Making It Up

as we go along

home ed review

Consultation response.

by 2 Comments

The consultation is available for responses online.

My response follows. I was submission 2042, my understanding is that the usual type of number responding to these things is around 300. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get ten times that number? Please, pass it on to your friends, your relatives, your home ed groups and get ppl stuck in and answering.

Consultation Questions

1 Do you agree that these proposals strike the right balance between the rights of parents to home educate and the rights of children to receive a suitable education?

* Agree

* Disagree

* Not sure

* No Response

Comments: It is not the right of parents to home educate, it is the responsibility of parents to provide an education suitable to age ability and aptitude either by attendance at school or otherwise. In some cases it appears to me that that responsibility can only be fully discharged by home educating.

2 Do you agree that a register should be kept?

* Agree

* Disagree

* Not sure

* No Response

Comments: Not unless you are going to start registering all sorts of cultural minorities. We are doing nothing illegal, we do not need to be headcounted. Mandatory registration (or more accurately annual licensing according to these proposals) is being suggested for local authorities convenience, it adds nothing to the home education experience for the families involved except more hassle. Those who wish to can come forward voluntarily as they do now.

3 Do you agree with the information to be provided for registration?

* Agree

* Disagree

* Not sure

* No Response

Comments: Do not agree with registration.

4 Do you agree that home educating parents should be required to keep the register up to date?

* Agree

* Disagree

* Not sure

* No Response

Comments: Do not agree with registration.

5 Do you agree that it should be a criminal offence to fail to register or to provide inadequate or false information?

* Agree

* Disagree

* Not sure

* No Response

Comments: Do not agree with registration.

6 a) Do you agree that home educated children should stay on the roll of their former school for 20 days after parents notify that they intend to home educate?

* Agree

* Disagree

* Not sure

* No Response

Comments: No, this is just allowing for time for LAs to hassle families.

6 b) Do you agree that the school should provide the local authority with achievement and future attainment data?

* Agree

* Disagree

* Not sure

* No Response

Comments: In many cases, particularly where SEN are concerned, schools do not have realistic views of children’s abilities. If these were passed to LAs this would give many problems to parents already in a difficult position.

7 Do you agree that DCSF should take powers to issue statutory guidance in relation to the registration and monitoring of home education?

* Agree

* Disagree

* Not sure

* No Response

Comments: The current statutory framework is sufficient to need, what is required is training for LA officials to understand their rights and responsibilities.

8 Do you agree that children about whom there are substantial safeguarding concerns should not be home educated?

* Agree

* Disagree

* Not sure

* No Response

Comments: Surely children for whom there are substantial safeguarding concerns should not be in the home environment, so the question is moot?

9 Do you agree that the local authority should visit the premises where home education is taking place provided 2 weeks notice is given?

* Agree

* Disagree

* Not sure

* No Response

Comments: Stop beating around the bush, you are talking about visiting ppl’s homes. I see no need for this to occur, again, the powers that already exist are sufficient and do not require invasive home visits.

10 Do you agree that the local authority should have the power to interview the child, alone if this is judged appropriate, or if not in the presence of a trusted person who is not the parent/carer?

* Agree

* Disagree

* Not sure

* No Response

Comments: I do not see why the local authority requires powers greater than that of the police investigating a crime. No crime is being alleged here, but a legal route to educate children.

11 Do you agree that the local authority should visit the premises and interview the child within four weeks of home education starting, after 6 months has elapsed, at the anniversary of home education starting, and thereafter at least on an annual basis? This would not preclude more frequent monitoring if the local authority thought that was necessary.

* Agree

* Disagree

* Not sure

* No Response

Comments: The current system of enquiries is sufficient to need. This suggested timetable does not take into account deschooling, settling in time or anything else. I’d also like to know where the funding is supposed to be coming from to pay for all these extra visits for all these children who are currently not known about or visited at all. And the properly trained and experienced personnel with detailed knowledge of how home education differs from school education for that matter.

Select Committee witnesses

by 4 Comments

If you haven’t seen the list of witnesses for the select committee the phrase read it and weep comes to mind.

From Home Education Forums

The Children, Schools and Families Committee will be taking formal oral evidence as follows:

Monday 12 October 2009 at 4.45pm

Wilson Room, Portcullis House

Witnesses:

Graham Badman CBE;

Ms Diana R Johnson MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools, and

Penny Jones, Independent Schools and School Organisation, DCSF.

The purpose of this session is to examine the evidence base for and recommendations of the DCSF commissioned review of elective home education in England.

