What are the Elective Home Education Departments of English and Welsh Local Authorities Up To?

A little late in the day for this as I have been distracted but it seems that the Local Authority Home Education Departments have had some sort of government directive and are sending blanket letters and questionnaires to known Home Educators in their area.

At the same time there is much noise and confusion on the lists (a phrase borrowed from a fellow home educator who shall remain nameless) about secret meetings with home educators who may or may not have the interest of all home educators at heart or just their own livelihood or the soothing of unexamined fears.

These talks seem likely to include Graham Stuart, who may or may not have our best interests at heart but has obviously learned nothing from the parliamentary petition secret committee debacle if he ever noticed it in the first place, just see if you can find the petition blogged by any of the avidly active HE political bloggers in a positive light.

As anyone who reads this blog even occasionally will know I have no time for interference in private family life by officials, local or otherwise, and I mean to walk the talk and to some extent already am.

Here Lou takes action on the ground,  click the text to go to her blog and read more.

FAO: Mr. John Heath,

(Principal Education Welfare Officer),

Cornwall Council,

County Hall,

Treyew Road,

Truro,

Cornwall,

TR1 3AY. 24^th 


September,2009.

jheath@cornwall.gov.uk


Dear Mr. Heath,

As a home educating parent in North Cornwall area, I wish to complain specifically about the behaviour of your EHE Co-ordinator for North Cornwall and more generally regarding Cornwall Councils approach toward home educating families.

The Cornwall Council Information for Elective Home Educators website states that;

“No visit will take place unless you have agreed to one and an appointment has been made”.


Update:

It seems  that some home edders have been contacted by services such as the school nurse offering services and assurance that no snooping is going on, so I think that this is another facet of the questionnaires and letters being sent with blanket coverage to all known home edders by some LA's and there is Graham Stuart in secret talks re new guidelines with some "unnamed" home edders, causing a lot of fuss on the lists as most will know, and now home edders being assured that services are just as available to them as any other child.

Hysterically funny and stupid, all done in secret and all causing distress, paranoia and consternation, lol,and rightly so , why not just tell us?

Anyone got a better explanation?

What Next?

The third reading of CSF Bill in the Commons will be on 23rd Feb.  (Hansard on the committee stage.)

If the election is to be on 6^th May then it will be called on March 29^th and parliament will go into recess on April 12^th according to this article on Politics.co.uk.

But what about the Easter recess; they had 18 days last year and this year Easter Sunday falls on April 4^th.  Will they break up some time before this or on the Friday just before?  At the very least the Easter Break must surely take away another five working days from the time they have left, could it be more?

I have heard that the Lords have no time for a first reading of the bill until 9^th March (can’t remember where, one of the lists or another blog) so even if they start on the 10^th that gives it just over five weeks to progress though the first two readings followed by the committee stage, the report stage and the third reading.  Assuming here that the process is similar to that in the Commons.  Then there is consideration of the amendments and hopefully the Lords won’t be as ineffectual and as disabled by party bullying as the Commons has disgracefully been, so there will be some amendments.  Then Royal assent, no idea how long that takes.

Five weeks seems far too long to me so I do think we really all do need to write to the Lords, some people are making sterling efforts already and there is a list of Lords with some information about their interests here.  This can be amended so please add any information you find.

Then lobbying of MPs is in order, anyone who hasn't sent their MP this document might want to do it now and the AHED submission to the Scrutiny Committee is very clear.

There is talk also of the APPG for Home Education hosting an event for home educators to meet Lords and explain the problems with the bill, some speakers have been mentioned, I remember Imran and Betsy, their marvellous submission to the scrutiny committee is here. 

You can read all the submissions here.  

We still need to make more noise!

Timeline	Children Schools and Families Bill
Date	Event
23rd Feb	Third reading: Commons
10th March	Earliest date for first reading in Lords, second reading, committee stage, report stage and third reading to follow.
29th March	Election called
4th April	Easter Sunday: Possible recess
12th April	Parliament dissolved
6th May	General and Local Elections

Update:  There are now rumours that the Election may be brought forward to April 15th, which would mean that the time for moving the bill through the Lords would be reduced to less than two weeks with Parliament dissolved round about the 22nd March.

