I have noticed lately that I am being referred to as the only home educator who supports Graham Badman. By implication, I am also the only home educator who believes that Khyra Ishaq's life might have been saved had tighter regulations been in force when she was alive. I suppose the idea being, as Goebbals said, that if you tell a lie often enough people will start to believe it! I have to say at once, that even if I were the only person in the world who thought that tighter regulation was needed for home education, that wouldn't bother me at all. There was a time when Galileo was more or less a minority of one in thinking that the earth orbited the Sun, but he was still right. However, am I the only home educator in favour of things like registration? Let's look at the evidence.
There are three main ways of seeing what home educators think about Graham Badman's recommendations and Schedule 1 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill 2009. They are, in ascending order of reliability; petitions, submissions to the Children Schools and Families select committee and the responses made by home educators during Graham Badman's review of elective home education last year.
The least reliable indicator of home educators' opinions must be the various online petitions, such as the ones to Downing Street. Many of those signing are not even home educating parents and it is perfectly possible to rig them by creating any number of hotmail accounts at your local library. I did this as an experiment and signed in a couple of false names. It is impossible to say anything about the opinions of the majority of home educators from these petitions. The submissions to the select committee were interesting, but suffered from other problems. Some people, Tania Berlow for example, made multiple submissions. Some families put in one each for the parents and then two for their children. Plenty of the submissions were by people who were not home educators. I took the trouble to track down and get in touch with some of the people who sent submissions, just to be sure. Which leaves us with the responses to Graham Badman's review.
There were just over two thousand two hundred responses from home educating parents. Sixteen hundred of these were against any sort of change in the current situation for home education. Interestingly enough, almost a third of those home educators who responded were definitely in favour of registration, something which seems to have been forgotten. I am going to assume for the sake of argument that all those sixteen hundred responses against any change in the law represented genuine home educators and that there were no multiple submissions. This is pretty optimistic, but I want to bend over backwards to be fair to these people. What proportion of home educating parents does this represent? This is tricky, because we do not know how many children are being home educated in this country. Around twenty thousand are registered with local authorities, that much we do know. Both local authorities and home education organisations agree that there are many more who are not registered. Local authorities often say as many again who are not known to them officially. Graham Badman suggested that there could be as many as eighty thousand and ten years ago Paula Rothermel thought there could be one hundred and fifty thousand. Just for a ballpark figure, let's assume that there are a little more than twice as many as the number known to local authorities. This would give us about fifty thousand children. Assuming each child has two parents and some families have more than one child, might give us perhaps eighty thousand parents of home educated children in this country. Could be more, might be fewer.
Now the sixteen hundred parents who responded to Graham Badman's review of home education by rejecting any change at all, would represent around 2% of that total. In other words, we do not know what 98% of home educating parents think about the matter. This is a sobering thought indeed. It is true that there are a few hundred people on various lists who are very much opposed to the recommendation made by Graham Badman in his report, but these are often the same people who sent in responses to the review, submissions to the select committee, signed petitions and also come on this Blog and denounce me a fool and a rascal. We must be careful about counting them twice! Anybody who follows article about home education on the Internet will also see the same names cropping up there all the time. One gets the distinct impression that there is a hard core of perhaps five or six hundred at most who work very hard against the proposed changes. For instance, the next time you are reading the comments made about an online article on home education, keep an eye out for firebird 2110. She is very active and there are another half dozen like her, who comment everywhere. This also tends to give the impression to people that opposition to the Graham Badman's recommendations is more widespread than is in fact the case. 70% of the Freedom of Information requests made about home education to the Department for Children, Schools and Families, for example, have been made by just nine people. This is not really a mass movement.
So what do the great majority of home educators think about the Badman report and the new CSF bill? I haven't got a clue and neither does anybody else. Certainly, I know home educating parents in this area who think it is all a lot of fuss about nothing. They get on with teaching their children and if the local authority want to pop round from time to time to make sure the kids aren't starving to death or illiterate, that's fine. A bit of a nuisance, but hardly worth getting worked up about. These parents think I am mad engaging with home educators who hang out on the Internet. They see them as a bit loopy, rather like those unfortunate individuals who write strange letters to newspaper editors in green ink! Are these parents typical? It is impossible to say. There are certainly many others who are opposed to any change and I know a few of them as well.
The truth is, neither I nor anybody else can make any sure pronouncements about what "the great majority" of home educators think about Graham Badman or anything else. All we can say with assurance is that we have no idea what 98% of them think, but that the other 2% feel very strongly about it. Feeling very strongly though, does not make that 2% the great majority.