Wednesday 14 October 2009 at 9.30am

Wilson Room, Portcullis House

Witnesses: (At 9.30am)

Jane Lowe, Trustee, Home Education Advisory Service;

Fiona Nicholson, Trustee /Chair Government Policy Group, Education Otherwise;

Simon Webb, home educating parent;

David Wright, home educating parent, and

Carole Rutherford, co-founder, Autism in Mind

(At 10.30am)

Colin Green, Chair, Families, Communities and Young People Policy Committee, Association of Directors of Children’s Services;

Ellie Evans, Head of Children Missing Education team, West Sussex County Council;

Sir Paul Ennals, Chief Executive, National Children’s Bureau, and

Phillip Noyes, Director of Public Policy, NSPCC

No Paula Rothermel. No one from AHEd, or AEUK. The two home educating parents are both men, which doesn’t strike me as desperately representative of the demographic of home educators as a whole?

If you feel like dropping a complaint in (and I really feel you should) the email address is csfcom@parliament.uk

The Members of the Committee are:

Mr Barry Sheerman (Chairman), Labour, Huddersfield

Annette Brooke, Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and Poole North

Mr Douglas Carswell, Conservative, Harwich

Mr David Chaytor, Labour, Bury North

Mrs Sharon Hodgson, Labour, Gateshead East and Washington West

Paul Holmes, Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield

Fiona Mactaggart, Labour, Slough

Mr Andrew Pelling, Independent, Croydon Central

Mr Andy Slaughter, Labour, Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush

Helen Southworth, Labour, Warrington South

Mr Graham Stuart, Conservative, Beverley & Holderness

Mr Edward Timpson, Conservative, Crewe and Nantwich

Derek Twigg, Labour, Halton

Lynda Waltho , Labour, Stourbridge

so if any of them are your MP, suggest that it would be a good idea to stick a flea in their ear too.

Please spread far and wide.

Unwarranted government intrusion into family life.

by 11 Comments

I was watching the local news tonight, and it turns out that the two policewomen banned from looking after each other’s children live in this area, so were interviewed on the show. They were doing each other a favour – job sharing and childcare sharing, in much the same way women in communities have done for time immemorial.

Recently however, the government decided that anyone undertaking childcare for reward, and that reward could be just reciprocal childcare, needs to be registered as a childminder. Which means being qualified in first aid, having your house inspected, having to keep records and having to follow the Early Years Foundation Stage. (I’m sure I’ve missed a few bits out there, but that’s the gist of it I think.) And as these two policewomen hadn’t done any of that, looking after each other’s children was breaking the law.

Funny how we don’t yet have to do that to actually have children, but rest assured, if the government could find a way to bring that law into being, they would. After all, they are trying to control pretty much ever other aspect of family life.

The two children involved are in nurseries now, and the women are considerably financially worse off. The taxpayer is going to be worse off too, as the women are applying for benefits to assist with the elevated costs. And the majority of ppl that I’ve spoken to about this think it’s ridiculous. I’m also betting there’s a lot of ppl reviewing their holiday childcare arrangements – situations where families take it in turns to look after friends children could fall foul of the same legislation if it’s on more than 14 days a year, and that’s quite easy to achieve.

So, is it reactionary to think that a mother ought to be able to choose a friend to look after her child? Is it dragging your heels to not want to have to go through an inspection system or teach to a curriculum that many early years experts think is utterly ridiculous and has no grounding in pedagogical research? Or has the government gone a step too far, in the same way that they have over the Badman home education review?

Because they have gone a step too far. The insinuations over a small number of cases where home education has been a factor in abuse and neglect are nothing more than insinuations, and even if there were a small number of cases, it is not proportionate or targeted to bring in an annual licensing system for all home educators in response to that.

Put it this way, approx 5 children drown in garden ponds each year. Does this mean we should ban them? Or inspect them for the correct safety measures and fine ppl, even those without children, if the ponds are not covered correctly in weight bearing meshes?

No, it doesn’t. Be far more sensible to ban cars tbh, as road accidents are well up there in the cause of death stakes, and we’d be able to breathe a lot better.

We can’t rule out every cause of accident and injury to our children. We can take sensible precautions, but the Badman review isn’t that, especially when it conflates welfare with education. Just the same as demanding two friends are registered and following a curriculum – that’s another conflation of welfare and education that shouldn’t have taken place.

I am not behind the times, nor am I alone in my defiance of these laws and proposals – it is the government that is hurrying too fast into an Orwellian future that we don’t need, didn’t ask for and don’t want. Time to take a step back, Ed Balls, and listen to the ppl who are telling you you’ve got it wrong.

Are we just a crackpot minority?

by 11 Comments

You know, us home educators who are ranting and raving about invasion of privacy following the Badman review of home education, are we just fringe nutters?

I admit we’ve made some unusual choices in our life. It isn’t standard to home educate your children after all. And if you don’t home educate them, finding a montessori nursery and school for flexi schooling isn’t particularly standard either.

But since when did making unusual choices become so worthy of suspicion? AHEd’s examination of the stats released by FOI requests show that home educated children are not more at risk of child abuse or neglect, despite the repeated claims in the media to the contrary. We should be celebrating diversity, not driving for conformity throughout education and indeed life itself. Diversity, innovation, creativity, these are the things we need for life in this day and age of frequent technological change and development.

Am I just whimpering that the world doesn’t understand me, like some goth teenager?

