Perhaps the most controversial recommendation of the Badman Report is No. 7, which is that designated local authority officers should have a right of access to the homes of home educating parents. Time and again on the HE-UK and EO message boards, it is this part of the report that people seem to find most threatening and unacceptable.
It is perhaps worth bearing in mind that local authorities already have the power to enter our homes for hundreds of different reasons. For instance, under the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 the local authority can come into your garden to measure the height of hedges. They can come onto our property to check for the presence of rabbits (Pests Act 1954) and also enter any home if they have reason to suspect that illegal or unregulated hypnotism is taking place (Hypnotism Act 1952). And just in case you were planning to start home educating a bear in your house and think it is no business of the local authority what you do in the privacy of your own home, then you'd better think again! The Performing Animals Regulations Act 1925 confers the power on local authorities to enter any home in order to search for performing or trained animals.
Needless to say, local authorities do not actually make a habit of raiding people's homes to search for unregulated hypnotists or dancing bears. Nor, I strongly suspect, are they likely to start kicking anybody's door down in the future, while searching for poorly educated children. For one thing, all these powers of entry need to be backed up by an application to a Justice of the Peace and a similar restriction would almost certainly apply to any new legislation about home education. Governments and local authorities love to arm themselves with Draconian measures like this, even if are seldom used. I'm sure that a psychologist could explain this craving for various powers.
Every so often, governments rush to introduce laws designed to tackle some perceived menace which must be swiftly dealt with. Almost invariably such laws are hastily drafted and impossible to enforce. I'm sure we all remember the introduction of the Dangerous Dogs Act in 1991? It followed some highly publicised dog attacks and is now all but ignored. Where I work it is quite common to see people walking Pitbulls. Nobody, least of all the police, have any desire to take action. The Pests Act mentioned above was a similar rushed job, brought in to deal with the threat of Myxomatosis. All the signs are that the new law currently being contemplated on home education will be of the same type.
We have to remember also that local authorities already have the power to enforce thousands of laws and regulations covering every aspect of our lives. Everything from the minimum height of shop awnings to the fact that out front garden gates must open inwardly. Nobody has the time, energy or inclination to pursue most of these laws and regulations.
I believe that even if a new law is passed which requires home educators to open their homes to officers from the local authority, nothing much will change. As is currently the case, if the LA is worried about the welfare of a child they will take action. I really cannot see them applying to the courts for an order to enter the home of somebody just because they are educating their child autonomously! I can just see how well this would play with the local police, who would be required to waste their time by attending any such attempt to force entry to a home. I can also not see it looking very good in the local paper. So even if they acquire new powers, my guess is that LAs will be extremely sparing in their use of them.
Local authorities have extensive powers to enter our homes for a huge number of reasons. They never use these powers and the addition of one more to the hundreds which they already possess and do not use would probably make little difference to anybody.
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This is the consultation wording:
ReplyDelete"We believe that local authorities should interview children within 4 weeks of home education starting, after 6 months has elapsed, and thereafter at least annually to assess the quality of education provided and ensure that children are safe and well. The local authority should visit the premises where education is conducted, and question the child about the education provided, although at least 2 weeks notice should be given before the visit is conducted. The local authority should have the right to carry out the interview without a parent being present, if this is judged appropriate, or alternatively if the child is vulnerable or has particular communication needs, in the company of a trusted person who is not the home educator or parent/carer."
Why do you think they will need a court order? With this many visits I very much doubt this will be expected. Do Ofsted need a court order to visit childminders? When 'should' is used, it implies that the authority will be at fault if they do not carry out these actions. If they meant otherwise they would say something like, 'local authorities may interview children within 4 weeks of home education starting", (as in the Donaldson judgement). Ofsted will be inspecting them on their duties regarding home educators. If the law says the LA should visit and they don't, they are likely to be in trouble with Ofsted and fail that section.
Ofsted don't need a court order to visit childminders because they are invited in. Have you ever heard of Ofsted kicking down the door of a childminder in order to gain access? These are the recommendations, we have no idee at all how the actual legislation will be framed. All the legislation which I cited above needs an application to the courts in order to force entry. The reason is that one of the first principles of law is to maintain the Queen's peace. Even where the power to effect an entry exists, it is hedged about with restrictions and requires the presence of police officers. All this will, in any case, be interpreted by the courts. Do you really think that any new law will give local authorities the right to break into people's homes in order to see whether their children can read or recite their nine times table? I'm sure you know that this is not really going to happen!
