distressed and anxious over the possibility of home visits. Such anxiety must surely be coming from their mothers and fathers?
It is by no means certain at the moment whether the law relating to home education is actually going to change. If and when it does, there will be many months to prepare children for the prospect of a visit by the local authority. What reason can there be to upset children by telling them a lot of scare stories about new laws that have not even been passed yet? It strikes me that it is the parents who are getting worked up about all this and frightened of the idea that people will be entering their homes to assess the quality of the educational provision being made for their children. I make no comment at all on this; I have no idea whether they are right to be concerned about it. What I am quite sure of is that it is, to say the least of it, unfortunate, if their children are roped into the business as well and made to share their parents anxieties. In other words, I think that it is not Graham Badman, the local authority or its agents who are making the children distressed, but their own parents.

I was not exactly enchanted when Essex LEA notified me that they wanted to come busybodying round the place to see what I was up to with my own daughter. However, as I said at the select committee, I do recognise that society has a stake in my child and so I did not tell them to get lost. Nor did I mention the matter to my eight year old daughter. There would have been no point; it might have made her feel nervous. Instead, I waited until after breakfast on the morning that the visit was due and then said casually, as though I had just remembered it, "Oh by the way, some fool is coming from the council later. They want to make sure that I'm not keeping you chained up in the attic." She laughed and we carried on as usual. the result was that the woman's visit was of no more significance to my daughter than a visit from the man coming to read the gas meter. This is in stark contrast to accounts that have been placed in the comments here from mothers who say that visits from the LA cause the family to be tense for a couple of months in advance and for a month or so afterwards. According to such parents, the whole business causes disruption to their way of life and alters the style of their educational methods. I am pretty sure that tension of this sort is all too often created, or at least greatly exacerbated, by parents.

I rather suspect that as the prospect of new regulations draws ever closer, so we shall be hearing more and more alarming stories of children on the verge of nervous breakdowns at the thought of LA officers entering their homes. I do not for a moment suppose that the children's fears are being encouraged deliberately, but I cannot help but think that it is unnecessary for us to pass our own worries onto our children in this way.

Who wants help and advice from local authorities?

Those parents who choose not to send their children to school often, like the present writer, neither need nor want any support from their local authority. Nobody knows what percentage of home educators fall into this category. Certainly, on the EO and HE-UK message boards, such parents seem to be a minority. The great majority of those posting appear to have withdrawn their children from school for various reasons. Chief among these reasons seem to be bullying and the inability of schools to cater adequately for various special educational needs.

Those who deregister their children from schools are, it appears to me, a different case from parents who never send them in the first place. They actually wanted their children to go to school and were problems not to arise would presumably be happy for their children to stay there until they were at least sixteen, taking GCSEs like everybody else. When parents like this take their children out of school, they often want them to continue learning in the same way as they have previously been doing at school.

One of the more encouraging and positive aspects of the Badman review was that he recommended local authorities to offer more support and advice to home educating parents, including access to examinations. It is by no means uncommon to see posts from parents who have deregistered their children and are appealing for help and support from other home educating parents. The usual advice is, "Do nothing! Avoid the LA! Leave your child to do nothing for months! Refuse any offer of visits!" This is the so-called "deschooling" process.

I strongly suspect that many parents who take their children out of school due to problems would be grateful for support from their local authority. In many cases they want their children to continue with their studies and ultimately take their GCSEs. The standard local authority response is not very helpful. "You have made your bed," they say in effect, "Now lay in it! Do not expect us to pay for examinations or help you at all!"

I think that a good many parents who take their children from school would appreciate a programme of support and help from LAs. At the very least, it should be on offer for those who do want it. It is to be hoped that this part of the Badman report at least is implemented.