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BriefingPaperHEReview

Page history last edited by Clare 14 years, 2 months ago

 


 

HOME EDUCATION: AHEd Briefing Paper

 

Dated: July 16 2009 

 

This briefing paper has been prepared by AHEd in response to the Elective Home Education Review Report and Recommendations. It is offered as an overview of the current situation, with some history leading up to recent events and the threats now being faced by home educating families.

 

The paper sets out:

  • a summary of the current provisions as they apply to parents and to local authorities
  • some of the reasons given by Local Authorities and national Government for repeatedly reassessing home education, including AHEd's comments
  • a history of consultations affecting home educators relevant to the current situation including comment.
  • Comment in favour of the status quo, with regard to legislation and regulation
  • proposals for practical changes that would improve the situation for home educated children

 

 

Who is AHEd?

Action for Home Education (AHEd)1 is an action group of home educating parents in England, Wales and Northern Ireland whose purpose is to defend and advance home education rights and liberties and to promote fair and equal treatment for all home educators. All members can take an equal part in the work produced by AHEd. AHEd is an affiliate of the Scottish home education association, Schoolhouse, which supports families in Scotland.

 

 

1. CURRENT SITUATION

 

One of the problems with the Home education Review is that it presents the current situation improperly in order to give a false impression supporting the supposition that there are problems that need to be addressed. For this reason we have provided a brief summary of the legal framework related to elective home education.

 

AHEd members believe that the current legal framework set out below, where it is properly applied, is appropriate and proportionate for ensuring the suitable education and welfare of children educated otherwise than at school.

 

However it is clear that there are serious, widespread and endemic failures in Children’s Services which have the potential to negatively impact upon home education and for which home educators themselves appear to be useful scapegoats when local and national government are looking for somewhere to project their own failings. 

 

Sections of the law referenced are copied below or appear in full in APPENDIX 1

 

Ensuring Suitable Education

 

Education is compulsory in England for children between the ages of 5 and 16 years. Under the Education Act 1996, Section 7 2 parents  - not local authorities - are responsible for ensuring the suitable education of their children either by "regular attendance at school or otherwise."

 

It is the duty of the parent to act in the interest of the child. It is not the right or duty of the local authority to do so unless and until the parent fails in their duty. The government are employed and instructed by the people to act where the parent fails, not to act AS the parent.

 

 

Section 7 of the Education Act 1996:

 

"Duty of parents to secure education of children of compulsory school age

 

The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable—

 

(a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and

 

(b) to any special educational needs he may have,

either by regular attendance at school or otherwise."

 

     

  • Recognises the position of the parent as the legal guardian of their child and natural defender of their rights.  It enshrines in law the duty of parents to fulfil their responsibilities whilst avoiding prescribing specific means.

 

  • It also protects diversity and choice in education whilst requiring that the education suits the needs of the child. As the parent is responsible for ensuring that their child is properly educated, it is their decision whether to use state schools or independent provisions such as private schools or education at home, but whatever their choice they must ensure that the education provided is suitable for the individual child. 

 

Local Authority Duties and Powers

 

Education Act 1996:

 

Suitable Education -

 

It is not the duty of the local authority to ensure a suitable education is provided to all children – they must provide a school place for children whose parents choose to send their children to school.  Local authority staff often speak in terms of monitoring or assessing home education provisions. In reality there is no such duty or power entrusted to them. However, there is a system of checks and balances between the responsibilities of parents and those of the local authority.

 

The wording of the Education Act 1996 requires the LEA to act only if something comes to its attention which gives sound reason to suppose a breach of a parent's Section 7 duty.  That is, they have a duty to act if it appears that a child is not receiving a suitable education.This is in accordance with legal practice and fundamental principles in this country which operate upon a presumption of innocence. This is clear proportionate action given the respective legal responsibilities of the parent and the local authority with regard to educational provision. Local authorities also have a right to enquire about parental provisions if they wish, even where there is no cause for any concern.

