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home education review

Transcript of interview with MP Robert Halfon, chair of education select committee on BBC radio 4 today show 16th November

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Today program available for next couple of weeks here

First part here

Interviewer: All right then, Cllr Watts, thank you. Let’s talk to Robert Halfon MP, chair of the education select committee, morning to you.

RH: Good morning, hello there.

I: You’ve started an inquiry haven’t you, into home schooling, so I imagine you don’t want to come to any firm conclusions but listening to what you’ve just listened to does that make sense to you?

RH: It certainly does. I welcome the LGA report, I mean let me make it clear, obviously many parents are home educating their children and doing a wonderful job but what I think needs to happen is first of all there should be a national register, there should be data collected by the Department for Education so not only do we know for sure how many children are being home educated we can look at their attainment and progress. We know that something like er 40 children are excluded every day in our classrooms, 100s of children are informally excluded, what is known as off rolling, we don’t know what happens to those children, whether they’re getting a good education. And I think that there should be, and we’ll look at this in our enquiry, some form of inspection as to how these children are being educated whether or not they are linked to a school, whether or not it’s the local authority. We have to remember Ofsted goes into schools though for academies you’ve got Ofsted and the regional school commissioners yet we don’t know the attainment levels of children who are educated at home. So we need accountability we need transparency we need the data, we need proper inspection regime to make sure that these children are getting the best learning they should have.

I: I suppose in the past if the numbers were relatively small it was one of those problems that we could put sort of down the list but if we are really talking about hundreds of thousands it really does matter.

RH: Well the growth of home education has gone up hugely in recent years, and as the LGA said they identify over 280,000 but it could be over 1 million pupils and we need to make sure that every single one of them is getting the best education they could possibly have and that is why the national register could not come soon enough.

I: do you think, sorry to interrupt you, I was just wondering whether you think there should be also an effort to persuade people not to do it, because obviously it is a right and no one is suggesting that it shouldn’t be a right and in certain circumstances it is obviously the right thing to do for a child but in general should the government be saying to parents hang on a sec, you should really think more carefully before you do this

RH I absolutely believe that it is the right of the parents if the parents want to home educate their children they should be able to do so, but there should be the data, they should be inspected, perhaps they should be linked with a school my own personal preference is that children do go to school because it’s not just about the education but also the support networks, the socialisation that they get, and all the other benefits that they get, and of course it’s up to each individual parent but children must be inspected, there must be a register and the dept for education must gather the data to find out how these children are doing in terms of their education

I: and if people want to take part in your enquiry or be aware of it as it’s happening what should they do.

RH: Just go to the department er the house of commons website we’ve had many hundreds of submissions already and we’re very welcome to receive some more.

***

Here’s the link to the education committee inquiry on home education

The description is this:

The inquiry will seek to understand the extent to which current arrangements provide sufficient support for home educated children to access efficient, full-time and suitable education, and establish what further measures may be necessary in order to facilitate this.

It will also explore the impact of COVID-19 on home education, and any particular needs arising from the pandemic that need to be addressed.

The interviewer appears to be well off the mark in assuming that Robert Halfon doesn’t want to come to firm conclusions. It appears to me that he already has an incredibly entrenched position.

This is not a reasoned, balanced, informed position. Robert Halfon has already come to a conclusion about what should happen, and given that he keeps going on about needing the data, it seems utterly ironic that his conclusion is based on fabricated data. Simply decided that education must be formal and 18 hours a week, as LGA appear to have done, does not mean there are actually 1 million home educated children. Who gets to say that education has to be formal? How do we define formal?

Going to have to leave it there for a while, but I will be back intermittently with more thoughts on this.

First it was allegations of abuse, now it's radicalisation – the dangers of home education

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What *is* it that politicians think I’m doing with my children?

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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.

Contemplating the future of home education, and a call for posts celebrating educational freedoms.