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Like you, I think the only real comclusion is that we don't know the real ratios of "for" and "against". However I do think that the "against new legislation lobby" are being foolish in concluding that you are their only enemy - not only do the figures show that a sizeable proportion of consultation respondents did vote yes to registration, but I meet, almost daily, with home educators who aren't on any national mailing lists, have no interest in getting involved, never voted in any petition or survey and yet all would say yes to more registration if they had to give an answer. To believe they don't exist does not strengthen the campaign against change.
ReplyDeleteSecondly the " anti- change" lobby are sometimes completely unaware of how the general public sees things. I know there has been an attempt to publicise the battle as a "keep the govt out of our private lives" issue which could affect all families. Yet listening to some of the feedback on the Khyra case (in particular Radio 2 on Friday) most people cannot understand why home education is so lightly regulated anyway - they are all too used to Ofsted and co sticking their nose into every aspect of schools/nurseries/childminders and are amazed that home ed should be exempt. Then the publicity surrounding this tragic case just strenthens such feelings - not the opposite. In many ways I feel that keeping quiet at the moment might be rather more dignified that everyone shouting "but she wasn't really home educating."
I see yesterday's Sun has an interview with Chris Spry (adopted son of Eunice) complaining of the failures of the LA in his case (ie 4 visits in 10 years wasn't enough etc) and how things should have been changed already, which he says would have saved Khyra. One wonders who will be dug up next....
"Certainly, I know home educating parents in this area who think it is all a lot of fuss about nothing. They get on with teaching their children and if the local authority want to pop round from time to time to make sure the kids aren't starving to death or illiterate, that's fine."
ReplyDeleteIf that's what happens to them, then it's not surprising they think it's a lot of fuss about nothing.
I'd be interested in their response if they were investigated by social services because they had been wrongly accused of FII or because the child was still in pyjamas at 11 am or because a child with an unidentified SEN wasn't reading, writing or doing arithmetic by the age of 8.
This is the kind of scenario parents are worried about, not an LA officer 'popping round' from time to time. The people you describe appear either to be unaware of what happens to other parents, or they don't care, either of which is hardly commendable.
Yes, I too find that ordinary, non-home educating people are shocked at learning that anybody can take their kid out of school and then refuse to allow anybody from the local authority to see the child or visit the home. Part of the problem with being a home educator is that you sometimes tend only to hang around with other parents who feel the same way and it is possible to lose sight of what most people are thinking about the matter. This certainly happened to me. People ask questions like, "Can you just take your child out of school without getting permission?" You feel like saying, "Of course you can, you fool. Don't you know about the Education Act 1996 and the 2007 Guidelines on Elective Home Education? Where have you been hiding?" Then it dawns on you that hardly anybody does know about these things, unless they happen themselves to be home educating parents.
ReplyDeleteWell of course suzieg, we all tend to assume that our own experiences are typical. I have a suspicion though that parents who just have a local authority officer popping round for an amicable chat once a year are more common than those who have terrible problems with their local authority. As I said, we can't really know and anecdotal evidence can be misleading.
ReplyDeleteSuzyg said "The people you describe appear either to be unaware of what happens to other parents, or they don't care, either of which is hardly commendable."
ReplyDeleteperhaps... but the trouble is that there is one group of people who may truly believe that it won't happen to them (and if you have had good experiences with your LA, I suppose such a belief seems reasonable) and there is another group who believe that if either of the scenarios you describe (pyjamas/not reading) happen then you are obviously not home educating properly and so deserve what you get.
I am sure that the home educators that are on the main home ed lists are much more homogenous in outlook than the HE community at large.
1. PJ's and late reading does not = the right to be terrorized, victimized or even frowned down upon by an educational heretic or an educational welfare officer/LA. Not being dressed and having kids reading at age 12 is not 'proof' of being a terrible home educator, any more than a shirt and tie or long skirts and modest dress makes you a good one.
ReplyDeleteI have had all 'aged' readers out of my 5 children. And not through lack of of work. We provide a literature rich environment and have used all kinds of resources from LEM Phonics (similar to Spalding), Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons- and Hooked on Phonics, and still the reading age in our house has varied. Personally I have found that whether the kids are in their Sunday best or PJ's hasn't had any effect on their ability to learn either.
I have had two late readers who when it did finally kick in, very quickly caught up to peers.
I have a 3 year old currently who is starting to show reading readiness, and then my two others read at expected school ages.
If how one dressed was indicative of a good education then our school system would not be failing would it, because all the school uniforms, polished shoes doesn't seem to make that difference in a school setting either.
2. As a home educator who has undergone a registration process in Australia, I can safety say it would not have changed anything in Khyra's case nor in Chris Spry's. Nor will it do so again.