 

In order to fulfil those duties they do have, LAs currently are empowered:

 

  • to make enquiries of an informal/general nature (Phillips v Brown, Divisional Court [20 June 1980, unreported] Judicial review by Lord Justice Donaldson.) 
  • to carry out legally enforceable procedures to find out what education provision is in place and
  • to act in cases where they then conclude that there is an appearance of failure on the part of the parent to ensure that a child is receiving a suitable education.

 

If parents give no information in response to informal enquiries or merely state that they are discharging their duty, without giving any details of how they are doing so, the local authority may:

 

  • consider this lack of information itself to be an appearance that the parents are in breach of their legal duties (Phillips v Brown, Divisional Court [20 June 1980, unreported] Judicial review by Lord Justice Donaldson.) 
  • make enquiries as provided for in the Education Act 1996, Section 437, if they have cause to believe the parent is in breach of their duty laid out in Section 7

 

If parents do not comply with a (section 437) legal notice or otherwise fail to satisfy the authority, the authority may order them to register their child in a named school, giving an opportunity for the parent to apply to change the named school. 

 

ergo - LAs DO NOT NEED EXTENDED POWERS TO SAFEGUARD HOME EDUCATED CHILDREN

 

Children Missing Education -

 

The Education Act 1996 Section 436A was inserted as an amendment to the Education Act 1996 after being introduced in the Education and Inspections Act 2006. This section requires the local authority to identify, as far as is possible, those children who are not registered pupils and are not receiving suitable education otherwise than at a school. 

 

In practice many LAs interpret this as giving them a responsibility to monitor all education otherwise than at school for "suitability". However, it only requires them, where they have reasonable cause to suspect that a child not registered as a pupil is not receiving a suitable education, to make general enquiries in order to confirm or dispel that concern and act accordingly.  

 

Education Act 2002:

 

Safeguarding -

 

The Education Act 2002 Section 175(1) requires local authority personnel, in carrying out any of the duties already conferred upon them, to act with regard to safeguarding the welfare of children. This does not create any new powers. Safeguarding concerns should be referred to the relevant local authority department. Procedures for children who may be in need or at risk are the same regardless of their educational “setting.”

 

2. CONCERNS RAISED ABOUT HOME EDUCATION

 

Monitoring Home Education Provisions

 

LAs complain that it is difficult to monitor home education provisions in private homes without compulsory registration, right to access the home for compulsory inspection visits and the right to compulsory access to the child for private interview without a parent present, including investigating whether the child is safe in the care of the parents.

 

This is because they do not have the duty to monitor home education provisions. However, as set out above, they do have wide powers to investigate and to act where there is an appearance of failure to provide a suitable education. These include the right to make informal enquiries and to conclude from the information provided, or a refusal to supply information, that there is an appearance of failure of section seven duties and a duty to make a compulsory notice to satisfy the authority in that case. If this results in a failure to satisfy the authority, the authority have the power to issue a School Attendance Order requiring the parents to register the child in a named school, in their own right and without accessing a court. Failure to comply is a criminal offence.  AHEd believe that these powers are effective, proportionate and sufficient to enable the LA to fulfil their duties toward home educated children. 

 

Every Child Matters Objectives

 

One of the reasons home educators are told they should be registered and monitored is because many local authorities believe that they have a duty to make sure all children can achieve Every Child Matters objectives.

 

The five aims are:

Stay Safe

Be Healthy

Achieve and Enjoy

Attain Economic well-being

Make a Positive contribution

 

DCSF state on their website that these objectives "cover the universal services which every child accesses." That is, they are aims and desired outcomes which should be promoted in the provision of public services and functions. The state does not have a duty to assess the ECM outcomes with respect to individual children. The five outcomes of Every Child Matters are not applicable to home-educated children - they are not directly applicable to any children - they are indicators for public servants to use to monitor themselves and their own work. Furthermore, it should be noted that many home-educating families strongly object to the idea that anyone other than themselves or their children should determine their personal ambitions.

