The ‘Exiled Educator’; an update

Readers will perhaps recall that there was a little unpleasantness here a couple of weeks ago, following  a casual remark which I made in answer to a comment by Gill Kilner. I said:

I have just remembered, weren't you one of that gang who helped somebody slip out of the country and relocate to Ireland, in order to avoid answering all those awkward questions from social services about leaving her kids alone in the house?


Cue predictable outrage, in the course of which I was accused of everything  from criminal harassment and libel to suffering from a cogitative dissonance! How dare I say that she left her children alone in the house! I knew nothing about it and was smearing an innocent woman! There was renewed hostility when I elaborated by explaining that the  woman’s seventeen year-old son had been left in charge of his younger siblings and that this came to the attention of social services, because he was not a fit person to be left looking after young children. 

This sort of thing is a bit of a distraction from the real business of this blog, but now that the dust has settled a little, I thought that I would set out the facts of the case and allow readers to decide for themselves if I was right.

The mother in question  went off for the evening, leaving her teenage son to take care of the younger children.  While he was babysitting  a prank call was made  to the police from the house. They duly attended the property, whereupon the boy refused to let them in. They then forced entry to the home. At this point, perhaps we could just consider what I said; that the mother left her children alone in the house. Anybody think that this is the sort of thing that having a responsible adult in the house would have prevented from happening?

Having gained entry to the home, the police discovered that not only was there not a responsible adult looking after the children, conditions in the place left somewhat to be desired. There was, for example, animal shit all over the floor. As a result of this, they did the sensible thing and notified social services. The mother had had trouble before with both the police and social services. She was pregnant at the time and was in the habit of smoking cannabis and then more or less boasting about it. There were rumours that the kids might be about to be taken into care and so she left the country for Ireland, where she started a blog briefly, called,  The Exiled Educator. This may be found here:

http://the-exiled-educator.blogspot.co.uk/

  She had the baby, returned to this country and now lives in the north of England,  not far from  Nottingham.

I am hoping that some of those who were so unpleasant to me about what I said will now take the opportunity to apologise; beginning with Gill Kilner. I don’t really expect this to happen, but readers might like to look back at the things people said here, when they evidently knew all about this and wanted to pretend that I was making up lies about this case. What a bunch!

A self-fulfilling prophecy

We saw yesterday that many of the more well-known individuals and organisations connected with home education in this country are known to each other and share a common ideology. There is no harm in this, as long as everybody knows it and takes it into account when listening to what is being said. The danger comes when  new home educating parents who know nothing of this, begin to research the subject online.  Because not only do these people share an ideology, they also have an alarming propensity to lie their heads off when once they are mounted on their hobby horse. This can have catastrophic consequences for the unwary parent. Let me give an example.

Here are three quotations by two people, both of them prominent in the world of British home education;

There is an increasing tendency for welfare officers and social workers to become involved with home-educating families from the outset

I have heard examples of parents discussing the wisdom of taking a child to an emergency ward when they know that a visit will be noted and passed on to the social services

 Experience suggests that parents known to authorities do come under undue pressure to return  children to  school  and this pressure  sometimes  extends to maliciously contacting social services to put further pressure on the parents to ‘cooperate’.  


The first of these statements is by Paula Rothermel and the other two by Mike Fortune-Wood. Rothermel’s appeared in an academic journal and Fortune-Wood’s are to be found on his website; Home Education UK. There are two things to observe here. The first is that these statements are wholly false. There is no local authority in the United Kingdom which involves social workers with home educating families from the start, Casualty Departments do not routinely contact social services when a child is treated and local authorities do not maliciously contact social services, simply to force a child to return to school. This is the first point. The second is that any new home educator scouring the internet for information about home education would be very likely to stumble across pernicious nonsense of this sort and not realise that the man in Wales running the largest home education website in the country is on first name terms with the psychologist in Switzerland who wrote in the academic journal. They certainly would not know that she was reading any comments which the parent posted  on the private internet list connected with the Home Education UK site. In other words, they might think that all this mischievous stuff about social workers originated from two entirely separate sources and was therefore more likely to be true.