ReplyDeleteBesides, as I said, local authorities have to pick and choose which laws they enforce. even as far as education goes, there is a statutory duty on schools to begin the day with an act of collective worship of a broadly Christian nature. I do not know of a single school which does this. In short, the LAs have a duty to enforce this, they must ensure that it happens in maintained schools, but they simply don't bother. Even if some fierce new law is passed about home education, it will largely be up to LAs how strictly they enforce it.
Simon, I'm not much comforted by this,
ReplyDelete"it will largely be up to LAs how strictly they enforce it."
My own LA has been quite unable to provide me with a copy of their policies and procedures regarding elective home education, since I first asked for them about three years ago. They have been in a process of being 'updated' for several years now, while LA staff have come and gone.
Local home educators (myself and my partner included) have given up hours of our time to meetings where we have suggested how the LA might consult with local home educators and develop clear and open procedures. This has got us no-where.
Now, of course, they are waiting to see what happens with the Badman recommendations.
In the meantime, the LA behave in an unpredictable manner. Their interpretation of the current legal framework seems to vary depending on which section of the LA you are dealing with, which member of staff you encounter and so on. Some home educators have been treated in a shoddy way and it was only through their knowledge of the current laws that they were able to stop ignorant intrusion into their family lives. In our local area, we produced a dossier of such experiences - they weren't hard to find.
I dread to think how increased powers may be interpreted by some of the prejudiced and ill-trained LA staff out there. (That is not to say that there are not open minded and well trained staff too). Also, given that LAs are often in a state of some chaos (constant departmental re-organisations, high turnover of staff etc) how poorly any systems of inspection will be devised and maintained.
I would guess that any systems of inspection will indeed be poorly devised and maintained. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Most home educators are providing their chldren with an education. There are however some who are not. I think that those whom the LA suspects are not providing an education will be the focus of any new laws. They will probably carry on pretty much as before for the rest of us. Of course they huff and puff and quote various fearsome sounding laws. That is the nature of the beast, but they seldom proceed beyond that.I doubt if any of this will affect you or me, or for that matter anybody else here. It will be easier though for the local authority to take swift action against those who they feel might be neglecting their children's education. This may or may not be a good thing, but it will not make much difference to most home educating parents. Most laws are worded so that they have fierce sanctions attached to them for those who disobey them. These are hardly ever used and even when they are they are hedged about with various limitations. They are also modified by precedent. To give you an example of what I mean, I happen to own the freehold of some flats in London. According to the lease, I can re-enter and possess any flat if the ground rent is not payed. Of course, in reality I can do no such thing. I would have to go through the courts, ultimately getting a judgement and attending with the police and bailiffs. If I just went down there this evening and tried to re-enter and possess the property, then despite what my legal sounding document says, the police would arrest me!
ReplyDeleteThat's what it is like in the real world. People cannot just start breaking into properties at will. The local authority is no exception.
I haven't suggested that they would break into properties. But if they will be able to apply for and get a court order for entry if we refuse, there isn't much difference really. At most it could be a form of protest (forcing them to get a court order before letting them in). You say that you don't think things will change yet we constantly hear that LAs are asking for more powers. Why ask if they have no intention of using them? They already cause problems for home educators like you and I depending on the area you live in. Autonomous educators have been told the education they provide isn't structured enough, a friend in another area who follows a fairly structured approach was told they needed to date and mark all the work and had extra visits until they were judged as satisfactory. Just because you have not had problems in your area, doesn't mean you would not have had problems elsewhere. I have even heard of a LA complaining that a home educator made their child do too much work.
ReplyDeleteThe LAs do have the intention of using extra powers, but not on people who are actually educating their kids. Of course some LA officers will be meddlesome and boss folk around. I'm guessing that that's why they took jobs like that in the first place!
ReplyDeleteWe have had problems here in Essex. If you look at the minutes of the meeting I had with Badman, you will see that points I raised were that visits from the LA were distracting and irritating. I also doubted that some local authority officers were competent to monitor home education effectively.