 

Each Local authority, therefore, should assess the quality and efficacy of its own public functions in order to be answerable to taxpayers and meet its obligations in the Education Act 2002, Section 175 and the Children Act 2004, Section 10. This remit DOES NOT extend into the private lives of any family. It must not do this at the expense of the rights of children and families to determine their own ambitions, or to define and assess their own success. Local authorities must not seek to extend the duty beyond assessing its public functions, into areas where it currently has no duty. 

 

Sadly, many LAs erroneously think they have legally sanctioned monitoring duties with regard to home education. This in turn leads them to extrapolate from that, a duty to assess the safety and welfare of home educated children by way of evaluating the five provisions of the Children Act 2004 Section 10 (2), which they DO NOT have. State-determined outcomes represent an Orwellian level of control, however benign those outcomes may appear.

 

 

Home Education and Child Abuse

 

Education is not a welfare issue and the two areas should not be conflated. Home education is an education matter. However, there is now a long history of attempts to conflate home education and child abuse. Home educators are currently subject to enormous amounts of propaganda and "spin" suggesting that education otherwise than at school is a high risk area for children. Unprecedented effort is being put into forming "evidence" that a child not in a school is a child at severe risk of undetected abuse the latest of which is the statistics misused in reporting the Badman Review Report. 

 

So far the propaganda supplied by detractors has not produced any real evidence, only hearsay and drama that current state regulation procedures are not adequate to manage concerns about children who happen to receive their education otherwise than at school.

 

http://ahed.pbworks.com/London+Safeguarding+Network

 

http://ahed.pbworks.com/Children-at-Risk-in-Schools#Propagandasafetyriskforeducationotherwisethanatschool 

 

This sort of propaganda is however not a new thing. Sadly home educators have previously had to challenge erroneous remarks in the press linking child abuse with home education. In March 2004, The Association for Education Welfare Mangement (AEWM) asked the then Children's Minister, Margaret Hodge, for the power to check up on home educators because, they alleged, "Some parents claim they are educating their children at home to hide the fact they are abusing them".  However, Jenny Price, general secretary of the AEWM later apologised for misinforming the public.

 

High profile cases involving abused children are routinely used to attempt to implicate home educating families. Although home education has featured in an extremely small number of cases of abuse (disproportinately very low numbers compared to national averages, as demonstrated by figures collected from Freedom of Information disclosures, by AHEd), it has not been a causative or contributory factor and it has not meant the local authority were not aware of the children and the risks they faced.

 

Home educators are in reality much more likely to draw the attention of officials and strangers alike and anyone wishing to hide abuse would find no safe cover in home educating.

 

Children whose situations have been used by local and national government to try and implicate home education as a high risk area:

 

Victoria Climbie

 

A number of people who should know better have attempted to use the case of Victoria Climbie to attempt to suggest that home education had something to do with her death and is therefore a high risk area for child abuse. The latest such abuse of her life and tragic death was perpetrated by Vijay Patel of the NSPCC who declared:

 

"Some people use home education to hide. Look at the Victoria Climbié case. No one asked where she was at school. We have no view about home education, but we do know that to find out about abuse someone has to know about the child."

 

Patel made this shockingly inaccurate and disingenuous attempt to make the link only a few days after having been forced to admit on the Jeremy Vine radio show that the NSPCC in fact had no evidence to support this claim:  

 

JEREMY VINE: Vijay, have you got any statistical base at all?

VIJAY PATEL: ... we don’t have the evidence there statistically, no. 

 

(The programme is no longer available to listen to on the BBC web site but a full transcript is available on a weblog.)

 

The NSPCC later made a very limited apology that avoided taking full responsibility for the dangerous misinformation being spread by their spokesperson.

 

The Victoria Climbie foundation3 expressed deep concern 

 

“The Victoria Climbié Foundation UK is genuinely concerned about the link being made between Victoria Climbié and home education, and Victoria as a hidden child. Victoria was neither home educated nor hidden.

