Making It Up

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home education

BBC Woman’s Hour Tuesday 9th March – Electing to home school.

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Listen again here on BBC sounds (you need a BBC login) From 33.55 ish. My comments in italics. Presenter Emma Barnett. Be aware that incoherencies and typos will be due to my inability to type as fast as people speak.

Emma: Now, children all across the UK are returning to school this week but an increasing number of parents are choosing to educate their children at home.

Note that education is devolved in the UK, and therefore the rules are different in each country

Emma: It’s been a growing trend over recent years, but the latest statistics show some regions have seen a huge increase in numbers and yet it’s unregulated, there’s no government database monitoring the exact numbers of children being educated in this way. To shed some light I’m joined by Gail Tolley from the Association of Directors of Childrens Services departments in English councils, and also by Hannah Titley who runs the Home Schooling Association, one of many bodies which advise woparents on how to educate children full time away from school.

The Home Schooling Association was a new one on me, and when I looked it up, it appears to be basically a way of organising tutors. I can’t see that it’s run by home educators at all. And take their checklist with a pinch of salt, do your own research on the legalities of deregistration in your area of the UK, and how it applies to different children and different schools. For example, the process in England for children in special schools is different to mainstream state schools.

Hannah, if I start with you, just to be clear here, we’re not talking about people home schooling in the way we’ve been doing or people have been doing I should say across the UK during the pandemic are we?

Hannah: No no, that’s absolutely right. So over the last five years we’ve seen that home schooling has become increasingly popular. It’s estimated that there are around currently 75,000 being homeschooled in the UK, up from 37,000 in 2015 and Covid certainly seems to have accelerated that trend.

Emma: And what does it look like for most people. You know I nearly had a slip there to say that you know to educate, women educating children full time away, do we know if it’s mainly women who do it?

Hannah: So I think, traditionally, em when people are thinking about home schooling they see it as a parent led activity, so parents teaching their children, however now there are so many different ways to homeschool than there have been before which has made it more accessible to families so lots of families consider online schools like InterHigh which are becoming increasingly popular and some children choose to learn in small groups called micro schools and others have one to one tutors. So there’s no rules on what a home school schedule should look like and parents can take their own approach.

this didn’t answer the question as to whether it’s mainly women who home educate. And if your child is signed up with an online school full time, I’m not sure that’s considered home education. If they’re on a school register, that’s being a pupil I think. Interhigh bills itself as an independent online school.

I’ve not come across the term micro schools. We usually call small groups either tutor groups, if they’re tutor led, or home education groups if they are mainly parent led. And the majority of home educators that I know are still mainly facilitating their children’s education themselves, not employing tutors, using online schools, or forming micro schools.(Again, there is legislation around what constitutes a school, be very aware of that, unregistered schools are illegal.

Do you think it should be better regulated here though? We’ve got a statement here from Baroness Berridge, the minister for schools systems, she was unable to take part in today, sorry, this statement, excuse me, is from the Dept for Education, which says for the vast majority of children, particularly the most vulnerable, school is the best place for their education. Home education is never a decision that should be entered into lightly and now more than ever it is absolutely vital that any decision to home educate is made with the child’s best interests at the forefront of everyone’s mind, any parent who is considering home education on the grounds of safety concerns should make every effort to engage with their school and think very carefully about what’s best for their children’s education, the protective measures in place make schools as safe as possible for children and staff. Do you think it should be better regulated, do you support a database?

H: So we certainly support a national register of homeschool students. And I think it’s really important that safeguarding is a top priority. With regards to the amount of intervention, one of the benefits of homeschooling is that there isn’t a national curriculum, so there are children who need to learn at their own pace, or they have extracurricular interests where they need a flexible schedule I think it’s important that we understand that balance, you know it’s very important that safeguarding is put at the top of the list, but then also that parents are given the autonomy to teach in a way that suits their child best.
?? Again with not really answering the question. This doesn’t sound like a parent’s answer, and as both the websites Hannah is linked with describe tutoring and professional home schooling, I don’t think she is home educating children of her own.