Now an anecdote to illustrate the harm that what one might describe as the mainstream home education scene in this country can wreak on the lives of home educating  families. A home educating parent who spent a lot of her time on the internet and believed implicitly the old wives' tales being peddled by the likes of Paula Rothermel and Mike Fortune-Wood, had occasion to take her six year old daughter to hospital. It was  technically an emergency, although one involving a fairly trifling injury. Because she had made the most strenuous efforts to avoid being known to her local authority and had been led to believe that social workers were limbs of Satan and would force her to send her child to school if they heard about her,  she drove to a hospital in another  part of the city. Not only that, she gave a false name and address.  Possibly, she had read what Mike Fortune-Wood had written about this; although I don’t know that for certain. What I do know is that she was fanatically keen to remain, ‘under the radar’ as home educators call it.  Her story unraveled and she then openly admitted her real identity and the child was treated. She thought no more about it, until two social workers turned up on her doorstep the next day. Yes, she not only become known to her local authority, but also became embroiled with social services. This was nothing to do with home education. Had she just gone to her local  hospital and given her proper name, nobody would have cared. Her misfortune was a direct result of reading the kind of malicious rubbish which I quoted above.

A little more about British home educators and social services

The case of the home educated children taken into care in Hackney, at which we looked yesterday, was an exceptionally revolting one. It is of  wider significance though, because of the light it sheds upon the thought processes of those involved with home education.  For example, I very much doubt whether Alan Thomas, who is a good-hearted and amiable old buffer, would have dreamed in a million years, when he was writing his report about this family, that somewhere on the fringes of the case was a man fantasising about somebody having sex with pre-pubescent schoolgirls. It simply would not cross the minds of most people connected with home education in this country. This is a problem.

Those who work with children, either as teachers, social workers or police officers, know that there are some pretty unpleasant adults around. Most home educating parents and academics don’t know this. They assume that once you have identified a man or woman as being a home educator; then that is it, you know that the person is basically sound. If only life were that simple! The truth is, there are plenty of wicked and perverted people mixed up in the world of home education, just as there are in the rest of the world. Being a home educator is no guarantee of virtue. So when a parent posts an appeal on the Education Otherwise list, telling us that she is being pursued by social workers and the police, I am open minded about the business. She might be completely innocent or she might be a dangerous lunatic. This is not the case with some on the home educating  internet lists, who fall over themselves to assure the woman that she is a good mother and advise her to have nothing at all to do with the social services.  The very fact that she is a home educating parent is, in other words, enough for them. It means that she is right, her children are loved and cared for and any social workers involved are bad people, liars and probably out to steal her children. This is a very dangerous perspective to adopt, sight unseen!

Or take another example. Eighteen months ago, an appeal was made, signed by a list of well known home educators as longs as your arm, to raise money so that a home educating mother could flee to Ireland, one step ahead of social services. Once again, the fact that she was a home educator was taken to be sufficient  to assure everybody that there was no cause to be concerned about her children. It is this attitude that makes many professionals uneasy. The very fact that somebody does not send their children to school is no sort of guarantee that their children  are safe. Most probably are; some will not be. It sometimes looks as though the more that social workers are interested in a home educating family, the more convinced are other parents that there is nothing to worry about and that it is yet another case of social workers overstepping the mark. Do not be deceived! Home educating parents are just as capable of providing an unsafe environment as anybody else. When social services are looking hard at a family, there is usually good reason.

The advice offered on internet lists for home educators

I have long been of the opinion that many of the ‘support groups’ for home educators  found on the internet, such as  the various  lists and facebook groups, are more trouble than they are worth for parents; offering advice which ranges from the singularly unhelpful to the positively mischievous.  A perfect example of this cropped up recently on the Education Otherwise list. It concerns a mother whose child has received an injury at a time that the family were already the  object of interest for social workers.

