Showing posts with label Graham Badman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Graham Badman. Show all posts
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Becta and 11 million to go?
Could it mean the end for the Bad Man and Two Words Maggie? Government puts work of children's sector bodies on hold
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Read the Government’s response to the Home Education petition
The Government has always been clear that parents should retain the right to educate their children at home. Most home educators do an excellent job but we can’t afford to let any child slip through the net – in terms of their education, or safety.
The recommendations set out by Badman are proportionate and reasonable. Most developed countries require registration to home educate, with the majority also having a process of systematic monitoring. It is only right we afford our own children and young people the same checks and balances.
The report found significant flaws in the current arrangements for ensuring that home educated children are receiving their educational entitlement and recommended strengthening the system. It also presented a persuasive case for providing home educators with greater support, particular those whose children have special educational needs.
The Government’s response to the Badman Report was published on 9 October and can be found on the Every Child Matters website (www.everychildmatters.gov.uk). It sets out our strong commitment to supporting home educators, particularly those whose children have special educational needs and those who wish to have greater access to examination centres, courses at further education colleges, and a range of local services and activities. Our proposals on a system of registration and monitoring of home education have been out for consultation and closed on 19 October. We will take into account the responses to the consultation and any report arising from the Select Committee Inquiry into the review of home education when deciding how to proceed.
Home education is a well-established and important part of our education system. The Government is committed to support its continuation as a choice for parents.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Bruce's submission to the select committee
Children, Schools and Families Committee Inquiry into the DCSF-commissioned review of elective home education
Memorandum by Professor Bruce Stafford
see all the others
Summary
This memorandum considers the conducted of the Review of Elective Home Education in England (hereafter the Review) by applying three criteria:
Impartiality
• The Review displays some impartiality. However, the membership of the Review team did not reflect the range of expertise needed; the questionnaires used to collect data are poorly designed; the tentative nature of the estimates of home educated children ‘known to social care’ is not highlighted; and survey findings and other associated documentation should have been reported in more detail or published alongside the review.
Honesty
• The published Review includes three instances of highly selective quoting that do not provide a full and fair representation of the evidence submitted.
Objectivity
• The objectivity of the Review is compromised by the extent to which it lacks impartiality and honesty. As a consequence the Review fails to make a strong case for its recommendations.
1 Introduction
1.1 How the Review was conducted is important because any shortcomings are inevitably reflected in its recommendations.
1.2 This submission uses three criteria to assess the conduct of the Review.
1.3 In drafting the memorandum the author draws upon nearly 30 years experience of applied public and social policy research and nearly three years of sharing responsibility for home educating the youngest of his four children.
2 Conduct of the Review of Elective Home Education
2.1 There appear to be few mechanisms for scrutinising the conduct of an ‘independent’ Review, for instance, it falls outside the remit of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and the Statistical Authority. However, there are several public service codes of conduct – for the Civil Service, official statistics and public life - that could be used to derive criteria to assess the conduct of the Review. The proposed criteria to be applied to the Review are:
• Impartial – whether it presents the full range of argument and evidence on the subject, this would include counterexamples.
• Honest – whether it give a full account of people’s views and experiences.
• Objective – whether the review weights the arguments and evidence in presenting its case and recommendations. This is not possible unless it has been impartial and honest.
3 Criterion 1: Impartiality
3.1 The Review displays some impartiality. It does acknowledge, for example, the ‘passion and commitment’ of many home educating parents (para 1.2), that there is ‘exemplary practice’ in home education (para 3.1), and that ‘… local authorities were much criticised by home educators …, for their perceived lack of understanding.’ (para 5.1). However, it devotes considerably more space to views that raise concerns about child safety than to the strengths and benefits of home education or the case for no change.
3.2 Specific issues that raise doubts about the Review’s impartiality are discussed below
3.2.1 The membership of the Review’s Expert Reference Group did not represent the range of expertise needed. No home educating parents, representatives of organisations directly representing home educators, or academics who had conducted research on home education were included. There was an over-representation of experts with knowledge of early years.
3.2.2 Relevant annexes/working papers and the literature review were not initially published. Some of the shortcomings with the data underpinning the Review have been revealed through a series of Freedom of Information requests. A more impartial report would have included a copy of a second questionnaire sent to local authorities and of a statistical annex/working paper.
