Perhaps the most controversial recommendation of the Badman Review and certainly the one which has generated most anger, is Recommendation 7; that local authority officers should have right of entry to home educators' homes. After all, responsibility for our children's education remains with the parents, there are no plans to change that. Why should our LA be the final arbiter of whether the education which we are providing is suitable?
In order to see what is behind this idea, perhaps I could give a couple of examples known to me of the sort of dilemma faced by local authority officers working in this field. Case one concerns an eleven year old boy in an East London borough. He was deregistered from his primary school at the end of term in July and so did not attend secondary school. The local authority wrote asking for details of the education which he was receiving, but the letters were ignored. Eventually an Education Welfare Officer was sent to the home. It was discovered that the child's father was running a makeshift garment factory in a garage attached to thir home. The boy was being used to help out and also do the housework because the mother did not appear to live there.
Case two concerns a fourteen year old girl in a neighbouring borough. Her mother had mental health problems and was lonely during the day. Since the daughter did not like school anyway, she did a bit of research and then typed a letter for her mother to sign, deregistering the child from school. Then she printed out an Educational Philosophy from the HE-UK site and that was that. The child became, in effect, a nurse companion to her mother. An EWO visited and soon realised what was happening. Unfortunately, there was little that could be done, because both mother and daughter claimed to be autonomous educators, which explained the apparent lack of conventional academic work.
I give these examples to show how tricky it can be for the local authority to distinguish between genuinely home educating parents and those simply using it as a ruse for other purposes. Without a home visit, the eleven year old boy would still be working in an illegal and dangerous factory. I have no idea and neither does anybody else, whether such cases are common or rare. Most estates that I visit contain at least one disaffected teenager who is being "home educated". That is why recommendations 3 and 14 are concerned with counting the number of home educated children and finding out why their parents took this step.
I cannot see how, without a home visit, it would be possible to distinguish between a genuine home educator who declines a home visit and sends in a modified version of an Educational Philosophy from HE-UK and a parent who decides to deregister the child for a reason other than education. Without visiting, both cases would appear pretty much identical.
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Simon said,
ReplyDelete"After all, responsibility for our children's education remains with the parents, there are no plans to change that. Why should our LA be the final arbiter of whether the education which we are providing is suitable?"
Is this true though if LA employees have the ability to veto the parents plans for educational provision? Can't you see the contradictions within this comment? If a parent feels that AE is the only way they can adequately fulfil their duty to provide their child with a suitable eduction and the LA refuses to accept these plans, then the LA has taken over the responsibility to at least define a suitable education. Yes, they may 'allow' the parent to provide what the LA considers to be a suitable education, but doesn't that effectively make the parent a voluntary worker on behalf of the state? They will also 'know' that they are breaking the law by not providing their child with a suitable education. Research has shown that AE can be successful. No research has shown that it is inherently inferior to other forms of education, yet the planned changes will remove this option from parents.
Existing law is sufficient to in both of the cases you detail above. In the first case unanswered informal enquiries should have been followed up sooner by a School Attendance Order. It doesn't sound as though they could have shown that they were providing a suitable education so they would have had no defence against it.
The second case doesn't even support your suggestion that visits are necessary because they had a visit. You are effectively saying (with this example), that AE is not education (or can never be proven to be education) and as a result, cannot be allowed. If the LA had this belief they should have issued an SAO and forced the parent to defend their education provision in court if necessary.
Failure on the part of LA employees to make adequate use of the powers they already have shouldn't mean that they are given more powers!
I agree completely that we should be most cautious in granting any government agency more powers. Unfortunately, some LAs play silly games where home education is concerned. For example, they will seldom pursue the parents of fourteen and fifteen year olds, even if they have cause to think that they are not really home educating. This is why the recommendations all try to give the DCSF power to check up on what LAs are doing regarding home education. I really don't see that autonomous education will be impossible if the Badman Review's recommendations are implemented, nor do I think it should be made impossible.Recommendation 9 wants all LA officers involved in home education to have proper training. This is a good idea. This training should include, "a full understanding of the essential difference, variation and diversity in home education practice, as compared to schools." I don't think that the LA will be expecting timetables and curricula, more some sort of idea of what you hope your child might achieve in the coming year. That is why Recommendation 2 says that the definition of a suitable education "should not be overly prescriptive".
ReplyDeleteSimon said,
ReplyDelete"This is why the recommendations all try to give the DCSF power to check up on what LAs are doing regarding home education."
I'm not convinced that it's worth discussing the Badman recommendations the government are not planning to implement in the current round of changes as a change of government is likely before any further recommendations can be enacted. The current planned changes do not appear to give the DCSF any powers to check what LAs are doing regarding HE, but failures of government personnel should not be solved by limiting the freedoms of the public. If anything, the LA personnel should be more tightly regulated.
Simon said,
"I really don't see that autonomous education will be impossible if the Badman Review's recommendations are implemented."