I know that through my own experiences, and I know that because the already in place measures failed those children.
3. I think more people 'might' welcome a registration system if it came with no strings attached, and I think that is very different to people welcoming one under the current suggestions. But again, personally I think the whole thing is a waste of time and money. That does not prove anything.
It's the inevitability of false positives which concern most of us.
ReplyDeleteMrs Anon
Ooops, I mean 'concerns'.
ReplyDeleteMrs Anon said "It's the inevitability of false positives which concern most of us."
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
"I have noticed lately that I am being referred to as the only home educator who supports Graham Badman. By implication, I am also the only home educator who believes that Khyra Ishaq's life might have been saved had tighter regulations been in force when she was alive."
ReplyDeleteAnother possibility is that some people fear the cost could outweigh the benefits. People might think that the chances of saving Khyra might have increased under the new legislation but fear that more children would die or be harmed as a result of the legislation. Bullied children being forced back to school, and dying and their own or others hands, or false positive referrals, for instance.
Personally I think the new legislation will reduce the chances of children like Khyra being saved. Already scarce resources will be stretched more thinly and the haystack size will increase with the addition of a low proportion of needles. Introducing referrals from a low or normal risk population is going to dilute the current referrals from high risk populations. The EWO problem in Birmingham was not due lack of legal powers, but to the 1:350 ratio of EWO to families and the general lack of resources, staff and organisation that prevented information from various schools and the medical profession being brought together and considered as a whole instead of piecemeal.
"By implication, I am also the only home educator who believes that Khyra Ishaq's life might have been saved had tighter regulations been in force when she was alive."
ReplyDeleteAre you not swayed by the belief of the court appointed guardian and the judge in the case that current laws, if correctly applied, were sufficient to save Khyra?
Who cares what other people think about home education not being regulated? most people may want same sorts of checks on it but not how much it would cost that is the one thing people would not like.You ask them money for Home educators to be checked on or money for your school? and your find people will say i want any spare money from our council spent on my childrens school.
ReplyDeleteThat is why Ed balls will lose the councils have just not got the money to spend on checking up on home educators deep cutbacks are coming for ALL public services so they is no way money will be wasted on home educators!
I certainly agree about the danger of false positives. The problem is that whatever system we have, these will crop up. For example, one of the danger signs spotted was that Khyra Ishaq's sibling was scrounging food. Now this might be a warning sign that a child is slowly being starved to death, but it might also be a sign that the child is greedy, a bit peckish or suffering from some sort of learning difficulty which means that he will grab food at any opportunity.
ReplyDeleteWhat should the school do? Should they call in social services in case the child is being starved? Should they ignore it? carry on keeping an eye on things? Ask Mum? Dilemmas like this crop up every day at schools, breakfast clubs, holiday playschemes and various other places. Sometimes ringing social services will be a bad idea and completely pointless; a false positive in other words.
The fact that a new scheme would, like the existing situation, generate false positives is not an argument against it. It is an argument for working harder to make sure resources go where they are needed. We all agree on that, the only question is how we are to go about it.
The judge thought the current system should have saved Khyra if it had been followed correctly so extra resources should go towards the current system. The new law effectively adds more duties yet the money budgeted will not meet the costs of those extra duties. Effectively the new duties will drain money from the already under-resourced system and also create additional false positives adding even more strain to the system.
ReplyDeleteResearch has found that monitoring normal risk populations results in a higher proportion of false positives than the more usual monitoring of high risk populations. Thus you might get ten false-positives for every true-positive in a normal risk population compared to one false-positive for every two true-positives in a high risk population. The test should be, 'does monitoring save more children from harm than the monitoring itself causes?' The medical profession have decided that monitoring normal risk populations for abuse fails this test.
Well of course, that is quite true; monitoring normal risk populations is a waste of time. This is however the very contention being made; that home educated children do not represent a normal risk population. I doubt that we are going to be able to establish the truth of this proposition either way, but rightly or wrongly, the suggstion is being made that home educated children represent a high risk population and that this justifies the monitoring. If the idea was to monitor every child in the country or even in a randomly chosen geographic area, then that would be a normal risk population. This is not the case with home educated children. We must agree that they are not a normal risk population, using the term correctly. This does not necessarily mean that they are a high risk population, simply that they are not a normal risk population. This is because they are a special case and not at all average.
ReplyDeleteOf course, some home educating parents would claim that they were in fact at a lower risk than normal children. Some in the Department for Children, Schools and Families would say that they are at increased risk. I make no comment on either thesis. What we must surely agree is that they are not a normal risk population.