3.2.3 The Review process included the administration of an on-line public questionnaire and two questionnaires to local authorities. However, the surveys are not sufficiently robust, the tentative nature of estimates is not made explicit and the findings were not reported in full in the published report.
Data collection
3.2.4 The on-line public questionnaire used to gather home educators and others’ views was badly designed involving leading and poorly constructed questions. For example, question 3 is a ‘double barrel’ question as it asks views about the role of Government and local authorities in achieving the five Every Child Matters outcomes, but a respondent might believe only one of these two bodies should have any obligation or that, say, councils should have a duty for some but not all five outcomes. Two separate questions are required that allow responses for each child outcome.
3.2.5 A supplementary questionnaire was administered to the 90 local authorities who replied to the Review’s original questionnaire sent to 150 councils, but was not included or even mentioned in the report. This questionnaire appears to address a serious shortcoming of the initial questionnaire by seeking to collect statistical data on elective home education and safeguarding concerns and is important because, together with data from the first local authority questionnaire, it seems to be the only statistical basis for subsequent claims about home education and possible child abuse (but see below). However, only 25 local authorities responded to this second questionnaire.
3.2.6 This questionnaire is also poorly designed. The first question asks what number and proportion of the local authority’s current elective home education caseload is ‘known to social care’. The data sought includes open and closed cases of ‘known to social care’. But the data will not be comparable because of differences in the composition of the elective home education in each local area. The questionnaire ought to have collected more data on the make-up of the population so that it could be weighted to make it comparable between local authorities.
3.2.7 The inclusion of closed cases also means that the data may include some inappropriate referrals to social care. For instance, it collected data on Section 47 cases and these include child protection inquiries but also referrals to social care irrespective of whether or not child abuse is subsequently established. It is likely that home educators are, wrongly, over-represented amongst Section 47 referrals because (concerned) third parties, unaware of the legal right to educate at home, mistakenly contact social services. The Section 47 figures, therefore, over-estimate the number of ‘at risk’ cases amongst the home educating community. These difficulties with interpreting ‘known to social care’ statistics are not mentioned in the main report nor in the working paper.
3.2.8 The second question asked: ‘What proportion of your current caseload do you estimate have safeguarding implications? However, as the Departmental working paper acknowledges, the data on safeguarding concerns is ‘less reliable’ than the ‘known to social care’ data. Local authorities may well have interpreted safeguarding implications very differently. Moreover, the extent to which cases reported under ‘known to social care’ (Question 1) were also reported under ‘safeguarding implications’ (Question 2) is unknown and hence the data are incompatible.
3.2.9 None of the questionnaires asked for comparable data for children educated at school which severely limits the usefulness of the data. For example, 95 per cent of respondents to the on-line public questionnaire thought that home educated children are able to achieve the ‘be healthy’ Every Child Matters outcome, but without a comparable figure for school educated children this finding is difficult to interpret – is this a ‘good’ or a ‘poor’ finding relative to other children?
Estimates
3.2.10 The Review document states at paragraph 8.12 ‘….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 is the only substantive statistical claim made in the report which suggests there is a policy ‘problem’ to be addressed. The actual estimates of the proportion and number of home educated children known to social care are (again) not presented in the published report.
3.2.11 An initial Freedom of Information request for the data behind paragraph 8.12 produced an extract, headed Annex, from the working paper mentioned above. The implication was that the claim in the report was based on data from the two local authority surveys; the first to estimate the size of the home educated population and the second the number ‘known to social care’. However, the Freedom of Information request that lead to the release of the working paper (mentioned above) includes an explanatory note that claims that paragraph 8.12 of the Report ‘… is based on the raw data returns from LAs, rather than directly from the information contained in this working paper.’ Notwithstanding that an extract from the working paper was originally released to explain the claim made in paragraph 8.12. At the time of writing this memorandum the statistical basis for paragraph 8.12 remains unclear – what ‘raw data’ over and above that reported in the annex/working paper was used? The creditability and robustness of the assertion made in paragraph 8.12 remains unclear.
3.2.12 There are also concerns about the estimation method used that undermine the validity and accuracy of the claim made in the report. The tentative nature of the ‘known to social care’ estimate ought to have been highlighted in the report and in the annex/working paper.
3.2.13 The annex/working paper’s estimated number of registered home educated children known to social care (‘around 1350’) appears to be obtained by applying the median (or mid-point) percentage (6.75 per cent) for the 25 local authorities to the estimated total number of registered home educated children. However, there are a number of problems with this calculation.
