What *is* it that politicians think I’m doing with my children?
I think I’m home educating them. Educating them otherwise than at school, as is my legal right. Well some of them. Tigerboy is too young to count, and Big is now in school, and don’t get me started on that. It is a parental responsibilty to arrange for children to receive an education suitable to age, ability and aptitude, and I choose in the main to exercise that responsibility directly.
But apparently, I could be filling their (child’s) minds with poison
Yes really. So a senior government source says in the Independent today, and apparently it’s already been on Radio 4 as well.
I’m intrigued.
I’m not sure I know what filling a child’s mind with poison looks like, although I understand that the government has a whole strategy set up to Prevent (see what I did there?) it happening.
The strategy risks backfiring at the moment, according to people caught up in it recently, as in this article from Sky News.
We’re told that the concerns are partly because the government doesn’t know how many home educators there are, so it needs to conduct a review, because those children aren’t being monitored for radicalisation.
How come they don’t know how many there are? It’s a good question. Although there isn’t a register of home educators (the labour govt tried to bring this in following the Badman review and failed), all births in this country are registered, and pupils are registered in schools. I’d have thought some fairly straightforward arithmetic could be applied there really. Number of children – number of pupils. Should get us close to the numbers, surely?
The political solution to this problem? From the Independent article linked above
Under proposals being considered in Whitehall, parents and teachers will be given a specific point of contact at local councils in order to raise concerns about a child. Officials will also try to discover how many children are being taught at home, beyond the reach of inspectors.
*all* parents? So basically what we’re going to say is that anyone with suspicions about a child (what suspicions – that they are radicalised? Or just that they’re not in school? Home educators get unnecessarily reported to social services fairly regularly anyway, by people unaware that home education is legal) can call a number. Alternatively, those officials could apply the logic I specified above – I don’t think I’m giving away anything that hasn’t been suggested before.
Let’s expand on the perceived problem a little:
Fears have been raised that parents are claiming their children are being home schooled when in fact they are being taught at illegal religious schools.
Oh no – illegal schools, and home education being used as a smokescreen!
I’ve heard a variation on this theme before, usually associated with Khyra Ishaq. ‘Her parents said she was home educated, so we couldn’t do anything.’
It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now. Social workers who think that a child is being neglected can investigate. Should investigate! Illegal schools, are, as it says, illegal, there are already powers to deal with these situations. And if a child is in an illegal school, they are again not being home educated.
Home education is not the problem here, and a register of home educators will do nothing more than add needles to an already overpoweringly large pile of needles. (A needle in a haystack stands out. One needle in many doesn’t, and that is what the govt is trying to build.)
The idea of parents reporting parents, inspectors judging families on their radicalisation levels – that goes far beyond suitability of education. Will this suspicion fall mainly on Muslims? The various documents I’ve been reading tonight imply that being an ecological protester is nearly as bad (it was mention of eco terrorism that triggered the interrogation in the sky article above) – should I have signed that petition against fracking after all?
The thing is, when you start singling people out, telling other people that they are a danger, you damage the communities that are our best defence against the radicalisation everyone is so worried about. It takes a village to raise a child, goes the saying, but the village shouldn’t be Portmeirion. The mere act of observation changes a situation, and adding layers of suspicion in to every day interactions will not help at all.
Why am I against registration – surely it’s not that big a deal? I’ve written a lot about it in the past, and I’ll be going through the blog building some links to that stuff. But for now, here’s an excellent article from Gill – 10 reasons why home educated children should not be forcibly registered with local authorities. (Another thought – given the government’s trend to move educational control *away* from local authorities, is this going to end up being a centralised list rather than local?)
A home education register wouldn’t prevent the abuse that was the last excuse for a governmental review. It won’t prevent radicalisation, *if* that’s taking place. It *will* grossly interfere with my (and your) parental rights and responsibilities, and cost a shed load of money we’re told we don’t have to spend. Please don’t go there.