I mentioned a few days ago about the time that my own daughter received an injury about which I was asked. When these things happen, there are usually two possible courses one may take. The first  is to allay fears and let the thing fizzle out. The second is to escalate matters until your family is the focus of enormous interest by the local social services department. I chose the easier of these two options; many home educators seem to prefer the second choice; that of turning the case into a full-blown crisis.

Briefly, the mother of a home educated child asked for help. A social worker had contacted her  and visited her home. This woman wanted permission to speak to the child’s GP and the mother granted this. At once, we wonder what prompted such a request, but at any rate, something about the child’s medical history was obviously troubling somebody at social services. Subsequently, the child banged his head. The mother thought no more of this until they were passing the hospital and the child said that he would like to go to A & E because, ‘ he would like to go to A&E to see the doctors and nurses there because they were so nice.’  This is very odd. The mother agreed and after a short visit, they left.

Forty eight hours later, the child claimed to have a pain in his stomach and then passed out for ten minutes. An ambulance was called and the  boy was taken to the same A & E department. I am not a doctor or social worker, but already, alarm bells are ringing in my head! If  a child becomes unconscious for ten minutes, either there is something seriously wrong or the child or mother is faking it. At one point the kid says that his brain hurts and the next it is stomach. He is keen to talk to doctors and nurses. It will surprise nobody to learn that the social worker who had already visited, asking about the medical records, now got in touch and wished to speak to the family again as a matter or urgency.

Speaking for myself,  my main concern at this point would be that either (a.) my child was seriously ill with some neurological disorder or brain damage,  or that (b.) he was so desperately anxious to talk to professionals that he was feigning illness. This mother’s chief worry is about the legal rights of social workers to speak to her child or enter her home. Her anxiety is not for her son’s medical condition or anxiety but instead about things such as, ‘What exactly right do the social workers have upon situations as such?’, ‘What legal right do I have in dealing with their inquiry?’, ‘
Do I have a right to ask the social worker to give me at least the option of putting everything in writing via email or letter?’, ‘ How come they could have the right to come without giving me their full name or show me any official written information for the exact allegation?’


What advice has been offered  by other members of the list? Here is a sample:

Do not allow any sw to see your child alone. 

Never give them consent to have access to any records.

so be firm and refuse any further visits if you do not want them


I can imagine nothing more likely to turn this all into a serious investigation than to adopt a policy of not cooperating now with social workers.  There were already concerns about the child’s medical condition and then within forty eight hours, there were two visits to A & E. 

What is it with some home educating parents that causes them to offer such mad advice and to do their best to exacerbate any situation like this of which they hear?  The welfare of the child is barely mentioned in any of this. All anybody is concerned about is keeping social workers at bay.  

How home educators can make life easier for themselves when engaging with professionals

I wrote yesterday about how parents could attract unfavourable attention to themselves by displaying too many behaviours of a certain type. Failing 'to engage with services' is one of these, as is not sending your kid to school or nursery and missing appointments which have been made by doctors and health centres. Now it is important to realise that none of these things in themselves are likely to cause problems for a parent. Just ticking three items on one of the checklists or protocols won't result in social services kicking down your door and taking away your children for adoption! What it does mean is that sometimes eyebrows will be raised and nursery teachers, Health Visitors, social workers and so on might exchange emails; asking of there is any cause for concern. I am all in favour of this, because it is a valuable sifting process which often identifies children at risk of neglect or abuse. It's not infallible, of course; as some high profile cases in recent days have demonstrated. Still, it's a good deal better than nothing.