Memorandum submitted by AHEd: Children Schools and Families Bill.

AHEd calls for the withdrawal of sections 26 (Schedule One) and 27 of the
CSF Bill currently under scrutiny.

1. Civil Liberties:

The issues addressed in the Children Schools and Families Bill, sections 26
(Schedule One) and section 27 are serious issues of civil liberty. We urge
all MPs to oppose these sections of the bill The grossly disproportionate
proposals hold serious implications for the civil liberties of all parents,
children and families in this country. They have potentially fatal
implications for all parental responsibility for education as enshrined by
s7 of the 1996 Education Act and, furthermore, violate human rights
instruments:

1.1 Articles 8, Human Rights Act 1998

Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home
and his correspondence.

1.2 Protocol 1. ARTICLE 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights

No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any
functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the
State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and
teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical
convictions.

1.3 Article 16 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

1. No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with
his or her privacy, family, or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on
his or her honour and reputation.

2. The child has the right to the protection of the law against such
interference or attacks.

1.4 The proposals of sections 26 and 27 represent attempts to remove a
fundamental freedom and make it into the provisional gift of government.

1.5 By long tradition and common sense, it is parents and families who
safeguard children, as is their legal and moral duty. In general citizens
have benefited from an assumption of innocence and families are trusted to
care for their children without routine oversight by the state.

2. Regulation:

Rule by regulation represents arbitrary authority and interference that
should not be imposed upon the people.

2.1 Sections 26 and 27 allow for the making of regulations relating to the
registration and monitoring of home education provisions in England and
Wales. These sections ask parliament to agree to a skeleton provision for
the regulation and monitoring of a section of the electorate, the content of
which regulation parliament does not know.

2.2 Parliament is asked to grant power to vary regulation without rigorous
parliamentary scrutiny.

3. Registration:

Registration is permission, since it can be withheld; the recommendations
specifically intend it to be withheld where education proposals do not meet
with prior state approval.

3.1 The proposed registration scheme is about complying with a licensing
scheme in order to gain permission to carry out parental responsibilities.
Education is a parental responsibility. Families who choose to educate their
own children outside the state school system are not required to register
their decision with the local authority as they do not require LA services.
Local authorities are responsible to provide school places for those
children whose parents require a place for them - not to inform themselves
of the education provision of all children

4. Monitoring Education and Welfare:

The proposals are disproportionate and unnecessary. The current system
allows for parental choice and responsibility which is balanced with strong
local authority powers where there is an appearance of failure or risk. This
is proportionate and effective where properly enacted. In cases of dispute,
courts can decide if a suitable and efficient education is in place. These
terms have been defined in case law.

4.1 Some LAs do not believe the current system is strong enough. Mr Badman
told the scrutiny committee that LAs have been frustrated at not being able
to do the job they "think" they should do. The position is that current
legislation IS strong enough but it does NOT provide for the LAs to do the
job their preferences and prejudices cause them to THINK they should do.
Many LAs find it hard to accept that home education is a private issue not a
public issue - unless and until a parental failure to comply with their
duties occurs, which does not require routine monitoring, just as other
private family provision does not.

4.2 It is an attack against families to try to replace the current balance
with intrusive family interventions by attempting to generate a false
dichotomy between "rights" of parents and "rights" of children, saying that
the government must routinely intervene between the two to "balance" these
rights. This is an argument for state intervention, control and division of
the family.

4.3 In exhaustive and repeated consultations over the past five years all
results have favoured supporting existing freedoms unchanged and to ask
local authorities to abide by existing law. DCSF are now attempting to
detract from the overwhelming vote against their proposals, denying many
home educators a voice by labelling them "part of a campaign".