Kate says
This is good and isn’t the LA already obliged to know which children are home educated anyway? Seems a non story to me. Unless they’re after a parents’ register, not the kids. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/395138/Children_missing_education_Statutory_guidance_for_local_authorities.pdf
Jax Blunt says
No, children missing education is different to home educated children, the local authorities only have the power to make enquiries if it appears no suitable education is being provided. It’ll end up being a register of families I suspect.
michelle says
I can’t believe this report at all. I’m new to HE but will not be deterred by any of this bull……beurocracy! You’re response to this is fantastic to say the least . Radicalisation of what? ?? Are we apparently teaching our children. My daughter us now home ed due to that lack of support in many schools for bullying ! Should the government not be looking at state school support structure rather than hipocracy being printed .
Jax Blunt says
There’s certainly an argument to be made that they should get their own house in order before coming after us.
Midlife Singlemum says
I think the local social services definitely need a list of all the children in their area being home schooled and they should check up on them regularly – not for educational achievement (which is why I didn’t say the local education authority) but so that every child has an adult other than his parents seeing him. I know there is no connection between home schooling and child abuse but I think that every child deserves to be on the radar of responsible adults other than his parents (especially if he is healthy and doesn’t visit the doctor at all).
I have a question – when does home schooling become an illegal school? Most home schoolers I know have get-togethers and study days with other home school families on a regular basis. If you e.g. wanted to share a maths tutor with a small group of home-schooled kids, would that be allowed? How much shared time and resources is allowed before you become illegal?
Jax Blunt says
That’s straying a long way from the remit of local authorities checking on education provision. Should children under the age of 5 be registered and visited as well? Currently health visitors is an opt in service, although most people do opt in. How regularly is regularly?
I’m not sure what the exact regulations on illegal schools are – I think it’s to do with number of hours, and may also be related to whether the parents stay.
firebird2110 says
Just think about that for a moment. Extended family, friends, neighbours, shop assistants, bus drivers (you get the idea), how many children do you really think don’t see any adults other than their parents on a regular basis? Or do none of those adults count as ‘responsible’? You admit there’s no connection between homeschooling[sic] and child abuse so presumably you’d like to see the same applied to the under 5s and probably children who go to school as well? Are you perhaps straying down the Scottish path of a State appointed ‘responsible adult’ for every child? Someone paid to keep them on their ‘radar’. Does every child ‘deserve’ that?
Midlife Singlemum says
My comment was an imediate reaction to the post so I’ve not thought through the whole hypothesis but children in school have a few teachers who are invoved with them and engaged with them on a regular basis (unlike a bus driver or a shop assisstant) and who can be alerted to any changes of personality or any other problems. And yes, under fives should at least be seen at the local well-baby clinic regularly (I’ve not defined regularly as that would have to be debated by professionals).
There is no pattern to child abuse – it happens in poor and wealthy families, in single and two parent families, in cities and in the country, in undivided families and in divorced families. Why should it not happen somewhere in a family where the children are home schooled? Are you all saints? Can you speak for absolutely all home ed parents? Of course you can’t.
I have no problem with home ed but I do have a problem if a child can be isolated to an extent that the parents could abuse and it not be noticed. Jax’s children go to swimming lessons and scouts but maybe not all children do such activities.
And about that Scottish thing – I’ve never heard of it so I don’t suppose I was saying that at all.
Linda Sinclair says
” but so that every child has an adult other than his parents seeing him.”
Our children are not stuck at home alone working at the kitchen table though, they are out and about all day, mixing with adults and children alike!
My son was home educated until he was 9, I often longed for a day AT home!
Debbie Qalballah says
I think there are two lines in all this that are trying to coalesce into a pincer movement. The first is the very real worry of producing children and ergo adults who are able to critique the ruling class ideology. We are slowly losing our democracy and we’ve been sleep walking into inverted totalitarianism for far too long. It’s interesting to note those who oppose this world order tend to have anarchistic leanings and readily think outside the box, prefer alternative media, are connected through protest groups and the internet, the most obvious being the Occupy movement, but there are many more. If we lived in a country that valued democracy then this wouldn’t be an issue, but we have slid into this glossed over oligarchy, this socialism for the rich, and any dissent would be akin to treason. Anybody who threatens that status quo was once called a ‘lefty’ or a ‘communist’, but since the trade unions are effectively useless now, the new enemy is The Terrorist – that catch-all phrase that means nothing and everything at the same time.