3.2.14 Firstly, the estimate assumes a median of 139 registered home educated children per local authority; giving 20,850 (139*150) nationally. The Freedom of Information response rounds this up to 21,000 whilst the Review report rounds it down to 20,000. The median value of 139 comes from the survey of 90 local authorities. Whether it is a typical value for all local authorities is unknown, because the representativeness of the 90 councils is unknown. No attempt appears to have been made to correct for sample response bias.
3.2.15 Secondly, the median value (6.75 per cent) is taken from the sub-sample of 25 local authorities. The representativeness of these 25 local authorities (17 per cent of all English local authorities) is also unknown; although the estimated mean number of ‘know to social care’ for these authorities (19 compared to 9 for the country has a whole) suggests that they are atypical and have an above average number of cases. For such an unrepresentative sample, even the use of the median percentage is likely to be an over-estimate of the proportion that should be used in national estimates. Thus grossing-up using 6.75 per cent is likely to produce an invalid over-estimate of the number of home educated children ‘known to social care’.
3.2.16 Both the Review report and the annex/working paper ought to have included a range of estimates of the proportion of home educated children known to social care.
Reporting
3.2.17 The Review report lacks impartiality through failing to summarise the results of the surveys. For example, results of the on-line public questionnaire are only cursorily summarised in paragraph 4.2 of the published report. Paragraph 4.2 gives an indication of the range of responses, but not the magnitude of opposition to further reform, because it fails to quote percentages from the survey. Headline findings include:
• 80 per cent think the current system for safeguarding children who are educated at home is adequate;
• between 91 per cent and 95 per cent of respondents believe that home educated children are able to achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes; and
• 64 per cent think there should not be any changes made to the current system for monitoring home educating families.
3.2.18 A breakdown of these findings by client group suggests that the overwhelming majority of home educating parents and children believed that there was no need for policy reform and that the Every Child Matters outcomes were being met. The on-line survey suggests that only local authorities believed that legislative change was required. That there may be an element of ‘rent-seeking behaviour’ motivating these responses is not considered in the Review.
4 Criterion 3: Honesty
4.1 The published Review includes three instances of highly selective quoting that do not provide a full and fair representation of the evidence submitted. Firstly, the report contains a quote from a home educator that is less than complimentary about local authority staff:
“”… no one from the LA [local authority] would in my opinion be on my child’s intellectual level or they wouldn’t be working for the LA.” (para 4.3)
Leaving aside the questionable motives for the inclusion of this quote, the Report fails to give the apparent context to the observation:
‘It was in response to a question about whether a scientifically gifted child would benefit from having a science teacher from the LA come and give them tuition. It was to point out that scientists at the top of their profession are rarely working for the LA, so anyone sent out would not be on the same intellectual level as the scientifically gifted child.’
4.2 Secondly, the Review selectively quotes from a submission from the Education Division of the Church of England. The report includes a fairly lengthy extract that expresses their concerns about home education. However, the Review does not quote the Church’s overall conclusion:
‘10 We have seen no evidence to show that the majority of home educated children do not achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes, and are therefore not convinced of the need to change the current system of monitoring the standard of home education. Where there are particular concerns about the children in a (sic) home-educating this should be a matter for Children’s Services.’
The report omits the Church’s view that they are not convinced of further reform, yet it does quote their concerns. An honest view would have included their concerns and their reservations about the need for further reform; as this would have ‘set out the facts and relevant issues truthfully’.
4.3 Although the Church gave permission for the quote to be included in the report, an email from a Church representative says that at the time they were unaware of the report’s content and are now ‘not comfortable’ with the selective use of their evidence.
4.4 Thirdly, there is selective quoting from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Report quotes paragraph 1 of Article 12 which requires Governments to ‘… assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.’ This is then used to help justify giving local authorities a right of access to determine the child’s views without the parent(s) being present.
4.5 However, the Report does not quote paragraph 2 which would imply that the child’s views could be presented by someone other than a local authority representative:
‘For this purpose, the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body, in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law.’
Yet the Review makes no mention of this possibility. (The Report also fails to address the situation of where the child refuses to see the local authority’s representative, a right the child should have under Articles 15 and 16.)