4.4 The underlying issue is that local authorities have failed to understand
their duties. LAs believe that they must ensure the welfare, education, and
"Every Child Matters" (ECM) outcomes of every child in their area; but do
not have the legal powers to do so. They do not have the power because they
do not have these duties. Parents are responsible to ensure the welfare and
education of their own children. ECM outcomes are a guide in the provision
of public services to children. Home Education is not a public service
provided to children.

4.5 Home educated children and their families are subject to the same laws
as every other family. These laws already provide for Local Authority
intervention where there is evidence of concerns for the education or
welfare of a child. Routine checking and monitoring of all home educating
parents and children would undermine fundamental civil liberties, contravene
the Human Rights Act and send the very divisive and dangerous message to
children, that their parents are not to be trusted and that strangers from
the LA over-ride parental authority.

4.6 Routine checking and monitoring of all home educating families would be
unnecessarily costly. This is particularly controversial at a time when
there are limited resources available for Children's Services, which should
be properly directed towards genuine need. Therefore, the government should
trust parents to do a good job and measures for intervention should be on
the basis of reasonable concern only as currently provided for.

4.7 After extensive consultation, the DCSF did produce guidelines to local
authorities on elective home education in 2007. The guidelines have not
satisfied home educators or local authorities because of inconsistencies
where the department has tried to support the assertion that local
authorities are responsible to ensure the educational provision and welfare
of all children in their area. The assertion angers parents, who are
responsible for their own children and should be left alone to do their job
with the confidence of their government. The assertion pressurises local
authority officials to carry out duties for which they do not have any
corresponding legal powers with the intention of carrying out intervention
in families to prescribe, legislate and inspect all educational provision
and ensure its compliance with state requirements regardless of logic, need,
benefit, or resource implications

4.8 Families should not be subjected to a system of routine surveillance to
ascertain their innocence, or to investigate ungrounded fears about families
who simply choose not to receive Local Authority services. Such a policy
would cause vastly more harm that it could ever hope to prevent.

5. Summary:

AHEd members call for the removal of sections 26 (Schedule One) and 27 from
the CSF Bill. Current law as it relates to elective home education already
provides for:

parental responsibility

freedom of conscience

the presumption of innocence

promotes the best interest of the child

requires education suitable for the child

provides for local authority action where there is an appearance of failure

gives access to due process in the case of dispute

Please see our Parents' Declaration:
<http://ahed.pbworks.com/ParentsDeclaration>
http://ahed.pbworks.com/ParentsDeclaration

AHEd statement

We declare that:

We refuse to cooperate with any recommendations made or any actions taken by
any government unless they support our existing freedoms.

Following a history of being sidelined, persecuted and harassed, having had
to resist years of repeated and vexatious consultations designed to
regulate, control or remove our parental options, we will not tolerate any
further persecution or erosion of our freedoms.

There can be no compromise or negotiation between totalitarian intentions
and our agency over our own lives.

We are opposed to registration.

We are opposed to monitoring.

We are opposed to government interventions in how we educate our children in
the home.

We are opposed to compulsory home visits.

We are opposed to compulsory interviews with our children.

We will not co-operate with the oppression of our children.

We demand a presumption of innocence

We want our representatives in parliament to say:

NO to the nationalisation of children

NO to the licensing of parents

NO to any new legislation restricting home education

Worries about the Petition

I have lifted this directly from Sally at Happy@Home as I have been too upset and angry to pull together such a superb summary.