Secondly, we are an untapped market for lobbyists and think tanks and NGOs – with regulation comes paperwork and the gravy train that follows. The school system is now corporate and the last piece of the pie is us. We either play fetch and allow the tentacles of state to make money from regulating us, or we face demonisation. Pick your poison.
Just my two cents.
Jax Blunt says
I think you’re spot on on both counts.
Janet McArthur says
Excellently put. Bravo!
Chris says
Nail on the head.
Mark Dawson says
spot on. I have been trying to say similar all day.
Not My Game says
The rhetoric and soundbites from the Tory party are all following the same knee-jerk pattern aren’t they. ‘Terrorist sympathiser’ – if you support the pacifist Jeremy Corbyn. Home Educators potentially radicalising their children. The use of emotive words like ‘poison’. Yes, it’s just another tactic of control, installing fear, and creating suspicion and paranoia in the general public. I hope I’m not spat at in the street by readers of The Sun!
Tim says
We had all the same stuff when the Labour Party tried it. You are right though, it is all about control, the are far too many public ‘servants’ who see themselves as commissars.
Dawn says
At the end of the day “they are in full knowledge of all the facts”. If they can’t join up the dots that is their own stupid fault. My son 5 is now home educated along side his sisters as the school system not only failed him, they also assaulted him and the LA also did nothing. Who are the wrong doers?
Tamsin says
I’ve read the link opposing a register, but it’s hard to take a list of 10 points seriously when 5 are the same…
Surely the point isn’t that home educators are going to radicalise, or abuse, but that IF someone wants to radicalise, or abuse in any other way, one of the first logical steps would be to isolate that child and claiming to home educate would be a good way of helping that. Those numbers are so small that there won’t ever be a statistical correlation, but if it protects even one child surely it’s worth it?
And yes, anyone should be able to register concerns about a child. Social services are only too happy to be able to do a quick check and say “all fine” – what is there to worry about?
firebird2110 says
No. Protecting this theoretical one child would come at the price of harming many others. The ability to home educate without undue regulation is a literal life saver. So no, it’s not worth it. “If it saves just one child” is a weak argument at the best of times. Highly emotive but if you stop to think about it how many children would be saved from harm if smoking and alcohol were totally banned? How many children are harmed because there isn’t the funding for the medical care they need? Individual children suffer and die all the time because society has decided that the price of preventing it would be too high.
Tamsin says
And p.s. It’s not just home educators. An orthopaedic specialist I know recently had to do a course on radicalisation of children even though the only children he ever sees are at that hotbed of radicalisation, the Royal Ballet School!
firebird2110 says
A ridiculous politically correct refusal to discriminate. Instead of targeting resources at the problem they’re spread thin so nobody can say that Muslims are being picked on.
Mark Dawson says
I don’t even think that’s an issue. Terror is just being used as an excuse to power grab and has been since 9/11. The state is just as concerned with free thinkers. George Orwell was prophetic.
Jaki says
Wasn’t the young girls who left home to go to Syria all at the same school?
Has there been a documented case of a Home Educated young person being involved in any terrorist activities?
Maybe more time should be spent in examining what they are learning in school.
Sarah says
Those criminals and drug dealers…. most of them were under their schooling system, if they want to dig up the nottom of the problems yes they should start from their schooling system, just few left to join those twrrorist groups and what is the number of youngsters involved in criminal? No where near those numbers who left country.
Looking for blue sky says
I suspect two things going on: government obsession with controlling the lives of ordinary people, and they don’t like that home education is outside their control. Two, the obsession with radicalisation and the need to be seen to be doing something (but obviously without spending too much money taken from ‘hard.working families’)
claire says
It seems to me that Home Educators are always viewed with suspician by the government. Its another aspect of life which cant be easily controlled by the elite few and I would suspect that its worse at the moment because the home ed community is regarded as a bunch of liberals. I’m worried about this and i’m worried about what my children are being taught in school. Its all a bit of a smokescreen to blame people for the out of control radicalisation which is (I suspect) happening out there and which the government can seemingly do little about. Ultimately its all about power I think and its not really power to the people anymore is it? Everything is about money, this makes me sad for my childrens future.