4.6 Whilst the use of quotations is never ‘neutral’ - they serve to highlight certain views merely by their inclusion – the way in which they are used in the Review’s report arguably does not meet the standards a ‘reasonable’ person might expect in terms of providing an overview of individual’s and organisation’s points of view. However, that this has occurred with at least three pieces of evidence cannot be simply dismissed as accidental; rather it appears to be systematic attempt to selectively present evidence.
5 Criterion 3: Objective
5.1 The objectivity of the Review is compromised by the extent to which it lacks impartiality and honesty. As a consequence the Review fails to make a strong case for its recommendations. Little of the argument is supported by evidence. Where evidence is presented there is an absence of critical analysis. This might help to explain why the published report long on assertion and short on evidence and argument, with the author simply stating ‘I believe’ 16 times.
5.2 If policy in this area is to be based on ‘what works’, a more objective base for policy formation is required than is provided by the Review.
Memorandum by Professor Bruce Stafford
see all the others
Summary
This memorandum considers the conducted of the Review of Elective Home Education in England (hereafter the Review) by applying three criteria:
Impartiality
• The Review displays some impartiality. However, the membership of the Review team did not reflect the range of expertise needed; the questionnaires used to collect data are poorly designed; the tentative nature of the estimates of home educated children ‘known to social care’ is not highlighted; and survey findings and other associated documentation should have been reported in more detail or published alongside the review.
Honesty
• The published Review includes three instances of highly selective quoting that do not provide a full and fair representation of the evidence submitted.
Objectivity
• The objectivity of the Review is compromised by the extent to which it lacks impartiality and honesty. As a consequence the Review fails to make a strong case for its recommendations.
1 Introduction
1.1 How the Review was conducted is important because any shortcomings are inevitably reflected in its recommendations.
1.2 This submission uses three criteria to assess the conduct of the Review.
1.3 In drafting the memorandum the author draws upon nearly 30 years experience of applied public and social policy research and nearly three years of sharing responsibility for home educating the youngest of his four children.
2 Conduct of the Review of Elective Home Education
2.1 There appear to be few mechanisms for scrutinising the conduct of an ‘independent’ Review, for instance, it falls outside the remit of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and the Statistical Authority. However, there are several public service codes of conduct – for the Civil Service, official statistics and public life - that could be used to derive criteria to assess the conduct of the Review. The proposed criteria to be applied to the Review are:
• Impartial – whether it presents the full range of argument and evidence on the subject, this would include counterexamples.
• Honest – whether it give a full account of people’s views and experiences.
• Objective – whether the review weights the arguments and evidence in presenting its case and recommendations. This is not possible unless it has been impartial and honest.
3 Criterion 1: Impartiality
3.1 The Review displays some impartiality. It does acknowledge, for example, the ‘passion and commitment’ of many home educating parents (para 1.2), that there is ‘exemplary practice’ in home education (para 3.1), and that ‘… local authorities were much criticised by home educators …, for their perceived lack of understanding.’ (para 5.1). However, it devotes considerably more space to views that raise concerns about child safety than to the strengths and benefits of home education or the case for no change.
3.2 Specific issues that raise doubts about the Review’s impartiality are discussed below
3.2.1 The membership of the Review’s Expert Reference Group did not represent the range of expertise needed. No home educating parents, representatives of organisations directly representing home educators, or academics who had conducted research on home education were included. There was an over-representation of experts with knowledge of early years.
3.2.2 Relevant annexes/working papers and the literature review were not initially published. Some of the shortcomings with the data underpinning the Review have been revealed through a series of Freedom of Information requests. A more impartial report would have included a copy of a second questionnaire sent to local authorities and of a statistical annex/working paper.
3.2.3 The Review process included the administration of an on-line public questionnaire and two questionnaires to local authorities. However, the surveys are not sufficiently robust, the tentative nature of estimates is not made explicit and the findings were not reported in full in the published report.
Data collection
3.2.4 The on-line public questionnaire used to gather home educators and others’ views was badly designed involving leading and poorly constructed questions. For example, question 3 is a ‘double barrel’ question as it asks views about the role of Government and local authorities in achieving the five Every Child Matters outcomes, but a respondent might believe only one of these two bodies should have any obligation or that, say, councils should have a duty for some but not all five outcomes. Two separate questions are required that allow responses for each child outcome.