So those who are worried that 'failing to engage with services' will bring them problems, don't need to be overly concerned. The real problems can  start when something out of the ordinary happens to a child who has already been the object of remark in this way. Say. for instance, a child who is not at nursery or school, whose parents do not turn up for vaccinations, who has avoided health Visitors; suppose such a child presents at the GP with what might possibly be non-accidental injuries?  Now, the questions may begin. This actually happened to me when my daughter was a baby and it is worth seeing how such things can work out. I was an habitual avoider of services and dodger of Health Visitors and there was never any question of my daughter attending nursery or school.  When she was young, I used to help run groups for parents who were unable to cope with their under-5s, usually because the kid had a special need of some sort. Some of these children were exceedingly aggressive. One day, i left my daughter asleep in her buggy, turned my back for a moment and a three year-old boy bit her on the face. When I say bit, I mean bit! His mother had to prise him away from my daughters cheek like a rottweiler!

Now without going into too many details, the mark on my daughter's face from this attack, brought questions. I was quite open about the cause, did not resent the implication of those asking the questions that this might be a deliberate injury to my child, caused within the family. The result was that the whole thing fizzled out; which is how it should of course have been.

It is at this stage that some home educators make life needlessly difficult for themselves. Quite a few that one sees on the various lists have gone mad at this point, when they have been asked questions of this sort. Remember, these are often parents like me, who have declined services and refused nursery places. They have already brought themselves to attention in this way. Then, when they are asked what they see as insulting questions, they react with anger and aggression. Worse, they sometimes attempt to conceal the truth from professionals. We recently saw a parent on one list advised to give a false name and address and pretend to be moving out of the district,  just because she has been asked a question. In the past, we have seen parents who do not want to use their local hospital, because they are afraid that the local authority will learn of their existence.  They have travelled to another part of the country to attend A & E for this reason. Others, refuse to register their children with  a GP. Then, to cap it all, when they are asked about any of this, they become aggressive. Little wonder that they are by that time regarded by social services as probable abusers!

In short, no parent is going to run into any real difficulties simply for refusing to engage with any services on offer. They must realise though that they might draw attention to themselves. If, at a later stage, they are asked questions and become defensive or angry, then they could perhaps create problems which will make their lives difficult. Returning to the incident with my daughter, imagine if I had tried to give a false name and address when asked about her injuries! What if I had taken her to a hospital in a neighbouring county, because I didn't want my local authority to learn of her existence?  Worse still, suppose I had raised my voice and become aggressive when the questions began? The systems for identifying children at risk are not designed to trap home educating parents. But from time to time, this can happen, for reasons which I have explained. Under such circumstances, parents can either smooth matters over amicably, or they can make matters a hundred times worse by their behaviour. This is a choice for individual  home educators to make, but I know which I think makes more sense!

Another popular complaint by home educators

We looked yesterday at a popular complaint by home educators in this country; that despite there being no evidence to suggest that home educated children were more at risk of abuse, some professionals behaved as though this were the case. We saw that there is at least some evidence of increased risk of abuse, but that home educating parents prefer to ignore it, as it makes them feel uncomfortable. Today, I want to examine another common claim by home educators, that focusing on home educated children is wasteful of resources and that social services and health authorities should instead target their attentions more finely to where they are actually needed.

There is a big problem with home education in this country and that is that it tends all too often to go hand in hand with  the kind of lifestyle which attracts unfavourable attention and gives rise to suspicions of abuse and neglect. I have of course touched on this theme before, but I want today to look in some detail at how this process works to the detriment of home educating families.

In order to identify neglect and abuse, those working in the fields of health and social services often use protocols which allow them to pick out warning signs. Some of these signs are fairly obvious; things like excessive alcohol use by parents or malnutrition of their children. Such clear-cut causes for concern are relatively rare and more often than not, warnings are raised by a constellation of more subtle indicators. This is where home educating parents often find themselves being looked at a little askance. Among the items to look out for on one commonly used instrument, for example, are these three:

Persistently not accessing health care for child/ante-natal care/not acting on  medical advice/untreated ailments (including concealed pregnancy/birth

Repeated missed appointments, or sustained reluctance to engage with services

Serious school/nursery attendance concerns

Already, readers might be seeing the nature of the problem.  Some mothers, and there are many in the home educating community, do not approve of vaccinations and refuse to take their children along to the health centre for them. This behaviour can be difficult to distinguish from that of  the chaotic and disorganised parent who does not attend simply because she can’t be bothered or has forgotten about the appointment.