Interviewer: And does it result in good results as it were? I know it’s all different and it’s quite a surprise to some that they wouldn’t know necessarily that there’s no national curriculum.
The national curriculum doesn’t apply to academies or free schools or independent schools.

H: Yeah, so children need to achieve a satisfactory level of English and Maths. Lot of parents do follow the national curriculum to a certain extent or they teach parts of it. But lots of parents that have recently joined the homeschooling population, they are going beyond the national curriculum, they have chosen home schooling because their child would like to learn coding, current affairs, entrepreneurship and develop skills that aren’t necessarily being taught at schools so

Interviewer: So no exams, is that right?

H: So lots of children, there isn’t a requirement to take exams, however lots of children do sit exams their GCSEs and A levels as private candidates at exam centres, which keep higher education options available to them.
This would be a great place to mention how difficult that has been for private candidates over the last year?

Oh, I guess not then.

Interviewer: The point is you don’t have to do that, but many do. Let’s bring in Gail at this point, what do you put the increase in families choosing to do this down to Gail?

Gail: Good morning, thank you. Well, as Hannah said, there has been a steady increase, about 20% a year since the Association of Directors of Children’s services started collecting and reporting this information. But last september we saw, Last October, when we checked on census day, we saw an increase of 38% and a number of local authorities as reported, saw comparative figures from last september to the september before with increases well over 100%. So the link to the pandemic and parental anxieties around that is part of that explanation we believe. And of course we are looking very carefully this week, next week the coming weeks as to what/ whether there might be an increase again. Because we also think that some parents did confuse what I might describe as home schooling, that is delivering the school’s curriculum at home, with elective home education which is the legal position parents have to either ensure that their child attends school or elect to home educate. And we felt that some parents felt that they would still have access to the online learning and curriculum provided by schools and in terms of perhaps some of their own anxieties have opted to say that they will home educate but some are certainly now realising that that does not bring with it access to ongoing support from schools online, and so we do know that there have been some returns to school from a number of those families and children that elected to home educate in the early autumn. Nevertheless there’s been an increase.

Interviewer: Gail, yes, and it will be interesting to see if it sustains with some of these families. But you are also I understand in support of a national database. But some parents are not, some carers don’t want that. Why don’t they want it.

Gail: I think there are a number of families and organisations that have been positively home educating and don’t see the need for a mandatory register. As directors of children’s services where we have responsibility for oversight of wellbeing and safeguarding as Hannah has alluded to as well the importance of us knowing, because there is no requirement at all if a family for example might elect to home educate, tell the school if their child perhaps is in year 5 that they’re going to home educate. If that family then moves local authority, there is no requirement on that family to notify either the local area from which they are moving or the one to which they are joining so and if that family’s circumstances change such that the circumstances either where the child is learning and the conditions at home or the safeguarding elements of their lives change, no one has sight or support of that child, so as directors of children’s services we feel that a mandatory register is really important. If I may I could also support something that you’ve alluded to and that Hannah has suggested. We do not then want to interfere in curricula or you know the choices about learning, but having sight of that there is effective learning provision and a safe learning environment and that the child’s needs are prioritised as being paramount is where we think that a mandatory register would be essential.

Gail Tolley Association of Directors of Childrens Services department of English councils and Hannah Titley who runs the home schooling association, of course if you have experience of that do get in touch.

As usual, so much to unpick in this short segment. Once again, we return to the idea of a mandatory list of children to keep them safe. This has been tried before, see ContactPoint on wiki. The problem is that of course a list doesn’t keep anyone safe, and you would have to use the list. So how would you use it in such a way as to safeguard children without causing more problems that you solve? Or would you end up with a situation in which to justify having all the data, people on the list were subject to increasingly intrusive contact?