No, I don’t really care whether the world understands me. I won’t hide myself or my children away, or apologise for my choices, but I will fight to defend them. Not that I’ve had to, tbh, round here. Saying that I home educate doesn’t raise eyebrows, or cause ppl to move away from my children. Several families have gone out of their way to arrange playdates in fact. I don’t think home education is viewed with much suspicion here at all, and where ppl have been taken in by media spin, it has taken very short conversations to put them right again.

Sometimes it worries me that so few home educators seem to be involved in the battles against Badman, but then again, how many of the population do anything about anything these days? There’s life to be lived, work to be done, children to be raised, houses to be run. We’ve other things to do with our time and energy, just day to day things. Many home educators are raising children with additional needs, that give another layer of complication to daily lives. Some of them are doing it alone, not all families have two parents. Some are raising and educating children while running businesses to support themselves.

So I don’t think it’s apathy, and I don’t think it’s agreement with the conclusions of the review. I think that you usually get a minority who act in political cases – look at the political party membership figures for example. Or check out how many ppl actually volunteer to do anything in addition to their usual lives, it’s a small number. It doesn’t indicate that the ppl who aren’t members, or don’t volunteer don’t agree with the parties or the volunteers, it simply means it isn’t their priority.

And home educators are getting review fatigue. This government has conducted several reviews into home education and associated areas in the last few years, including compiling the currently missing in action guidelines for local authorities on elective home education(pdf link). Sometimes it seems it isn’t worth fighting on.

I believe it has to be. Despite or because of the ever encroaching nanny state, I think it is time to draw a line in the sand and say no more.

I think that we don’t need more databases, we need trust and community to raise our children and things like reciprocal childcare should be, as it always has been, acceptable in society. I think it should be fine to give your friend’s children a lift home from school, or cubs, or brownies without needing to be on yet another database. I think families ought to have freedom of choice in how their children are educated, particularly before mandatory educational age, rather than the government imposing a nappy curriculum on every childcare institution.

Am I being controversial, a heretic or renegade even? I don’t think so. Please feel free to point out the error of my ways 🙂

And if you are suddenly overcome with the urge to act, then there is a petition against the review on the No 10 website, and a consultation to be answered over the next month. I will be blogging more fully about that sometime over the next week.

Complaint to The UK Statistics Authority

by 5 Comments

Hi

I am writing to express my concern at the statistics used to inform Graham Badman’s review of home education, released 11 June 2009.

The review can be found here as a free download.

and the particularly disturbing section, on which the vast majority of the call to action and most upsetting recommendations are based is the section about child abuse, which was the primary reason for the review in the first place.

Thus:

First, on the basis of local authority evidence and case studies presented, even acknowledging the variation between authorities, the number of children known to children’s social care in some local authorities is disproportionately high relative to the size of their home educating population.

This statement has then been reported in the press as

Children educated at home are twice as likely to be on social services registers for being at risk of abuse as the rest of the population, the head of a government inquiry into home education said yesterday.

and

Graham Badman, the former director of Kent County Council’s children’s services, headed the review. He said the ratio of home-educated children who were known to social services was “approximately double” that of the population at large.

Freedom of Information requests have been made to find the basis of these figures, and resulted in the release of an Annex (pdf):

The statistics within this annex are at the very least problematic, and honestly, they are downright misleading.

First, only 25 of 90 authorities asked responded. It is reasonable to assume that it is likely to be the authorities that perceive a problem that will respond, so the immediate response should be called into question. Why were only 90 of 150 authorities asked in the first place?

We are not told which authorities responded, which seems unreasonable as we are therefore unable to do any research to prove or disprove theories based on their figures.

Next, the median is used as opposed to the mean. There is rarely any good statistical reason to use the median figure, the mean is the average that most people expect to be employed.

Thirdly these figures are then extrapolated to give figures across all local authorities, I do not know of any basis in statistical working to extrapolate from a median of such a small and self selecting sample to give authoratative figures. Even if this was reasonable, we are told that a median of 7 extrapolated across 150 authorities gives 1350 EHE children known to social care – by my calculations it should be 7 * 150 which is 1050.

We are then told that this figure is 6.75%, but as we have been told repeatedly in the report that the known population of home educators is about 20,000 while the actual figure could be as high as 80,000 this is utterly meaningless.

*If* we used 1050 over 80,000 we would come up with a percentage of 1.31 % which is so small as to suggest perhaps the government should instead be shutting all schools down and recommending home education as the best way to safeguard children – surely as reasonable a conclusion as the one that

they have drawn?

I await with interest your response to this complaint – can you advise what you are able to do about incorrect use of statistics in government reports?

Thank you

ps please note, I originally sent this to authority.enquiries@statistics.gov.uk as listed on this page:

of your website, and my email bounced. I think you need to check the email addresses you are giving out.

I have now resent to authority.enquiries@statistics.gsi.gov.uk.

To readers – please feel free to also write and complain 🙂