Remeber that local authorities are not the only ones with a right of entry to your home. the Ministry of Agriculture, or whatever it's called theses days can comeonto you land to look for weeds, the Television Licensing Authority can come into your house to look for television receiving apparatus if you don't have a license. The resaon why it does not happen very often is that the courts take a very dim view of the practice of forcible entry of this sort. They need to be persuaded that the action is proportionate. I can't see the average magistrate authorising such a thing just because the LA are worried that some seven year old is not on the right level of the Oxford Reading Programme
Certainly it is this whole aspect of Badman's proposals which worry home educators most, because it is a drastic change to the current situation of not being able to insist on seeing the child at all, or to demand entry to the home. As Simon says,in all probability it won't make a differnece to most home educators - because LAs are inefficent and stretched as it is and can't possibly police such a scheme without a huge increase in staffing and money - and there is not enough of it to go around as it is. Yet the problem is that even if most home educators are not adversely effected, inevitably some will be- and there is no guarantee that it will even be the families who are actually failing to provide a proper education who are caught up in the ensuing trauma. LA staff are an unpredictable lot and make the strangest observations - I can think of one case near here where a family who would pass all the "Simon tests" for proper education was continously harrassed by an LA officer (and the mother kept being told that she was ruining her childs life). What would happen if that was repeated under new legislation ? - registration denied?
ReplyDeleteI suppose my feeling on that Julie, is that when we choose to adopt a very unconventional lifestyle like being home educators, then a lot of people will criticise us and say that we are doing the wrong thing for our children. I'm sure that we have all had this from friends and family, as well as local authority officers. My own wife works for social services in a London borough. She was not at all enthusiastic about home education. I dare say that it is unpleasant for a parent to be told that she is ruining her child's life, but as grown ups we have to realise that certain choices bring certain consequences. One consequence of the choice to home educate being that many people will disapprove strongly.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are of course perfectly right. Some good parents who are not neglecting their child's education will get caught up by new regulations and at the same time some unfit people will slip through the net. This will be so for any system. The question to ask is will a new way of doing things make this more or less likely to happen.
For local authorities to institute a proper system of monitoring and inspection would cost a fortune, I don't think it will happen. I'm hoping that they will realise this and ignore ordinary home educating parents and focus on those who either need or want help. I'm sure that there will be teething problems and injustice though.
"For local authorities to institute a proper system of monitoring and inspection would cost a fortune, I don't think it will happen. I'm hoping that they will realise this and ignore ordinary home educating parents and focus on those who either need or want help."
ReplyDeleteThere is no reason why they cannot do this now. If it the current proposals become law and Ofsted starts including it in their inspections, why do you think they will ignore ordinary home educators? We will be the easy ones to deal with. If they inspect enough of us, Ofsted will tick their boxes and go away. Isn't this what often happens in social work? The difficult families get left alone because social workers are often too afraid to confront them? From what I've read, this is often an issue in serious care reviews. Why try dealing with the difficult cases if they can inspect a high enough proportion of 'their' home educators by picking the easy cases?
From a cynical and purely pragmatic point of view, that would indeed be a sound strategy!However, I believe that the motivation behind this whole business is actually concern for children who may be overlooked by current arrangements. I am quite prepared to be proved a trusting fool on that score though.
ReplyDeleteSo what is stopping LAs from tackling the problem now? Why not issue School Attendance Orders if they doubt a suitable education is being provided? They will have to do this if the planned legislation come into effect so nothing will change except that innocent and genuine home educators can legally be harassed in their homes.
ReplyDelete"I believe that the motivation behind this whole business is actually concern for children who may be overlooked by current arrangements."
ReplyDeleteIf you look through the spreadsheet listing the FOI results from LAs there are plenty of examples where LAs list the number of children where they claim the child was withdrawn because of truanting and no education is taking place, yet very few SAOs have been issued. SAOs will still need to be issued if the proposed changes go ahead, so how likely is it that these families will be 'helped' by having their child forced into school? How is a right of access to the home going to change anything for these families when the LA does nothing even when they know there is a problem?