 

The reality is that there is no such thing as a 'hidden' child, only children who are allowed to fall through the gaps.  The key issue here is how statutory services interact with children that are known within the child protection system." 

Lord Laming, reporting on his enquiry into Victoria's death, made the following comments: 

 

"One of the most striking features of Victoria's case, however, was the sheer number of occasions when the most minor and basic intervention on the part of the staff concerned could have made a material difference to the eventual outcome. In some cases nothing more than a manager reading a file, or asking a straightforward question about whether standard practice had been followed, may have changed the course of these terrible events.

 "Nor was Victoria hidden from view such that great time or resources would have been necessary in order to discover her needs. …. Victoria was known to no fewer than four social services departments, three housing departments, two specialist child protection teams of the metropolitan Police. Furthermore, she was admitted to two different hospitals because of concerns that she was being deliberately harmed and was referred to a specialist Children and families centre managed by the NSPCC. All of this between 26th April 1999 and 25th February 2000.”

 "What transpired during this period can only be described as a catalogue of administrative, managerial and professional failure by the services charged with her safety."  

On 12th March 2009, Lord Laming spoke again, this time about his review of Children's Services following Baby Peter's death. He said that the child protection reforms needed to help prevent tragedies like the deaths of Baby P and Victoria Climbie already exist but must be put into practice.

 

Children and foster children of Eunice Spry

 

Vijay Patel of the NSPCC also attempted, during his interview on the Jeremy Vine show on 20th January 2009, to discredit home education by citing Eunice Spry. 

 

JEREMY VINE: OK. Hold it there, let’s go back to Vijay for a second. She’s making a fair point, Vijay, if you can’t back up anything you’re saying with figures.

 

VIJAY PATEL: Well, they’re hard to come by and I can’t talk about the London Safeguarding Board, but I will say there’s a.. there is one case which was in the media two years ago: the case of Eunice Spry, but more important.. 

 

Radical Social Worker http://www.radical.org.uk/barefoot/scandal.htm Commented on the case:

 “Child protection concerns were reported to social services on a number of occasions and investigated but the concerns were not regarded as serious. This happened at a time when child protection procedures were well established and the necessary legal powers to intervene were in place.”

“In its defence Gloucestershire claimed that the fact that Mrs Spry removed children from school made it harder to monitor the situation. Its sweeping attack on home educators merely diverts attention from the failings of social services in monitoring the situation during the 14 years leading up to the children's removal from school. The statement from the Gloucestershire Safeguarding Board lists a number of changes in procedures and improvements in inter-agency communication but does not address the core problem of poor professional practice, particularly the need for a clearer focus on the investigative skills of social workers and the decision-making skills of managers” 

 

Khyra Ishaq

 

Birmingham Children Services have been suffering serious failures. The case of Khyra Ishaq, currently in the judicial system, (2009) eloquently demonstrates this. Khyra and her siblings were reported to social services with serious concerns for their well being by their schools whilst registered as pupils at least six months before her death. Khyra did not attend school while a registered pupil from December the 17th. There were already concerns about the health of children in the family which had been reported to social services. Khyra was withdrawn from school for home education in mid March the following year, about ten weeks before her death. The consequent repeated attempts of her head teacher to make social services take her concerns seriously were unsuccessful. 

 

Once again, this is a case of a family who were known to social services, but social services failed to use the powers available to protect the children.  Khyra’s death had nothing to do with home education and everything to do with the poor practice of Birmingham Children's Services who have jumped on the convenient bandwagon started in Gloucestershire by attempting to shift blame from the themselves onto home education.

 

 

3. CONSULTATIONS

 

In recent years the government has made repeated attempts to bring home education under tighter government control by issuing repeated policy reviews and vexatious consultations. The sheer number of these policy proposals and related consultations, which have either a direct or an indirect affect on our ability to carry out our duty to our children, amounts to harassment of a group making a minority decision about how to educate their children.  Using the offices of government is wildly disproportionate to the (mis)perceived issues around home education and misuses the function of consultation at great expense to the public purse. 