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Smallest blowing bubblesGenerally speaking, I’d rather be blogging about hot chocolate, or bubble blowing picnics 😉 but this was brought to my attention recently.

From here

A representative from the DfE joined the committee to discuss elective home education (EHE). Although the department does not have any immediate plans to review this policy, a series of conversations with stakeholders have now begun in order to assess whether it is still relevant given the government’s guidance has remained unchanged since 2007. Members talked about the difficulty they have in knowing home education pupils exist at all without a statutory registration process and the limited safeguarding powers they and their staff have to protect home educated pupils from harm. Several members expressed serious concern that the parental voice appears to be prioritised over that of the child or young person being educated in the home which directly contradicts the child-centred approach used in schools. Checks and balances around the suitability of the setting, the quality of teaching and the content of curriculum provided in the home setting was also raised with some members suggesting that EHE seems to be a grey area for Ofsted.

Apparently stakeholders in home education don’t include parents. Because not only is no one talking to us but freedom of information requests about this have been refused.

The thing that I find interesting about this is that the current govt, in particular one Graham Stuart, has been extremely pro home education. In fact, it was Graham Stuart who coordinated the parliamentary fight back against the Badman report in form of parliamentary petitions, with over 120 being submitted in one evening, a new record. So if the Conservatives are largely positive about the status quo, why would the Department for Education be consulting with stakeholders on possible governmental policy change, behind home educators’ backs? Anyone else wondering if actually this is civil servants preparing for a change of government to ones which are definitely not in favour of home education?

To return to the quote from ADCS above. (ADCS, for those not in the know, refers to the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. Social workers, welfare, that sort of thing.)

Line by line:

“Members talked about the difficulty they have in knowing home education pupils exist at all without a statutory registration process”

Um. They’re children. Pupils are children registered at schools, and by definition, home educated children aren’t. Anyone else concerned that the ADCS don’t have the faintest grasp of the legalities here? Our children are known to exist. They are registered with doctors, we often receive child benefit or tax credits, they are registered at birth. They aren’t listed as pupils because they aren’t pupils.

“and the limited safeguarding powers they and their staff have to protect home educated pupils from harm.”

This again. Children’s services, and the police, have exactly the same safeguarding powers to protect home educated children as they do to protect every child. Home educated children are not somehow a special case, immune to welfare law. It’s really worrying that the people in charge of social work departments seem to believe this, but perhaps does begin to explain why so many serious mistakes are made. I suggest that the people sitting around this table do some research to discover exactly what powers they have, and then train their staff in them as well.

“Several members expressed serious concern that the parental voice appears to be prioritised over that of the child or young person being educated in the home which directly contradicts the child-centred approach used in schools.”

Ah hahahahahahaha. *pause for breath* What, you’re not joking? You seriously want to describe schools as child centred in opposition to home education?

I must be mistaken. There must have been some massive upheaval in the education system, in which age segregation and the entire concept of a national curriculum was thrown out. Because how on earth can a system where children are grouped according to birthdate and then follow an externally set curriculum be described as child centred against a family education built around that family and child?

And yes, the parental voice is prioritised in that the parent is responsible for ensuring that the child receives an education. It’s what the law says.

If you really want to change that, you’ve got a whole can of worms in your hands.

“Checks and balances around the suitability of the setting, the quality of teaching and the content of curriculum provided in the home setting was also raised with some members suggesting that EHE seems to be a grey area for Ofsted.”

I confess, I’m not entirely sure what responsibility Ofsted has in regards to home education. As there is no statutory requirement for anyone to monitor home education, I can’t think they’ve got much of one, quite frankly. And the rest of this bit, where to start? The suitability of the setting. It’s not a setting, it’s a home. Quality of teaching? Many of us would say we don’t teach. We guide, assist, facilitate, direct. Teaching isn’t necessarily a required model for home education, although I can imagine it’s difficult for people so institutionalised to understand that. And curriculum? There’s nothing in the law about needing to follow a curriculum.