Duh! You've had enough time to have read that the little girl had brothers and sisters who were at SCHOOL and were also being starved. One was only a couple of days away from death. So, being at school did not protect them. Next time check your facts before commenting.
ReplyDeleteSome expert you are. Deluded self-confidence does not mean that you know anything.
Julie, don't trust what Mr W says. White man speak with forked tongue!
Who said I was an expert? I am simply another home educating parent. I was of course quite aware that two of the children remained at school. The others were electively home educated and it was one of these who was almost dead. You might care to read the transcript of the care proceedings before commenting further.
ReplyDeleteSomeone said You've had enough time to have read that the little girl had brothers and sisters who were at SCHOOL and were also being starved. One was only a couple of days away from death. So, being at school did not protect them. Next time check your facts before commenting."
ReplyDeleteEr, that is not true is it? The eldest two were at school, but the child Z, who also nearly died, was one of the "at home" children; four of the 6 children were at home.
The above comment was directed at anon... lost my quitation marks somewhere!
ReplyDeleteor even quotation....obviously should be in bed!
ReplyDeleteYes, as usual you are right Julie.One of the children who was at school was not really underweight and the other was slightly so. It was the ones who were being home educated who were also being starved.
ReplyDelete"Yes, as usual you are right Julie.One of the children who was at school was not really underweight and the other was slightly so"
ReplyDeleteThis is the time line for M, one of the children who stayed at school throughout.
"14th March 2007, 75th centile
September 2007 - A teaching assistant in M's class recorded her shock at how much weight M had lost over the summer. In her written evidence she described him as "really thin and like a child from Ethiopia." She spoke of him being weak and tired and the weight still "dropping off."
After Christmas Mr Q became more alarmed. M was holding up his trousers with his hands because he had lost so much weight and the staff, on Mr Q's instructions, started to look for marks on his body when he was undressing for swimming. He raised his concerns with the Deputy Head and the matter was transferred to the school nurse. She weighed him and noted that his weight was between the 25th and 50th centile having been previously on the 75th and that the mother was restricting his diet.
M had his annual medical review on 22nd January 2008....Despite M having dropped through the centiles to under the 25th centile by this time, the mother told Dr A that she felt he was getting too much food and she refused to agree to a referral to a dietician although she did agree to his weight being monitored.
In March when M was weighed again his weight had gone up to 24 kilograms but when weighed again in May it had dropped back to 23.5. Ten days before K's death M's teacher made another referral, describing him as "thin, weak, tires easily, feels the cold easily. Whenever food is available he will constantly ask for more." Unfortunately the mother attended neither the weighing in March nor the medical in May. "
"This is however the very contention being made; that home educated children do not represent a normal risk population."
ReplyDeleteThis has not been proven by peer reviewed research. Badman asked LAs for figures and concluded that home educated children were at higher risk, home educators asked more LAs and found the opposite.
The Children, Schools and Families Committee that looked into the Badman review said:
"We are disappointed at the less than robust evidence base that the Badman Report and the Department have presented with regard to the relative safeguarding risk to school and home educated children. Furthermore, we suggest that existing safeguarding legislation is the appropriate mechanism for the purpose of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of home educated children, and that the proposed addition of annual visits would offer little direct safeguarding benefit over and above this. In our recommendations we have strongly discouraged the notion that local authority home education teams should be given a more overt safeguarding role."
Anon two above; yes, you are correct in what it says about M, but nevertheless it is also true that the starvation to life threatening levels was of the 4 at home (presumably because the other two did get free school lunch, whatever else they didn't get at home).
ReplyDeleteWhatever our interpretation of the facts - as to who was to blame and whether new legislation would have saved this child, I think it is important to stick to the (uncomfortable) truth, and not argue that 1) K wasn't really home educated 2) that the schooled children were at imminent risk of death.
In short Julie, school was providing a lifeline which prevented the two children who were attending from almost dying. It also made it possible for concerned professionals to keep an eye on them. The fact that the children kept at home were covered in marks of beating while the one's at school were not is probably significant. It was obvious to the mother that if they turned up for school covered in weals, that somebody might ask questions. Again, attendance at school was shielding them to an extent from the abuse being inflicted upon their siblings.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is, social services screwed up on this. The school was the only agency which was seeing the warning signs, even if they were not acted upon. This suggests strongly that schools do act as a first layer in detecting abuse and ill treatment; a layer of protection which home educated children lack. The implications of this are not comfortable!
Simon said "social services screwed up on this."
ReplyDeleteWell, at least we all agree on that one!