Home education in a pandemic – where we’re at.

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It’s not the same as home education outside of a pandemic. Which is only to be expected.

But things I’ve learnt over the years of home educating 4 children are still coming in handy. Things like if something doesn’t work, change it.

So we’re flexing a lot, dropping things that don’t work for us, and bringing in other family activities to replace the things we can’t do right now. Board games are popular again. We’ve played Game of Life, Monopoly, and (affiliate link) Dragonwood in the last couple of weeks.

Dragonwood turned out to be particularly educational. The main lesson is to pay attention – Simon and I were figuring out our chances of particular results from our dice rolls, without noticing that the dice aren’t regular 1-6 6 sided dice. They’re 6 sided, yes, but the sides are number 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4. Which means you have a completely different set of probabilities going.

The second game went much more smoothly 😉

dragonwood in play

Other things – I’m taking advantage of a lot of online workshops and resources. We did an Etchr lab mini workshop on painting fantasy creatures, which turned out to be very pokemon focussed, making for very happy children.

etchr mini workshop

I enjoyed it too, but was at a slight disadvantage in terms of the creatures, which is why my final creation looks more like an orange snail than the fish it’s supposed to be based on. Honest. Highly recommend them anyway, was £5 for a 90 minute session, and there were very few people in the zoom call, so we got to chat with the artist and choose the pokemon we wanted. Brilliant.

The children are having weekly sessions with their local computer club, and nearly daily social zooms too, which has been a lifesaver for keeping up some social contacts for them. We don’t tend to do a lot over winter anyway, but of course we lost all our usual camping and group holidays last year, so zoom is much needed.

Day to day basics are covered with skoolbo, mathletics and duolingo – I added a free French lesson for Tigerboy from Collins Parents but he tells me it was easier than the Duolingo he’s been doing. He’s shown remarkable commitment to that, been really impressed with his dedication.

We’re getting near the end of our current readaloud, so I need to hunt down something to replace it. I might work up a topic based post on it as well, in case Smallest in particular wants to fill out her subject knowledge around the Second World War, which is when the Midnight Guardians is set.

All in all, we’re pottering on much as we would always, but with that awareness that we can’t just do stuff, go out, or meet up with people. And no, it’s not ideal, but we’re doing OK. Hope you all are too.

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.

Transcript of interview with Cllr Richard Watts on BBC Radio 4 Today show, 16th November. Topic – increase in number of home educated children.

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I will point out, before we start, that this has been done by me playing and typing, playing and typing etc etc. There may be transcription errors where I’ve misheard something, or mistyped something. You can listen to the show yourself at the moment here, segment starts 2 hr 33 minutes in.

I didn’t catch the name of the presenter?

Int: More and more children are being educated at home. Local authorities say there’s been a 200% rise in registrations, part of it might be covid but it is a trend it seems that we were already seeing. For many families it’ll work out just fine, but some local authorities are worried about the monitoring of them, what they’re being taught and in what circumstances. We will talk in a moment to Robert Halfon, MP for Harlow, chair of the education select committee of the house of commons but first Councillor Richard Watts, and Cllr Watts is chair of the LGA resources board, local govt association resources board and leader of Islington council.

Int: Good morning to you.

Cllr W: Good morning.

I: We’re talking about a big rise. Do we know anything about the raw numbers?

W: well we think there’s something like 282k children missing out on formal education in England at the moment. But that could be as high as 1.1 million depending on how you define formal and full time because there’s some pretty grey areas around the edges of this. But that’s a very concerningly high number of kids who may not be getting the education that they should expect.

I: May not be. Now to what extent at the moment do we know how closely we understand what’s happening to them?