‘Reluctance to engage with services’; well, I think we all know many home educating parents who display this trait!

‘Serious school attendance concerns’ can be interpreted as not sending a child to nursery or school at all.

Perhaps now, readers will begin to see how innocent home educating parents can come to find themselves being targeted, not because they are actually abusers, but because their conduct and way of life can be very difficult to distinguish from those parents who are genuinely neglecting their children? When we add to this the indisputable fact that a large number of home educated children have special educational needs of one sort or another, the situation becomes even more complex. This is because having a child with special needs is in itself viewed as a risk factor for abuse and neglect.

I have written before of the foolishness of those home educating parents who then go on to make matters worse by playing silly beggars and going out of their way to prevent professionals from knowing anything about their children. These people are setting themselves up for trouble.

The problem then, is not that social workers, teachers and nurses are zeroing in on home educated children, when they should be doing more to identify those children genuinely in need of their services.  It is that the instruments that they use to find those children in danger of abuse or neglect do tend to lead them to many home educated children as well. The remedy for this is for home educating parents to be aware of this tendency and to guard against it. There are many things that families are able to do to alleviate anxieties on the part of professionals charged with protecting the welfare of children.  Setting out to be awkward and give the impression of wanting to hide from health and education services  is not likely to help anybody. 

Home educating parents presenting as problem families

I’m afraid that we are fast approaching a time when I will have to abandon this blog for a month or two. This is caused by the pressures of work. Before doing so, I want to spend a couple of posts looking at a question that a number of people have asked here recently. This is why local authorities apparently target home educators wholesale and do not fine tune their attentions so that they are focused more upon the families who actually need help; perhaps those where children are at risk. This is an easy enough question to answer, although the explanation will not be a very agreeable one for many home educating parents. Today I shall look at bullying in this connection and in a day or two we will examine abusive families.

I  remarked a few days ago that some home educating parents, whether wittingly or otherwise, seem to mimic the lifestyles and conduct of habitual abusers. I pointed out that this was apt to draw unfavourable attention to them. Many of the characteristics of these families are also uncannily similar to those that one sees regularly in the families of bullies. This is very curious, because of course research indicates that a perhaps a third of home educating parents withdraw their children from school because they are being bullied. Bullying is a very complex phenomenon though and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the bully from his victims. Yesterday, for instance, my attention was drawn to a boy who had supposedly killed himself because he was being bullied. It seemed an open and shut case, until we learn that he had himself been investigated by the police and social services over allegations that he assaulted a girl and also that he had been accused of violence  towards other pupils. Things are seldom as they first appear when you look at bullying.

When I worked with families with difficulties, those with whom I worked and I would sometimes discuss the common factors to be observed in the parents of children with emotional and behavioural problems. I was working with under fives, but we later heard about many of these children and learned how they did at school; usually, very badly. The parents often conformed to a pattern and it was, oddly enough, similar in many ways to the stereotypical abusing parent. They would not keep appointments with health or education professionals, their children often missed their vaccinations, they were ‘difficult to engage’, most did not want anybody coming into their home, they were aggressive and blamed everybody else but themselves for their children’s problems. Later on, they might typically move their child from one school to another; often on the grounds that the kid had been bullied. Now this pattern is well enough known to teachers, social workers and so on. It is, as you might say, a familiar syndrome. Unfortunately, it is also an eerily accurate description of many home educating parents!

One of the interesting things about these parents is that they would often claim that their  child was being picked on or bullied at school. Having watched their child as a toddler and three year-old, we often guessed that the boot was on the other foot! So it sometimes proved, because talking to the teachers at the school would occasionally reveal that far from being bullied, little Johnny was in reality an absolute terror to all the other children an d also his teachers.

