Standards of Service - Home Education and Local Authorities.
March 2009: We are collecing personal accounts about the standards of service in local authorities given to parents who opt for elective home education and how they affect children and families. If you have a personal account to offer about this, please create a page with your story, to be placed in the folder, (SOSPAs/Standard Of Service, Personal Accounts.) Or send to AHEd for collating with other accounts. Please send information in the form you prefer, but here are some questions to help get you going:
What is the name of your local authority?
Does your LA provide full and efficient, suitable information to home educators that is fair, legal and honest?
How are you, as a home educating family, affected by the practices of your local authority?
Does the authority overstep their remit or act within the law in dealing with home educating families?
Does your authority offer you support or any useful services as a home educator?
Do you feel fairly and properly treated by your local authority?
Please include any other comments you would like to add. We are also very interested in comments from the children themselves.
Comments (1)
craig.m.barron@hotmail.co.uk said
at 1:49 pm on Apr 6, 2009
Name of LA:
"Education Bradford" run for local authority by private contract to SERCO.
Does your LA provide full and efficient, suitable information to home educators that is fair, legal and honest?:
No it does not, in a recent communication to a local home educator, the authority claimed that "...We are well aware of the law and always request a visit, if a parent says that they would prefer to write a report or send samples of work then we always agree to this..." even though NON of this is obliged by the law they claim to be well aware of. Moreover, this LA has persistently demanded information from ourselves regarding our educational provision, even though their own EHE 'Inspector' only last year claimed that "...it appears [our child] is receiving a suitable education...". Evidently, as they are "well aware of the law" they have no justifiable grounds to be demanding further information from us.
How are you, as a home educating family, affected by the practices of your local authority?:
As above, we are unjustifiably interfered with, and have frequently been distressed by the 'ultra-vires' nature and practices of the LA.
Does the authority overstep their remit or act within the law in dealing with home educating families?:
Yes they clearly 'oversteps' their remit; see above for evidence.
Does your authority offer you support or any useful services as a home educator?:
Not that we are aware of.
Do you feel fairly and properly treated by your local authority?:
No! Again, please see above for evidence.
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