W: Not a great deal in all honesty. Your introduction was absolutely right, the vast majority of home educators do it for absolutely the right motivations and do a good job. However, we do know at times this can cover up for things that are more untoward, and what we have seen, because of covid and other factors, a very sharp increase this academic year. and therefore we are concerned there’s a lot of parents that have taken decisions to home educate who aren’t necessarily well set up or well prepared to do that and I think what’s concerning about all of this is that there are no power for councils to understand who doesn’t have a school place and therefore check where there are loopholes in the system. Or to check that basic safeguarding measures are being taken by people who are home educating, and I think that constitutes a pretty big loophole in our national safeguarding system.

I: well yes, so if a school, if someone is taken out of school does the school not report it to the council or someone.

W: they can do voluntarily but they’re not obligated to. And that is, so in areas where there are difficult relations between some schools and their local authorities, that does create a real problem. councils have a legal duty to ensure every child has a school place but we have no powers actually to ensure that we know what children aren’t in school at the moment.

I: so should there be a register or something so that you and people obviously without it being public but it could be consulted by people who are worried and wanted to keep an eye on what was going on.

W: we think there should be a register that at least sets out how every child is being educated it should be mandatory for schools to share their rolls with local councils so that we can cross check them against the kids we know are there and so that we can double check that every child in the area has a school place and we think there should be a duty on parents to provide information if their child isn’t attending a mainstream school. I think these are proportionate steps, they don’t interfere in parents’ rights to self educate but they do close a pretty gaping loophole in our safeguarding system.

I: Ah right then, Cllr Watts, thank you.

***
There now follows a short interlude, while I gather together the documents that show the actual legal responsibilities for schools around deregistration etc.

This is an excellent one: School attendance guidance (pdf)

I particularly like this paragraph:

All schools must notify the local authority when a pupil’s name is to be deleted from the
admission register under any of the grounds prescribed in regulation 8 of the Education
(Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006 as amended, as soon as the ground for
removal is met and no later than the time at which the pupil’s name is removed from the
register.

It also goes into a lot of detail on what schools have to give to local authorities. Hint, it’s a lot of information. And there’s a list of links of all the relevant bits of legislation. Useful.

Right. Shopping. I’ll do the second half of the interview later. And my thoughts in response will probably be part 3.

And now I think I’ve worked out Cllr Watts motivation. The local govt association has released a report into children missing education in which they try to redefine the term education to mean formal, full time education. Because every child needs formal teaching, and structured education at least 18 hours a week… Report here.

BBC micro:bit from PiHut – a great #HomeEducation resource

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Disclosure: The product was provided free for review.

It’s all about tech these days, and while knowing how to use it is one thing, knowing how to program it is a whole other aspect. I admit to having a slight head start in this area, as an ex programmer, but the way I learnt to program, on a ZX81 typing in games out of a magazine wouldn’t really hold my kids’ interest.

BBC micro:bit in box

Fortunately, there is a whole range of products out there that can help even the most tech illiterate of parents with their children’s IT needs. The one we are reviewing today is the BBC micro:bit, supplied for review by PiHut – see more here

The BBC micro:bit comes beautifully packaged in a small cardboard box with everything you need to get going. And when you first turn it on, it already has some programming.

This is a good touch, as it means that your test child is likely to be intrigued by the flashing lights and you get a quick win.

Once we’d exhausted the provided program (which did not take desperately long it has to be said) we headed online to look up how to write our own code.

After an abortive attempt to link with my phone (I don’t know quite what went wrong there, but it was not playing) we ended up at Microsoft Makecode. This has a number of example projects and rock paper scissors (no lizard Spock variation though) was a clear winner.

The editor is a drag and drop format, which means even the most code fearing parent will be able to get to grips with it. Although you’re unlikely to be needed much, except maybe for downloading the code to the microbit once written, and possibly for the occasional moment of trouble shooting. Once Tigerboy got to grips with the editor he was off and running, and I would say that the micro:bit is ideal for 8 – 11 year olds, as long as they are reasonably literate, and a little tech savvy.

Highly recommended, definitely a good way to get your child into game coding as well as game playing.