 

Some of these consultations have been: 

 

 

Consultation: Home Education Guidelines for LEAs (2005)

 

Background: In 2003 home educators acquired a leaked copy of the draft EHE guidelines. After much furore, DfES withdrew most of the text and in July 04 invited a home education organisation to comment. A revised version, written by Home Education organisations, was submitted to DfES for consideration but they said that there was insufficient funding for a full public consultation, the small team responsible for Home Education had too many other responsibilities, a limited consultation would be held with draft copies of the guidelines circulated prior to the consultation.

 

In April 2005 the limited consultation was launched. This consultation excluded home educating families specifically. However guidelines did not appear and proposals for legislative and regulatory change to the arrangements for home education were made public in October 2006 with the promise of an upcoming consultation to be launched the following year.

 

This resulted in complaints from individual home educators and a formal AHEd complaint pursued throughout the first four months of 2007.  AHEd complained of the failure of the Department for Education and Skills to involve home-educating families, as primary stakeholders, in an effective manner either in consultations and policy decisions regarding elective home education or in the preparations for the prospective consultation on the Statutory Framework for Home Education, and that the proposed consultation was therefore illegitimate. 

 

Outcome: Proposals dropped.

 

 

Truancy Sweep Guidelines (2005)

 

Home Educating families and their children are frequently stopped and harassed for their details under threat of children being removed to another place, whilst going about their lawful business.

Guidance has been repeatedly rewritten with the effect of overwriting the original Home Office guidance and promises made to us in parliament that home educators were not the target of the new power and should be allowed to go about their business.

 

Home education organisations began to publish truancy information cards with the correct law to be used in defence of the right to go about one’s lawful business without undue impediment by officials. These were taken up in their thousands while reports of truancy sweep abuses continued up to and including unlawful detention and, for example, a lone child being unlawfully removed in a police vehicle despite independent corroborating witness that the child was well known in the town and is not a truant but is home educated.  

 

 

Outcome: Proposals dropped – however this has not prevented EWOs and police officers continuing to harass home educated children and families on the street.

 

Consultation: Changes to the Statutory Framework for Home Education (2006)

 

This policy proposal and the intended consultation to follow it (which itself followed the first attempt in 2005), again made proposals disproportionate to any perceived issues and was strongly resisted by home educators, who countered it with effective legal, moral and educational arguments that were accepted by the government's lawyers at the time, leading to it being dropped at the last minute.  It was replaced by the hastily constructed consultation on Elective Home Education Guidelines in 2007. 

 

 

Outcome: Proposals dropped

 

 

Consultation: Guidance – Pupil Registration (2006)

 

This time, government attempted to usurp the parental duty to make education choices for their children by attempting to control the ability of parents to deregister their children from school.  Once again, home educators argued strongly and eloquently against a move which would have reduced parents’ ability to meet their moral and legal duties to their children, and the move was dropped.

 

 

Outcome: Proposals dropped 

 

Consultation: Children Missing Education 2007

 

Guidance on identifying children missing education was issued in February 2007 at the same time that the duty was introduced via the Education and Inspections Act.

 

Home educators objected strongly to the inference implicit - and in places explicit - in the guidance, that a home educated child is a child missing education, and also pointed out the "mission creep" that was by now taking place with regard to home education by the indiscriminate insertion of the word "suitable" into the key issue of children missing education.

 

Outcome:  Guidance issued with only minor modifications

 

Consultation: Definition of Full Time Education (2007)

 

AHEd called for the consultation to be withdrawn on the grounds that it was fundamentally flawed, highly misleading and risked adversely affecting home educators by inadvertently or intentionally redefining a “school”, a move that should not be attempted without altering primary legislation.