Because as lot of these parents who have withdrawn their children from school and are not educating them belong to various lists and support groups and know that the law is currently skewed in their favour. With tougher legislation, including the threat of entering their homes and the possibility of social services and police involvement, they will not feel so confident. To use an idiomatic expression, it will "put the frighteners on them"! I think that we will see less of this sort of deregistration for the avoidance of truancy of exclusion, if once tha type of parent realise that the law is being strengthened in favour of the LAs. I agree with you though, that it is probably inevitable that some innocent home educating families will be inconvenienced as a result. Whatever actions we take or fail to take, on this or any other subject, there will be unintentional and bad consequences. You have obviously balanced these up and believe that the unintentional and bad consequences of the present situation are outweighed by the good outcomes. I feel that the opposite is true. There is at the moment no way at all of telling which of us is right.
ReplyDeleteReplying to Simon a few posts up the page ( still can't copy and paste on this site...dunno why>) - It wasn't the "ruining your child's life" comment that was the real issue (although many home educators, especially those who have children with special needs are already vunerable to stress and don't deserve more) but the condemnation of what was clearly an entirely appropriate and thorough education as being unsatisfacory. The family concerned fought off that one, but if an LA officer can be so stupid in what I would see as a clear cut case, the mind boggles as to what "may" occur in the future.
ReplyDeleteI think that you are absolutely right Julie, and that what it comes down to is what is the least worst situation that can be implemented. In other words, whatever system of monitoring one has, or indeed if one has no monitoring at all, some children will suffer. On the other hand any monitoring and inspection will cause some unpleasantness for some innocent families. I suppose that the aim is to strike a balance where the least possible number of families are upset and the greatest possible number of children are provided with a decent education. I think that is what everybody is hoping for, it is just how we will achieve this that is the point.
ReplyDeleteI take your point about the family with the child with special needs. Parents are of course always agonising about whether they are doing the right thing for such a child and to be told by an LA officer that they are ruining his life is indeed loathsome. However, perhaps the person making the statement honestly believed this to be true?
I think (answering your question) that the LA bod was working on a false premise - ie this was an intelligent boy who should be working at a higher level - he gained this info by teaching the boy some maths trick and checking 5 mins later that he had "got" it. On that basis the level the mother was working with the boy seems inappropriate- but the reality was the boy had huge memory issues - I have since had him in my maths group - and each week he needed to start again on anything above basic number manipulation. So the LA man came and judged - but his judgement was highly flawed. That judgement didn't matter too much under current legislation - but may be disastrous in the future.
ReplyDeleteMust go and herd children off to church....
Julie- you go to church? its good news gordon admited we got to have cuts in public spending this will i turn help to water down crazy badman ideas as councils do not have the money to waste on him.
ReplyDeleteno monitoring or home visits here i am afraid and never will be what you say about that Simon? your be pleased to hear the LA give up and we where so looking forward to the battle but there just run away amazing all talk and no action like a lot of men i know!
"I agree with you though, that it is probably inevitable that some innocent home educating families will be inconvenienced as a result. Whatever actions we take or fail to take, on this or any other subject, there will be unintentional and bad consequences."
ReplyDeleteWhat good outcomes do you foresee? How will forcing children, who have already voted with their feet, back into school, or more likely truancy, help anyone? They are likely to disrupt classes if they attend or bullying will begin again and maybe drive a few more to suicide each year. Or they will truant, parents will be fined or sent to prison and most children will still not 'benefit' from their 'compulsory right' to an education. Overall it looks to me as though more harm will be done than good even for the children that should be helped (and you have made similar points yourself previously). You can also add to these the families falsely accused of child abuse or maltreatment because of the safe and welfare aspects to the proposed legislation as well as those falsely accused of not providing a suitable education.
"You have obviously balanced these up and believe that the unintentional and bad consequences of the present situation are outweighed by the good outcomes. I feel that the opposite is true. There is at the moment no way at all of telling which of us is right."
To reach that conclusion you would have to know how many children are involved on each side of the equation and you would have to know how much harm will be caused by the new system. From the figures we have so far from LAs it is clear that the vast majority of home educators are doing a good job. Until you have real evidence that this is not the case, you cannot claim that the opposite is true with any real authority. A vague feeling that it may be true because people cannot be trusted is not a good enough reason to make such radical changes to civil rights (the reversal of presumption of innocence). You have still not answered my questions about the safety of screening a general population for safety and welfare and the high numbers of false positives this is likely to throw up from earlier threads. What evidence do you have that routine safe and well checks on home educators will not cause more harm than good?