This quote sums up the reasons why autonomous education will be impossible for me and many others if the Badman Review recommendations that are currently going through the consultation process are implemented (I've already described the effect that visits had on our HE in previous posts):
"Having a home visit (or any kind of face-to-face meeting) with a person standing in judgement over your whole life-style can be destructive of autonomous education, for it would be a very unusual child who did not experience a narrowing of choices, and very unusual parents who could entirely protect their child from anxiety – and therefore from a loss of spontaneous motivation – at the very prospect of such a judgement."
Simon said,
"Recommendation 9 wants all LA officers involved in home education to have proper training. This is a good idea. This training should include, "a full understanding of the essential difference, variation and diversity in home education practice, as compared to schools.""
Since no extra money is going to be provided to pay for all the extra staff they will have to employ in order to regularly inspect 4 times as many home educators than they currently know about, I very much doubt they will be able to provide a proper training. This extra need for personnel doesn't even take account of the fact that many LAs cannot afford to visit the home educators they already know about. What existing LA duties will be neglected in order to fulfil these new duties?
Simon said,
"I don't think that the LA will be expecting timetables and curricula, more some sort of idea of what you hope your child might achieve in the coming year.
So are you suggesting that no LAs currently have this expectation? My impression is that some certainly do, and nothing in the current round of planned changes will change this, it will just give LAs more power to enforce their views.
Simon said,
ReplyDelete"I cannot see how, without a home visit, it would be possible to distinguish between a genuine home educator who declines a home visit and sends in a modified version of an Educational Philosophy from HE-UK and a parent who decides to deregister the child for a reason other than education. Without visiting, both cases would appear pretty much identical."
Just had a further thought on this comment. You are suggesting then, that home educators should be assumed to be lying until they prove otherwise, an obvious reversal of the usual presumption of innocence applied in other areas of law. They should also provide evidence in a form defined by the government, again, a reversal of normal law where a defendant can provide evidence in any form *they* choose.
Why do you think home educators in particular deserve such draconian measures? Or do you also believe that parents of under 5s (the most likely to kill or harm their child) should have to prove that they are not harming their child before they can be believed, possibly through regular physical examinations aimed specifically at recognising signs of harm, for instance?
This is a matter of semantics. No, I am not suggesting for a moment that home educators should be assumed to be lying. Obviously not. I am suggesting that when a parent withdraws a child from school then we should be open minded about their motives for doing so. They may be intending to take personal responsibility for their child's education. On the other hand they may not be able to get the kid out of bed in the morning and claiming to be home educating might seem an easier option. There are dozens of reasons that I can think of why a parent would withdraw a child from school that have nothing at all to do with education. Like you, I hope that most people deregistering their children are doing so in order to provide an education. I'm not sure how much I would be prepared to gamble on it though.
ReplyDeleteIt's not of course just home educators who are treated with a little suspicion and expected to prove what they are claiming. If you apply for a firearms certificate, the police will ask whether you have secure storage facilities for your weapons. Even if you answer yes to this, they still come round and check. What's the matter with them, do they assume that all shotgun owners are liars? I have actually heard farmers complain about this in exactly the same way that home educating parents grumble about the idea of EWOs coming to see them.
If someone states that they are home educating and provides evidence sufficient to convince a reasonable person (the level required in court) that they are providing a suitable education, but the LA still insists that they need to visit the home and question the child before they will believe the evidence, they are suggesting that the parent is likely to be lying, there can be no other interpretation.
ReplyDeletePresumably you also think that under 5s should have a regular physical examination to check for signs of abuse? I can't see a difference between the two situations. After all, the parent might say that they haven't abused their child, but how can we be sure without checking?
Well, of course under fives do get regular checks for signs of abuse. Remember Health Visitors? They are always on the prowl for this, either when they come into your home or at clinics. Although when my daughter was born we evaded their attentions entirely, I have heard that it is a bit harder now and that they take a refusal to engage with them as a sign that something is wrong!
ReplyDeleteWell yes, and that's exactly the attitude some take to HE visits. If you've nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about!
ReplyDeleteGood point!
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that not only does the recent research from the US show that different levels of regulation between states make no difference to outcomes, but the New Zealand authorities have ended routine visits:
ReplyDelete"Echoing then Minister of Education Dr Lockwood Smith in 1994, that he could not justify the expense of regular reviews on such a low-risk group as home educators, Chief Review Officer Graham Stoop wrote in February this year that reviews of home educators are not efficient or effective. Posted on the ERO website is the following: “From 1 July 2009 ERO will carry out reviews only when requested by the Secretary for Education, or in other particular circumstances.”
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/newzealand/714763/
http://www.edgazette.govt.nz/Notices/Notice.aspx?NoticeId=612998
I think the problem Simon, is the belief that the parts of the report that may protect and benefit us, such as, training for those involved with HE, funding, exam access ect wil actually come to pass.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me, that although the gov has accepted the report in full, in practice, (and all that we appear to see in proposed legislation) all we'll get is registration, monitoring and access to the home, with none of the benefits.
If i were to get the draw down per child, then my children's education wouldn't just be great, it would truly be first class. If our children could get access to the sports and music available at school, it would be great. But nobody is talking about that.
Much love