 

 

Outcome: proposals significantly modified.

 

Consultation: Definition of Independent School (2007)

   

This was another example of an ill-thought through policy proposal that threatened to sweep innocent home educating families up in its attempt to regulate and control small independent learning organisations.   The document proposed to define independent, not formerly recognised settings as full time education and to make private arrangements open to registration as an independent school. 

 

Home educators were concerned about home education groups, shared provisions and families with more than five children. AHEd and others pointed out these flaws to the DCSF who amended the document to take these issues into account.

 

 

Outcome:  Proposal significantly modified

 

 

Consultation: Raising Standards, Improving Outcomes Statutory Guidance (2007)

 

May 2007 AHEd members responded to the Consultation on the Raising Standards, Improving Outcomes Statutory Guidance because of its remit affecting "all children" and its potential effect therefore on young children in home educating families.

 

 

 

Consultation: Raising Expectations (2007)

 

In June 2007 we also responded to the Raising Expectations consultation, which proposed to raise the compulsory education age to 18 and to require all young people to participate in further education, work or training accredited by the government. 

 

 

 

Consultation: In Work, Better Off (2007)

 

This policy proposal caused serious concerns to home educating families with a lone parent. In work, better off consultation was published on 18 July 2008 and proposed that all lone parents be required to work for their benefits.

 

AHEd argued that lone parenting home educators were already working, i.e. in educating their child.  What is more, while the proposals explicitly exempted some categories of parents from having to attend work-focused interviews – such as foster parents, and parents of children excluded from school or educated by the local authority at their home - on the grounds that they had responsibilities at home looking after a child, it specifically discriminated against electively home educating families on the grounds that this is their choice. 

 

The proposals have been adopted largely unchanged with the result that lone parents who either are home educating or who would like to in the future in order to meet their duties under Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 will not now be able to – as clear a case as any that this government views home educators as a problem to be dispensed with, by whatever punitive and discriminatory measures it can find.

 

 

Outcome:  Proposals adopted unchanged; lone parent home educators effectively discriminated against, with some made unable to continue and others only with the loss of benefits.

 

 

Consultation: EHE Guidelines (July 2007)

 

It was during this consultation that our concerns about smears of the home educating community as potential child abusers became serious because of their effect on policy developments. We answered the consultation and sent other information to the consultation. We also investigated claims and found them to have no foundation other than rumour and innuendo. 

 

Outcome: Publication of Elective Home Education Guidelines Nov 2007 (much improved due to diligent work by home educators appraising drafts) 

 

2008/9 NICE Consultations:

 

on 'School, college and community-based personal, social and health education focusing on sex and relationships and alcohol education' illegitimately include home educated children in the scope of their guidance .

 

 

Consultation: Social Services (lone parents and miscellaneous amendments) Regulations 2008

 

June 1st 2008 – began our campaign for the Lone Parents lobby postcard campaign to defeat the regulations that will see lone parents forced to work or face benefit cuts!

 

Joint press release from AHEd and Schoolhouse. These regulations affected the rights of lone parents to opt for home education where it might be in the interest of their children.

 

 

Consultation: CME again (2008)

 

In August 2008 the DCSF launched a consultation on proposed "Revised Statutory guidance for local authorities in England to identify children not receiving a suitable education" AHEd's response , submitted October 2008 

 

 

Consultation/Government Review of Home Education -January 2009

 

In January 2009 the government announced a wide ranging review of home education which had been inspired by claims that home education may be used as a cover for child abuse, domestic servitude, sexual exploitation or forced marriage. AHEd issued a press release announcing disgust at this unwarranted attack on home educating families.

 

Part of the review was a consultation to which AHEd members made a submission.  We were however told by DCSF that it was not really a consultation, just part of a wider review and was therefore not subject to the rules and regulations of the Better Regulation Executive pertaining to public consultations.