"Whatever our interpretation of the facts - as to who was to blame and whether new legislation would have saved this child, I think it is important to stick to the (uncomfortable) truth, and not argue that 1) K wasn't really home educated 2) that the schooled children were at imminent risk of death."
ReplyDeleteI'd agree with that, though I'd hope that social services would normally become involved before death becomes imminent!
BTW, what do you think the chances would have been of K being saved under the new regimen, bearing in mind that she was seen to be fit and healthy about a month before the EWO visited for an hour? Do you think combining the two visits in one and losing the experience of the social worker who judged K to be healthy, leaving just a (probably) ex-teacher to check on education and welfare, would have made any difference to the outcome? Someone so under resourced that he agreed they were providing a suitable evidence despite the obvious lack of resources at the house and the failure of the mother to provide further information as agreed?
"This suggests strongly that schools do act as a first layer in detecting abuse and ill treatment; a layer of protection which home educated children lack."
ReplyDeleteDo you think then that schooled children should have a home visit during the summer school holidays? I mean, K was seen to be healthy just over two months before she died. This could easily have happened over the 6 weeks school holiday with a couple of extra weeks missed due to illness or just plain truancy.
Anon said "Do you think then that schooled children should have a home visit during the summer school holidays?"
ReplyDelete- you probably aren't asking me, but my answer is of course not, just like it is possible that even had the EWO done more visits he may not have saved the child. One could argue though that were home educating families made to submit lots of annual plans before being registered then a family such as this would have never ended up home educating in the first place. Still might not have saved her though (clearly a family where violence was also an issue, not just starvation). Many child deaths are of course of children who are at school - school can't protect a child out of school time (and let's be honest, it doesn't always protect a child in school time either!). Speaking as a Christian - all the legisilation in the world won't get rid of sin!
What I am objecting to is the rush of posts (in other places) which keep trying to point out that the poor child wasn't HE, and another anon here who doesn't seem to have actually read the judges report! Fighting for HE shoudn't make some people so economical with the truth (however the politicians behave).
Julie-They never be a home visit here and your be pleased to know no visits or meetings have taking place since we began home education in June 23 2003! We will never comply with a home visit never over our dead body is the only way in!
ReplyDeleteits so refreshing to know you can tell Hampshire LA to F off and they do!
You're no Galileo, Simon, quite the contrary and besides, he wasn't a minority of one; the idea that the earth orbited the Sun had been around for at least 1600 years before Galileo and was placed on a theoretical footing (i.e., with predictive power) by Copernicus, nearly 70 years before Galileo's run-in with the church.
ReplyDeleteGalileo's discoveries highlighted the issue and the church - behind the times, a little like DCSF - was horrified by this counter-doctrinal view. They had already burned Giordano Bruno for heretical beliefs that included a non-geocentric view of the universe.
Simon- you said you suspect that those who have positive pop in expereinces with their LA outnumber those who have negative experiences
ReplyDeleteHowever, you said in another post that you yourself had run-ins with several Local Authorities. So you know exactly why some people are worried about giving them more powers ....
It would be beneficial for home educators and government if all Local Authhorities had advisors (and in turn these advisors had managers) where most home educators would feel comfortable with the idea of a 'pop in' visit. As it stands currently, this is not the case. There are very few areas where the relationships between LAs and the home educators is this good.
Your example of Essex is a good one- Ruma may be well liked but her boss may have different agenda according to you. My own LA is unanimously considered great and most people love the visitor. I can think of a couple of other LAs where they have managed not to alienate the very population they are supposed to be offering services to. On the other hand, I could name and shame many more LAs where parents have every reason to dread them being given any more powers. Until these issues are addressed and a new government leaves enough time for the bad taste left by the last 10 years of the current government to be washed down , there will not be enough co-operation to implement some great ideas- like getting the EHE community to fully back a longitudinal study done by an independent university.
Until this bad taste is replaced by something more palatable, who is going to trust their child's details with Connexions so that outcomes can be tracked? Not you, right? I remember you said you complained that your daughter was put on that database- or was the complaint only about your lack of consent as her parent? Until things on the menu look better -no-one is going to ask to participate in the dining experience, whether they are offered all sorts of goodies, a free meal ticket or force fed.
No good can come of changes without the good will and backing of the majority of home educators - they seem to have managed in British Columbia to gain the trust of the EHE community and in turn the government seems to trust its EHE community. I would really like to see less arguments with government and in fighting amongst Home Educators and more discussion about how to improve the situation and bring about the best possible environment BEFORE any compulsory notification or registration system is considered by the next government-because if we (Home Educators) do not manage to do this- it will be implemented at some point without our ability to influence and input it for the best. How can we bring about a more favourable climate -such as the British Columbians experience?