I’m suspicious for a number of reasons:

• The website won’t allow you to read the petition before signing to coordinate it in your constituency.
• The page gives no author and doesn’t link in from anywhere that would give you insight as to who the author is.
• I have heard that signing up generates a thank you from an EO trustee and that the page origin is EO owned.
• I don’t like the potential inference that registration is acceptable.
• I especially don’t like this inference in the light of no Tories being willing to say outright that they will not impose regulation.
• There is only hear-say to indicate that Graham Stuart MP is anything to do with it.  There is nothing on his own website to indicate anything about it.  There is nothing on the petition website to indicate his involvement.
• What’s the sudden hurry?  It is putting pressure on people to sign and coordinate before they have had time to discuss and think about it.
• It was said that AHED were involved.  Apparently they were not, but maybe members of the list (who didn’t have remit to speak on behalf of members) were?  Maybe the same with other organizations such as HEAS.
• The only info people are working from is a release made by EO on the EO list and pasted wholesale into Dare To Know, and onto other lists.  There is no opportunity given to scrutinize behind this release because the petition wording was being kept secret so that people didn’t take it upon themselves to print it off and duplicate it within constituencies without someone coordinating each constituency.  Well, that’s what we are told.  The release by EO doesn’t give the contentious parts of the petition that have come out on lists subsequently.  Dare to Know (which I’m used to trusting and relying upon) didn’t give the whole petition wording, but that wasn’t obvious until I saw the whole of it on a list.
• There is too much scope for duplicity.
• The petition leaves the route open for another review.  We don’t want/need another review.  We’ve had so many.  We need to work with the 2007 one.  Maybe some research would be useful, but I wouldn’t trust anything from the Government, who are out to suppress and undermine home education.
• Is it John Holt who said about lifting plants constantly to see if the roots are growing?  Maybe research is also intrusive?

There is some talk about simplified or improved wording on Ahed and Brag but would Graham Stuart be accomodating with that, do we need him to be or do we approach it more independently?

This could have been such a good thing if handled in a different manner, at the moment I am just so sad about it I feel almost like giving up.

DCSF ". just embarrassing themselves now" AHED press release

DCSF ". just embarrassing themselves now"

Moments before the deadline, a home-educating parent reported that their
submission to the latest consultation on home Education had received the
number 5340, an unprecedented public response with the previous record for
DCSF being only in the hundreds.

One of the respondents, a fifteen year old supporter of Action for Home
Education, declared today that Ed Balls and the DCSF are "just embarrassing
themselves now" as he battled to understand how the government can be so
short sighted about the opposition to the recommendations in the "Badman
Report" (2) on home education.

This rather gives the lie to Graham Badman's assertion to the Children,
Schools and Families Committee (12 October 2009, Q2) that the opposition to
his report comes from "a vociferous minority" that he can actually count.
But "why" asks JK, "are they still not listening?"

In the last 90 minutes of the consultation responses were being recorded at
about three every minute, but we also know that some submissions went in by
email or on paper and those are unlikely to be included in the automatically
generated numbers from the online system.

Diana Johnson (Children, Schools and Families Select Committee 12 October
2009,) promised that consultation responses will be carefully scrutinised
and taken into account before policy is made. "But," said Barbara Stark,
Chair of the AHEd group, "we have been very worried that the review was not
really independent and was used by Ed Balls to create policy-based evidence
in order to bully home educators, Most of these responses will have been
from ordinary families who see big government threatening their way of life
and their family choices."

Clare Murton, AHEd supporter said, "This government has lost sight of the
distinction between public and private to the point where even our
youngsters are mystified at their ignorance and arrogance."

Many parents will recognise the frustration these parents feel with the
shortcomings of the state schools, but not many will realise that if they
chose to decline the state's humble offerings in any sphere of life, not
just education, they may be forced to expose their homes and children to
close scrutiny.

Only recently we have seen attempts to screen, control, tax and register
mums and dads who choose to share their child care arrangements but things
are now going too far. Mr Balls and the DCSF have to be made to understand
that normally peaceful home educators who just want to get on with their
lives are drawing a line in the sand - the British public are fed up with
such interference and we will tolerate it no longer. We will NOT comply with
your disgusting agenda for us and our children. If necessary, many of us
will choose to go before the courts to fight any criminal sanctions that
government may introduce. Does NuLabour really want to be remembered as the
government that persecuted law-abiding parents doing their best for their
families?
..................


NOTES FOR EDITORS

(1) Action for Home Education
http://www.ahed.org.uk