 

The review report was issued on 11 June 2009. In this Mr Badman was forced to admit (section 8.14)  ... "I can find no evidence that elective home education is a particular factor in the removal of children to forced marriage, servitude or trafficking or for inappropriate abusive activities. ... this view is supported by the Association of Chief Police Officers."

 

However Mr Badman still reported, in the absence of any evidence, 28 recommendations for interventions into home education, many of which would require changes to primary legislation.

 

The government accepted the recommendations on the day of publication despite not having had time to prepare a full response which they will not have ready until September 2009 and despite not bothering to conduct a Regulatory Impact Assessment.

 

REVIEW PROPOSALS FOR STATUTORY AND REGULATORY CHANGE

 

The recommendations of the review are for legal and regulatory changes to implement measures including:

 

  • compulsory annual registration (this which would be in the grant of local authorities and subject to refusal or arbitrary withdrawal)

 

  • compulsory and automatic right of access to homes

 

  • children required to exhibit their attainments and progress to strangers annually and enforceable

 

  • a redefining of “suitable” education highlighting the known desire of local education authorities and the party currently in power to dictate the form, content and outcomes of education provided

 

  • routine forced interview with children separated from parents to ascertain whether they are safe and well in the care of their parents

 

This would create the right for the state to have access to private homes, to search for evidence of a crime with neither a warrant nor reasonable cause -  more power than even the police force currently possess. 

 

AHEd CONCERNS

 

These proposed changes would have profound implications for all families, if put into law, and for this reason we do not see the proposed changes as a home education issue only. These proposed changes affect the civil liberties of all citizens and families in England.

 

  • These changes would make invasive and potentially damaging investigations into innocent families, including interrogation of children, without just or reasonable cause for suspicion, a routine matter.

 

  • These changes would be carried out at a high, unnecessary, cost to the public purse.

 

  • These changes would have a tragic cost to those children who are actually in need of services or intervention but who would be buried under the sheer volume of bureaucracy and routine investigations at a time when social services are already breaking down and under the added pressure of the current economic climate.

 

We question how long it will be before the right of entry to investigate families who are causing no concern, just in case of wrong doing, will be extended from a discriminatory practice against those families taking up a lawful but minority option, to other families such as those with children under five who do not attend schools or those whose children are attending schools in the private sector and are not therefore under state surveillance?

 

How long would it be before the right of entry to homes, coupled with forced interview of children separated from parents where no crime against them is suspected, will be imposed on all families during the long summer holidays and other times when the children are not under the eye of the state?

 

The freedoms threatened by these proposals are freedoms necessary to every family and not just home educators. To put it simply, the party currently in power does not trust parents to raise their children and wish instead to control all aspects of our lives to ensure they are in line with a centralised agenda.

 

Anyone who thinks that undermining the homes and families of children in this way will not destabilise children and deprive them of a sense of security is wrong.

 

Anyone who thinks that forcing children to exhibit to strangers their educational attainment and progress will not disrupt and undermine their education is wrong.

 

Anyone who thinks that obliging families to undergo forced access to their home and forcing children to allow stranger access to their person separated from parents, will not make children confused and vulnerable to illicit approaches by other adults is wrong. It is child abuse.

 

The officials who agree to carry out such state sponsored grooming of school age children may do so in a gentle voice and with a big smile on their faces, but that will not change the nature of what they are doing. It is child abuse.

 

The purpose of forced registration, home visit inspections and compulsory interview of children separated by law from parents is control. For what?

 

REVIEW RECOMMENDATIONS

 

AHEd is working on a detailed critique of the review report and recommendations.

 

In brief, we believe the recommendations would be an ineffective, expensive and disproportionate response to a hypothetical problem that is not borne out by evidence.