3.2.5 A supplementary questionnaire was administered to the 90 local authorities who replied to the Review’s original questionnaire sent to 150 councils, but was not included or even mentioned in the report. This questionnaire appears to address a serious shortcoming of the initial questionnaire by seeking to collect statistical data on elective home education and safeguarding concerns and is important because, together with data from the first local authority questionnaire, it seems to be the only statistical basis for subsequent claims about home education and possible child abuse (but see below). However, only 25 local authorities responded to this second questionnaire.
3.2.6 This questionnaire is also poorly designed. The first question asks what number and proportion of the local authority’s current elective home education caseload is ‘known to social care’. The data sought includes open and closed cases of ‘known to social care’. But the data will not be comparable because of differences in the composition of the elective home education in each local area. The questionnaire ought to have collected more data on the make-up of the population so that it could be weighted to make it comparable between local authorities.
3.2.7 The inclusion of closed cases also means that the data may include some inappropriate referrals to social care. For instance, it collected data on Section 47 cases and these include child protection inquiries but also referrals to social care irrespective of whether or not child abuse is subsequently established. It is likely that home educators are, wrongly, over-represented amongst Section 47 referrals because (concerned) third parties, unaware of the legal right to educate at home, mistakenly contact social services. The Section 47 figures, therefore, over-estimate the number of ‘at risk’ cases amongst the home educating community. These difficulties with interpreting ‘known to social care’ statistics are not mentioned in the main report nor in the working paper.
3.2.8 The second question asked: ‘What proportion of your current caseload do you estimate have safeguarding implications? However, as the Departmental working paper acknowledges, the data on safeguarding concerns is ‘less reliable’ than the ‘known to social care’ data. Local authorities may well have interpreted safeguarding implications very differently. Moreover, the extent to which cases reported under ‘known to social care’ (Question 1) were also reported under ‘safeguarding implications’ (Question 2) is unknown and hence the data are incompatible.
3.2.9 None of the questionnaires asked for comparable data for children educated at school which severely limits the usefulness of the data. For example, 95 per cent of respondents to the on-line public questionnaire thought that home educated children are able to achieve the ‘be healthy’ Every Child Matters outcome, but without a comparable figure for school educated children this finding is difficult to interpret – is this a ‘good’ or a ‘poor’ finding relative to other children?
Estimates
3.2.10 The Review document states at paragraph 8.12 ‘….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 is the only substantive statistical claim made in the report which suggests there is a policy ‘problem’ to be addressed. The actual estimates of the proportion and number of home educated children known to social care are (again) not presented in the published report.
3.2.11 An initial Freedom of Information request for the data behind paragraph 8.12 produced an extract, headed Annex, from the working paper mentioned above. The implication was that the claim in the report was based on data from the two local authority surveys; the first to estimate the size of the home educated population and the second the number ‘known to social care’. However, the Freedom of Information request that lead to the release of the working paper (mentioned above) includes an explanatory note that claims that paragraph 8.12 of the Report ‘… is based on the raw data returns from LAs, rather than directly from the information contained in this working paper.’ Notwithstanding that an extract from the working paper was originally released to explain the claim made in paragraph 8.12. At the time of writing this memorandum the statistical basis for paragraph 8.12 remains unclear – what ‘raw data’ over and above that reported in the annex/working paper was used? The creditability and robustness of the assertion made in paragraph 8.12 remains unclear.
3.2.12 There are also concerns about the estimation method used that undermine the validity and accuracy of the claim made in the report. The tentative nature of the ‘known to social care’ estimate ought to have been highlighted in the report and in the annex/working paper.
3.2.13 The annex/working paper’s estimated number of registered home educated children known to social care (‘around 1350’) appears to be obtained by applying the median (or mid-point) percentage (6.75 per cent) for the 25 local authorities to the estimated total number of registered home educated children. However, there are a number of problems with this calculation.
3.2.14 Firstly, the estimate assumes a median of 139 registered home educated children per local authority; giving 20,850 (139*150) nationally. The Freedom of Information response rounds this up to 21,000 whilst the Review report rounds it down to 20,000. The median value of 139 comes from the survey of 90 local authorities. Whether it is a typical value for all local authorities is unknown, because the representativeness of the 90 councils is unknown. No attempt appears to have been made to correct for sample response bias.