How can these people have such a poor understanding of the legislative framework they are supposed to be working within? I think it’s really quite frightening. I suggest some training is required, or at the very least, they should do a bit of homework 😉

We currently have many freedoms in home education, we aren’t required to be registered, monitored or to follow a curriculum. A lot of that is down to fighting off the Badman review during the last labour govt, and the historic night I mention above. That was on the 8th December 2009, and on the 5th anniversary, I shall be holding a freedom in education carnival to celebrate. Please, if you feel like joining in, write a post on the theme of freedom in education, whatever that means to you, and submit it to me via the comments below, via my contact form, or by finding me on twitter. I look forward to seeing what you all come up with.

I thought I'd seen it all.

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This week the submissions to the select committee inquiry have been made public. Many ppl have blogged their shock about some of the contents, or their pleasure in reading some of the reasoned arguments against the Badman review. Ppl have also wondered why the whole thing hasn’t just been thrown out – but I don’t think the select committee has that kind of power, and I have a bad feeling that when it comes down to it, they are going to do absolutely nothing to help us.

Some of the responses need reading several times over before you really get what’s behind them. I wouldn’t advise that you do this if you have any problems with high blood pressure though.

Take the ofsted response for example. Set aside for a moment the question of why precisely ofsted (the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) feels the needs to get involved at all here – in my mind it’s nothing to do with them, parents are responsible for children’s education, and ofsted is only responsible for checking out institutions that deliver education on behalf of children.

Nevertheless, they have stuck their oar in. The bit that I’ve had to read and reread and then finally have explained to me slowly is this:

Current guidance states that parents may employ other people to educate their children and that parents are responsible for ‘ensuring that those whom they engage are suitable to have access to children’. Registration would not of itself prevent those who have a conviction for offences against children, including parents, step-parents or privately-employed home tutors, from home educating children. Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks should be a requirement of registration.

I thought that this meant that parents would have to ensure that ppl tutoring their children were CRB checked. That’s bad enough when you are talking about group ‘lessons’ where parents are usually still there with their children anyway. Do private tutors engaged by parents of schooled children need to be checked? But if you read it carefully, it can’t mean that. What it actually means is that Ofsted think that all parents and step-parents should be CRB checked as a condition of being registered getting a license to home educate.

I don’t think I’ve ever put this on my blog before. But WTF?

No.

A thousand times no.

And if you’re going down this path, surely you have to CRB check all parents. Remember that children are left alone with their parents for years before mandatory educational age. So when it says as a condition of registration it ought to say as a condition of registration of birth. At which point, if the parents are unsuitable you can have that nice little newborn away from them promptly before they get any bad habits and you’ll easily hit all your adoption targets.

Got a better explanation for what it means? Put it in the usual place.

What's in a word?

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School v education.

Homeschool v home education.

Different images aren’t they? To me anyway, although mainstream media and politicians in this country for some reason do not seem to see this. Setting aside the implied discourtesy in using a term not in use by the ppl concerned, is this because they don’t want to accept the distinction between school and education?

How about registration v licensing?

Registration implies entering something on a register. It doesn’t imply much in the way of permission or conditions. Licensing is a whole different ball game. It’s getting that permission, satisfying those conditions.

What was proposed by Graham Badman and accepted by the government was a licensing scheme for home education. Not a registration system. Not a simple list of names, though even that would be discriminatory given that they aren’t registering under school age children, or children at private school. Instead, they are talking about submitting plans that need to be approved, a process that has to be repeated on a yearly basis.

Does that sound like a simple register?

It’s a license. A license to do what you are legally obliged to do anyway, a requirement that the state approve the education you are planning to provide your child. Which changes the balance of power and the responsibilities involved.

At the moment it’s the parents’ decision. Which is how it should be. So just say no to licensing, and call it what it is, whenever and wherever you mention it. Not registration at all.