 

Further, we believe the recommendations, if implemented, are dangerous and irresponsible. They would, for example, cause:

 

  • disruption in local authorities where relations with home educators are positive at present,

 

  • damage to family/child well-being as their private lives are publicly scrutinised,

 

  • potentially serious harm to children who do need intervention but get lost in the crowd created,

 

  • diversion of funds from much needed services without public benefit

 

AHEd understand that large numbers of families, members and otherwise, would resist and protest in every possible legal manner. Home educators are already showing their resistance in a number of ways:

An ongoing parents declaration is supported by hundreds of indivduals 

 

The report made 28 recommendations and the goverment accepted the recomendations on the day of publication, but will not be publishing its full response until September, in the meantime ...

 

 

 

Consultation: Home Education Registration and Monitoring Proposals (2009)

 

11 June 2009 DCSF Consultation currently running .

 

(Note: Despite the proposals being under consultation until October, there is already (July 2009) a suggested amendment to the Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Bill that would put some of the recommendations in place.* The party currently in power is also promoting a draft legislative programme that includes implementing the proposals under consultation.)

 

* LORD LUCAS - amendment "Support for Home Educators" suggested before clause 243.

 

 

 

 

4. IN FAVOUR OF A LEGISLATORY AND REGULATORY STATUS QUO

 

It is in our view unacceptable, yet true, that whilst the Review was still gathering responses, home educators visited by Mr Badman were told that the status quo will not prevail and that changes will be brought about.

 

How can a man charged with being unbiased/impartial, state the outcome of the review while it is in progress and still be allowed to carry on as an independent reviewer/researcher looking into whether changes are necessary and what they might be? AHEd members and home educators worldwide have been appalled to witness evidence dismissed, the comments of review contributors misrepresented to support a pre set agenda that promotes changes, and undermines the status quo with a false argument that there is a problem requiring changes to law to strengthen the powers of the state against the family, calling it "support". 

 

We hope that this paper will convince you that Mr Badman's/DCSF's suggested changes are dangerous and unnecessary and that the evidence for their necessity does not exist. We hope you will conclude that government should continue to maintain the statutory and regulatory status quo whilst recognising the moral imperative of offering more practical and moral support. 

 

Please oppose the recommendations however possible in order to prevent widespread injustice and abuses for children, families, our civil liberties and the state of our country's legal system. 

 

5. SO WHAT DOES NEED TO CHANGE?

 

Please see our document showing what changes are needed with respect to the provisions for home education in England: http://ahed.pbworks.com/BMWhatDoWeWantLAs

 

______________________________________________________________________________________________

REFERENCES:

 

(1) http://ahed.pbworks.com/

          (2) http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1996/ukpga_19960056_en_1

          (3) http://www.victoria-climbie.org.uk/

http://www.victoria-climbie.org.uk/images/stories/260209isthegovernmentrighttobeconcernedabouthomeschooling.pdf

____________________________________________________________________________________

 

APPENDIX 1

 

Law:

 

Education Act 1996, Section 437:

 

"If it appears to a local education authority that a child of compulsory school age in their area is not receiving suitable education, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise, they shall serve a notice in writing on the parent giving them at least 15 days to satisfy them that their child is in receipt of suitable education."

 

Education Act 2002, Section 175(1)

 

175 Duties of LEAs and governing bodies in relation to welfare of children

 

(1) A local education authority shall make arrangements for ensuring that the functions conferred on them in their capacity as a local education authority are excercised with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.

 

 

Education Act 1996, Section 436A

 

The Education and Inspections Act 2006 introduced a new duty to be inserted as an amendment to the Education Act 1996 as Section 436A. 

"Children not receiving suitable education

 

436A Duty to make arrangements to identify children not receiving education

A local education authority must make arrangements to enable them to establish (so far as it is possible to do so) the identities of children in their area who are of compulsory school age but—

 

(a) are not registered pupils at a school, and

 

(b) are not receiving suitable education otherwise than at a school.

 

(2) In exercising their functions under this section a local education authority must have regard to any guidance given from time to time by the Secretary of State.

 

(3) In this Chapter, “suitable education”, in relation to a child, means efficient full-time education suitable to his age, ability and aptitude and to any special educational needs he may have.

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