"still can't copy and paste on this site...dunno why"
ReplyDeleteIf you are using Firefox, you need to right click inside the comment box move your mouse to 'This frame' and select 'Open frame in new Window'.
ooh - it works, thanks
ReplyDeleteI am making the point Sharon, that leaving the situationas it is will have consquences in just the same that changing ot would. We both have access to a limite amount of data and draw our different conclusions. It is far from clear to me form the figures from LAs that the vast majority of home educators are doing a good job, although they may be. You seem to show a remarkable faith in the integrity of local authorities when their data support your point of view!
ReplyDeleteYou seem to display a remarkable lack of faith in the integrity of local authorities for someone who thinks they should have much more control over home educators and the education they provide.
ReplyDelete"We both have access to a limite amount of data and draw our different conclusions. It is far from clear to me form the figures from LAs that the vast majority of home educators are doing a good job"
ReplyDeleteBTW, are we talking about the same data? 114 out of 152 LAs have responded about 13455 children, that's 27% of home educated children if there are as many as 50,000 in all. This in no way could be called a limited amount of data! Even if there are as many as 80,000 (which seems highly unlikely) we still have information about 17% of the home educator population.
To give some idea of how significant this data is; if we were conducting a study and wanted a confidence level of 99% with a confidence interval of 1 and had a population of 50,000 we would only need a sample size of 12486 and these are unusually high specifications. A confidence level of 95% with a confidence interval of 2 would be more usual and this would only require a sample size of 2291. We have 13455.
Simon, you are debating the proposals as though they will be powers rather than duties.
ReplyDeleteFiona Nicholson
Education Otherwise
No I'm not, Fiona. Sharon and some others have been talking about the possibility of local authorities forcing access to homes in order to check up on children. I have argued that this is absurd and will not happen. You are quite right of course. The local authorities will have a duty to check up on home educated children and how they discharge that duty will be largely up to them. As an example I gave the fact that LAs have a duty to ensure that all maintained schools in their control begin the day with an act of worship of broadly Christian nature. None do. That is the case with duties, organisations often do not fulfil them. In order to allay the fears of Sharon and others, I was speculating upon how the LAs might fulfil their duty to visit home educating families against their wishes. It was for this reason that I was exploring what powers they would need to avail themselves of. I do not for a moment foresee any of them doing any of the things I have described!
ReplyDeleteSharon, the reason that I talked about limited data was because a good deal of the information you quote is worthless. Sure, there is a lot of it, but you can disregard a lot. Using these data, you claim that the great majority of home educated children are receiving a good education. This is ridiculous. A recent post on the HE-UK board tells us just why this is so. A mother explained that she sends in an educational philosophy every year, "because that is what my LA require". True, and not uncommon. The LA then mark down that they have no concerns. Of course, as the law stands, that is so. Then when people make Freedom of Information requests, that local authority might say that they have no concerns about 95% of the electively home educated children they know about. Do you see the sleight of hand? All that they know is that they have received an educational philosophy. For you then to argue that this shows that 95% of the children in that LA are receiving a good education is utterly abusrd. We know nothing about them. That is what I meant by a lack of data. All we know about most of those children for sure is that their parents can use the internet, download an educational philosophy and have enough IT skills to insert their names at appropriate places.
ReplyDeleteand the LEA will never know anything about our child! i do like that no meeting no home visits no nothing oh does that hurt! An education plan for Hampshire County Council f off! your not welcome in our house.
ReplyDelete"Sharon and some others have been talking about the possibility of local authorities forcing access to homes in order to check up on children."
ReplyDeleteHave I? Where was this then? You are the only one I've seen make mention of forced entry. They will not need to force entry in the majority of home because the parents will give in rather than put their children through the trauma. But a family allowing the LA to visit as now is very different from them being compelled to allow them in if they wish to continue having the right to home educate.
"The local authorities will have a duty to check up on home educated children and how they discharge that duty will be largely up to them."