It is unfortunate that a number of home educating parents should share a profile in this way with the parents of difficult children. I think that what sometimes happens is that rather than professionals being prejudiced against home education as such, they observe many home educating parents and see that they are indistinguishable from the problem parents that they have encountered in the past. I certainly see those similarities myself when reading what some home educators have to say.  So what is happening is that social services, teachers and health professionals are, as home educators say that they should,  targeting families in specific ways; rather than concentrating on entire groups such as home educators and wasting their resources on them. One of the ways that this is done is to look at the behaviour of parents and see if it matches particular profiles. When it does, then those families receive a little extra attention. It is a matter of regret that quite a few home educating parents present in an almost identical way to the parents of bullies and abused children! I shall expand on this theme in another post in a few days, because there are actually things that parents can do which would help them not fit into this pattern.  

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?”

Another strand in British home education

We have looked in the course of the last week or two at a couple of major strands in British home education. There are of course others, including the one I wish to examine today.


A sizeable proportion of home educating parents in this country have worked as school teachers. This is also the case in the USA. In contrast to this group is another, perhaps as large, whose members hate schools, teachers and anything which smacks in the least of formal education. Of course, there is a good deal of overlap between these groups and the others of which I have lately been writing. For example, I mentioned the mother/daughter pairs with neurological disorders a little while ago. A well known member in this group comes from a family of teachers and was herself married to a teacher. Another parent in this category, on the other hand, belongs to the group who hate schools and had unhappy experiences there.

Let us look at one of the parents whose decision to home educate was motivated less by the needs of her child than by residual anger felt by her towards authority figures in her childhood. Some readers may recollect that there was a campaign last year to raise money so that a home educating parent could skip the country before social services moved in on her and her children. This appeal was signed by many of the usual suspects; Barbara Stark, Neil Taylor, Alison Preuss, Maire Stafford and so on. Their efforts were successful and the woman was able to flee to Ireland. Her name will be familiar to many, but I cannot mention it for legal reasons.  She kept for a while a blog and one of the posts there shows precisely the sort of thing that I am talking about:



http://the-exiled-educator.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/dear-miss-downing.html




‘She hated school and had few friends, she was always much happier at home’ Nothing could more clearly illustrate the type of parent whose own past makes her likely to whip her child out of school at the first sign of any difficulty. We see Maire Stafford in the comments, saying, ‘That could have been me, although they did not know I was bright they criticised all the time and I got two years of the bitchiest teacher going, she picked on and exposed the shy ones.’ She is also a member of this group of home educators who hated school and still feel angry about their time there; even half a century later.

Now a thing that I have noticed is that those parents who home educate because of their own childhood misery tend to be a lot angrier than ordinary home educators. Their anger is directed not only against teachers and schools, but also against authority in general. They are also very often the ones at the centre of schisms and rows within the home educating community. Maire Stafford is of course famous for falling out with anybody who disagrees with her views on home education. She is a bitter enemy of Cheryl Moy, whose blog I drew attention to a little while ago.

This type of parent spearheads the opposition to visits from local authorities and is keen to spread news of any problems in schools; shortcomings in academic standards or cases of abuse by teachers for instance. Readers may have noticed the awful pleasure with which incidents of sexual abuse in nurseries, say, are advertised on blogs and lists run by such people. I have an idea, although I am of course quite ready to be proved wrong, that much of the anger which one sees simmering beneath the surface of some home educators is driven not by contemporary events in British education, but rather stems from childhood memories of perceived ill treatment from teachers. I need hardly add that parents in this group are, almost without exception, opponents of teaching and firm advocates of child-centred education. The extent to which this is a rational choice is open to question and it is perfectly possible that their chosen pedagogy is instead a Pavlovian response to reflexes which have their roots in childhood.