Cambridgeshire County Council LA

 

this is a page for Cambridgeshire news information and comment.

 

LA Response to consultation on EHE guidelines Comments: Five Stars? News: Regional groups:

 

 

 

related links:

 

Meeting the LA Education Department

 

Guidance on improving LEAs

 

LA Response to consultation on EHE guidelines

(closing date: 31st July 2007)

 

Cambridgeshire LEA

 

1 Do you agree that it is helpful for the DfES to issue guidelines to local authorities?

 

Yes

 

Comments:

 

These guidelines will only be useful, however, if they honestly and openly attempt to address the key presenting issues involved in how a LA can properly carry out both its education and safeguarding duties with regard to children who are home educated.

 

 

2 Do you agree that the description of the law (paragraphs 2.1-2.3) relating to elective home education is accurate and clear?

 

Yes

 

3 Do you agree that the description of local authorities’ responsibilities (paragraphs 2.5-2.11) is accurate and helpful?

 

No

 

Comments: Paragraphs 2.5 to 2.11 are ambiguous and unhelpful and will not support local authorities to carry out their education and safeguarding functions with regard to children who are home educated. Paragraph 2.7 and the quote from Section 437 of the Education Act 1996 encapsulates the basic problem in that it suggests that local authorities should be inactive unless they have ”good reason” to believe that parents are not providing a suitable education. This local authority strongly believes that it should base its practice on an active confirmation that parents are providing a suitable education rather than a passive assumption that they are. Paragraph 2.11 totally avoids the issue of how local authorities might properly carry out their safeguarding functions with regard to children who are home educated. This local authority wishes to record its disappointment at the DfES’s failure to constructively address this issue.

 

4 Do you agree that the section on contact with the local authority (paragraphs 3.4-3.7) is accurate and helpful?

 

No

 

Comments: Again, these paragraphs are ambiguous and unhelpful. This local authority acknowledges that the vast majority of parents who choose to home educate do so for entirely sound reasons and succeed in providing a suitable, full-time education for their children. The local authority is committed to working in a spirit of partnership and collaboration with such parents and believes that in most instances it succeeds in doing so. This authority believes, however, that a small minority of parents persistently refuse to engage in any form of meaningful dialogue with the local authority. This authority believes that the ambiguity of the existing legislation in relation to home education and the continuing lack of clear DfES guidance on the respective roles and responsibilities of home educating parents and local authorities does little to support local authorities to open a dialogue with this particular group of home educating parents. This local authority regrets that the draft guidelines offer no practical support to local authorities with regard to parents who persistently refuse to engage in a dialogue.

 

5 Do you agree that the section on providing a full-time education (paragraphs 3.11-3.14) – and in particular, the characteristics of provision (paragraph 3.13) – is accurate and helpful? 

 

Not Sure 

 

Comments: The suggestion that “local authorities should offer advice and support to parents....” is ambiguous. This authority believes that great care needs to be exercised with regard to the use of the words “advice” and “support”. Officers from this authority will always do their utmost to facilitate the process whereby parents can provide home education. It is open to discussion, however, as to whether it is the responsibility of the local authority to offer specific “advice” and “support” when parents wish to assume responsibility for educating their children. It might be suggested that the offering of “advice and support” potentially redirects some portion of responsibility back to the local authority. Whilst always endeavouring to work in partnership with parents officers from this authority will always make it clear to home educating parents that they are assuming sole responsibility for their child’s education. (The local authority Elective Home Education Manager meets with a group of home educating parents each term in order to discuss issues of mutual concern.)

 

6 Do you agree that the section on developing relationships (section 4) is useful?

 

Not Sure

 

Comments: Whilst most paragraphs in this section are broadly helpful this local authority wishes to record its concern that paragraphs 4.9 and 4.10 totally fail to address how the local authority might properly carry out its safeguarding functions in relation to children who are home educated. It is, this authority would suggest, inadequate for the guidelines to simply state that the welfare and protection of all children are “of paramount concern and the responsibility of the whole community”. Whilst this authority would not wish to suggest that children who are home educated are at any more risk of ill-treatment or abuse than children who attend school, the fact remains that children who attend school are daily seen by a range of professional and others, whilst children who are home educated are often not. This is an important issue which the draft guidelines ignore.

 

7 a) Are the suggested resources in section 5 and appendix 2 useful?

 

Yes

 

Comments

 

Parents are particularly interested in local resources.

 

7 b) Should any other contacts be included?

 

Not Sure

 

8 Please use this space for any other comments you wish to make about the guidelines

 

Comments: In addition to the points previously made this authority has concerns that the guidelines talk exclusively about the rights of parents and the responsibilities of local authorities. Nowhere is clear reference made to the educational entitlement and rights of the child. This apparent marginalisation of the individual child has serious ramifications, particularly for groups that are identified as vulnerable. For example, this local authority continues to have concerns that there may be a growing number of Traveller children – mainly of secondary age, but increasingly of primary age – who are being denied their proper educational entitlement as a result of their parents in effect taking advantage of what they may perceive to be a lax and largely non-prescriptive home education framework. This authority would request clearer guidance with relation to home educating Traveller families and in particular clarification as to what might be deemed a “suitable and efficient education”. This authority is concerned that Traveller children may be disproportionately represented in the elective home education numbers and that this in itself could be perceived as evidence of institutional racism in the education system.

 

 

~~~~~

 

Comments:

 

Five Stars?

 

With some councils not able to tell anyone what they said to DCSF as they forgot to keep a record (?) and others taking full advantage of the time allowed before replying, surely we ought to give a five star award for Excellence in Public Service to Cambridgeshire County Council, who responded with the information in less than two days! Shouldn't we?

 

If timing is a priority I guess stars are due BUT "This local authority strongly believes that it should base its practice on an active confirmation that parents are providing a suitable education rather than a passive assumption that they are." - so no regard for the law then - prejudiced assumption that home educators don't deserve the same presumption of innocence that the rest of UK society is afforded. Stars?

 

Would you like to swing on a star

carry moonbeams home in a jar

and be better off than you are

or would you rather be a mule

 

A mule is an animal with long funny ears

he kicks up at anything he hears

His back is brawny but his brain is weak

he's just plain stupid with a stubborn streak

and by the way if you like to go to school

You may grow up to be a mule

 

 

~~~~~

 

News:

 

Regional groups:

 

http://www.cambridgehomeeducation.org.uk/

 

http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/peterboroughhomeeducators/

 

Peterborough Muddle Puddle - under 8s

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeterboroughCHE/ - Peterborough Christian Home Education. A group for Christian Home Educating families in the Greater Peterborough (UK) area. In the group there are families from CAMBS, NORTHANTS, LINCS and NORFOLK

 

 

 

~~~~~