No. The consultation makes it clear that two visits and interviews with the children will take place in the first year and annually thereafter, unless there are problems when the visits may be more frequent.
"As an example I gave the fact that LAs have a duty to ensure that all maintained schools in their control begin the day with an act of worship of broadly Christian nature. None do."
A more appropriate comparison would be Ofsted's inspection of schools, do they follow the law? Failing to ensure that a collective act of worship happens every day does not run the risk of being pilloried in the Sun for failing to prevent the abuse or death of a child by not fulfilling your legally required duties. It will be beside the point that an annual visit of an hour or two is highly unlikely to make any difference, they will want to cover their backs. This is one of the reasons some LAs have been agitating for more powers despite the fact that the changes will give them a responsibility to ensure safety where none currently exists, something some LA employees are concerned about.
You go on to mention that we lack information about the numbers of home educators receiving a suitable education. The main point I take from the data is that we lack information that a significant number are failing to provide a suitable education, yet the legislative changes are based on the supposition that this is true. Before any changes are made they should find out if the changes are necessary and proportional to a known problem, not some airy fairy, maybe there's a problem, it seems like parents can't be trusted so there probably is. I thought you disliked sloppy thinking?
Sharon, you are quite right. I have been having a fierce debate elsewhere on this subject and did not change gear as it were before posting here. I acquit you absolutely of claiming that there would be forced entry under the new laws. Sorry. However, I still cannot agree with you about your other points. The various laws covering education in this country lay down a mass of duties upon local authorities and various other bodies. Some of these duties are complied with, others are not. Whether the Sun raises a fuss is perhaps not the point. It happens. I could visit any school and find a dozen ways that they are not fulfilling their statutory duties. I am sure that the same will happen with any new legislation about home education, once the fuss has died down and nobody is looking. As I believe I pointed out, we do not yet know in any case how the law will be framed. We know what Graham Badman wanted and Ed Balls promised to implement the monitoring part, but that does not mean that the bit about two visits in the first year will end up on the statute books. I'm guessing something a little vaguer, along the lines of "Local authorities will make every effot to identify and monitor regularly such families...." We shall have to wait and see. The legislative changes are not based at all upon the assumption that a significant number of families are failing to provide a suitable education. They are based upon the wholly correct assumption that it is impossible to say either way. The aim of any new law will be to make it possible to keep track of these things. One of the best parts of the Badman report's recommendations was to bring the DCSF into the loop and the suggestion is made that LAs will have to gather data and forward it to the ministry. That will focus their minds wonderfully.
ReplyDeletethat has to be the worst bit that it will bring the DCSF into the loop who we know belive all children should be in school.It was the DCSF that ordred the review and told uncle Badman what outcome it wanted. your crazy to think otherwise. Balls/Badman funny names or is it me?
ReplyDelete"I could visit any school and find a dozen ways that they are not fulfilling their statutory duties. I am sure that the same will happen with any new legislation about home education, once the fuss has died down and nobody is looking."
ReplyDeletePossibly, but why should any home educators suffer harm as the result of those who do fulfill their duties (and there will be plenty who enthusiastically take up their new powers and use them), especially when we haven't even established that anyone will be helped.
"As I believe I pointed out, we do not yet know in any case how the law will be framed. We know what Graham Badman wanted and Ed Balls promised to implement the monitoring part, but that does not mean that the bit about two visits in the first year will end up on the statute books. I'm guessing something a little vaguer, along the lines of "Local authorities will make every effot to identify and monitor regularly such families...." We shall have to wait and see."
Or we can give them lots of good reasons for not allowing automatic access to the home and child if we think it's wrong and potentially dangerous, why wait and see?
My problem with LA visits, assessments and monitoring is the lack of training and understanding of anything other that school at home methods.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that it is autonomous educators that stand to be put out the most by these potential changes. I do worry for them, because even though I'm fairly structured, I can see that the academic ability of my children's friends speak for themselves, even though there 'appears' to be no method.
However, as somebody who is fairly structured and would like my children to take some GCSE's and follow a fairly conventional route, I am also concerned that it's going to be all stick and no carrot.
What about the good things that G. Badman put in his recommendations? The access to GCSE's; our share of draw down from Central Government; access to sport and music in schools. I haven't heard a thing about that and quite frankly, that makes me really very annoyed, as I wouldn't mind access to those things if we're going to be monitored.
In fact, I'll start arguing very loudly for it if we're going to be monitored. I will want my share of central government money in order to educate my children if I am on a register.
To be fair, I'm not really all THAT concerned about the changes. I can tick curriculum boxes and I know that I'm providing an excellent education compared to my local schools. No sane or reasonable person could really argue otherwise. I don't even mind registration really and it might mean that we get a better idea of who else is educating in our area as it's all a bit cloak and daggers at the moment.
Registration may even give home education a much clearer sense of legitimacy in the wider non-HE world.
But this thing of visiting the children on their own. No no no - not happening. It'll be off to Scotland I go I'm afraid if they try to pull that one on me and mine.
Gisela, i really don't think that seeing the children alone is intended to be the norm. I think that it is something to which the local authorities wish to establish a right, just in case it is needed. I believe that I have mentioned before that I always used to leave my daughter alone with the LA officer while I made coffee, just to give her a chance to exchange a few words in private. Why wouldn't I?
ReplyDeleteI am increasingly dubious about the chances of our gaining access to school facilities and GCSEs, which is, I agree, annoying. By the way, Tania Berlow had posted a fairly typical report from a home education advisor in Lancashire. It is worth looking at as this is probably the sort of thing that most LAs have in mind.
Simon,
ReplyDeleteThe reason I wouldn't want to leave my child with the LA officer while I went to make a coffee is because of a complete lack of consistency of LA officers. If HE was seen and felt to be a legitimate educational option in the eyes of LA officers, (which *may* happen as a result of registration and clear guidelines) there probably wouldn't be a problem. They'd probably want to be more supportive.
But when the remit of some LA officers is to get HE children back into school, regardless of what kind of education they receive, when they're asking for such draconian measures, such as speaking to the child on their own, when I haven't a clue about the credentials or experience of the officers being sent, I feel that it would be irresponsible to let them spend time with my children on their own, unless a relationship of mutual trust and respect had been built up first, and that takes time and a number of visits.
Besides, my house is open plan, so there is nowhere downstairs they could go to speak in private, and there is NO WAY that the LA officer will be allowed upstairs in my home with my children.
I feel that you have a trust in the LA officers that doesn't reflect the harm that *some* of them have done to HE families. For me, it's the lack of consistency in who you may get and their *agenda*.
BTW - I like your blog. It's good for you to be able to put down what you really feel, without the personal flaming you received on lists, and I enjoy reading it. Whether I agree with you or not, I think you will agree that I usually defended your right to say it on the lists, and could often see where you were coming from.
However, I really didn't like your recent article in the Independent. I didn't think it was very fair, accurate or even mildly representative of the autonomous families I know. I hope you don't mind me saying that.
Of course I don't mind your saying anything at all about my writing Gisela. Why should I? You do know of course that the piece in the Independent was edited and that I certainly did not give it the title about its being time to get tough on homeschoolers? I was quite happy to be flamed on the lists, but as you probably know, I was not given the option. I have now been chucked off all the lists, including HE Herts which I just joined to keep an eye on things in the area.
ReplyDeleteWhich local authority is employing staff with a remit to get home educated children back to school at all costs? Surely not Enfield?
I don't know details, but on one of the lists, somebody was specifically told by their LA officer that this was the case. I don't think one is allowed to cross post without permission, but that was the gist of it.
ReplyDeleteHaving had long conversation with our local LA boss on this matter...I can say that although he totally upholds the rights of parents to home educate he also recognises that many do so in response to a crisis - and so it isn't their "ideal" - and he also acknowledges that in some cases the school was at fault in the first place. So what he wants to be able to do in those cases is resolve the problem - and that may be the message which then comes across wrongly to some parents. For example we wre discussing the case of a mum who had deregistered her child because of school issues; child had unmet special needs and school couldn't cope - kept ringing up mum to come and sit in school to supervise boy. Result was mum had to give up her job because this happened so frequently. Now he is appalled that this has cost woman her job - so he is blaming the school - but presumably you(someone) could interpret that as the LA trying to get a child back into school? It is difficult to be sure sometimes I think!
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