3.2.15 Secondly, the median value (6.75 per cent) is taken from the sub-sample of 25 local authorities. The representativeness of these 25 local authorities (17 per cent of all English local authorities) is also unknown; although the estimated mean number of ‘know to social care’ for these authorities (19 compared to 9 for the country has a whole) suggests that they are atypical and have an above average number of cases. For such an unrepresentative sample, even the use of the median percentage is likely to be an over-estimate of the proportion that should be used in national estimates. Thus grossing-up using 6.75 per cent is likely to produce an invalid over-estimate of the number of home educated children ‘known to social care’.
3.2.16 Both the Review report and the annex/working paper ought to have included a range of estimates of the proportion of home educated children known to social care.
Reporting
3.2.17 The Review report lacks impartiality through failing to summarise the results of the surveys. For example, results of the on-line public questionnaire are only cursorily summarised in paragraph 4.2 of the published report. Paragraph 4.2 gives an indication of the range of responses, but not the magnitude of opposition to further reform, because it fails to quote percentages from the survey. Headline findings include:
• 80 per cent think the current system for safeguarding children who are educated at home is adequate;
• between 91 per cent and 95 per cent of respondents believe that home educated children are able to achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes; and
• 64 per cent think there should not be any changes made to the current system for monitoring home educating families.
3.2.18 A breakdown of these findings by client group suggests that the overwhelming majority of home educating parents and children believed that there was no need for policy reform and that the Every Child Matters outcomes were being met. The on-line survey suggests that only local authorities believed that legislative change was required. That there may be an element of ‘rent-seeking behaviour’ motivating these responses is not considered in the Review.
4 Criterion 3: Honesty
4.1 The published Review includes three instances of highly selective quoting that do not provide a full and fair representation of the evidence submitted. Firstly, the report contains a quote from a home educator that is less than complimentary about local authority staff:
“”… no one from the LA [local authority] would in my opinion be on my child’s intellectual level or they wouldn’t be working for the LA.” (para 4.3)
Leaving aside the questionable motives for the inclusion of this quote, the Report fails to give the apparent context to the observation:
‘It was in response to a question about whether a scientifically gifted child would benefit from having a science teacher from the LA come and give them tuition. It was to point out that scientists at the top of their profession are rarely working for the LA, so anyone sent out would not be on the same intellectual level as the scientifically gifted child.’
4.2 Secondly, the Review selectively quotes from a submission from the Education Division of the Church of England. The report includes a fairly lengthy extract that expresses their concerns about home education. However, the Review does not quote the Church’s overall conclusion:
‘10 We have seen no evidence to show that the majority of home educated children do not achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes, and are therefore not convinced of the need to change the current system of monitoring the standard of home education. Where there are particular concerns about the children in a (sic) home-educating this should be a matter for Children’s Services.’
The report omits the Church’s view that they are not convinced of further reform, yet it does quote their concerns. An honest view would have included their concerns and their reservations about the need for further reform; as this would have ‘set out the facts and relevant issues truthfully’.
4.3 Although the Church gave permission for the quote to be included in the report, an email from a Church representative says that at the time they were unaware of the report’s content and are now ‘not comfortable’ with the selective use of their evidence.
4.4 Thirdly, there is selective quoting from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Report quotes paragraph 1 of Article 12 which requires Governments to ‘… assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.’ This is then used to help justify giving local authorities a right of access to determine the child’s views without the parent(s) being present.
4.5 However, the Report does not quote paragraph 2 which would imply that the child’s views could be presented by someone other than a local authority representative:
‘For this purpose, the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body, in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law.’
Yet the Review makes no mention of this possibility. (The Report also fails to address the situation of where the child refuses to see the local authority’s representative, a right the child should have under Articles 15 and 16.)
4.6 Whilst the use of quotations is never ‘neutral’ - they serve to highlight certain views merely by their inclusion – the way in which they are used in the Review’s report arguably does not meet the standards a ‘reasonable’ person might expect in terms of providing an overview of individual’s and organisation’s points of view. However, that this has occurred with at least three pieces of evidence cannot be simply dismissed as accidental; rather it appears to be systematic attempt to selectively present evidence.
5 Criterion 3: Objective
5.1 The objectivity of the Review is compromised by the extent to which it lacks impartiality and honesty. As a consequence the Review fails to make a strong case for its recommendations. Little of the argument is supported by evidence. Where evidence is presented there is an absence of critical analysis. This might help to explain why the published report long on assertion and short on evidence and argument, with the author simply stating ‘I believe’ 16 times.
5.2 If policy in this area is to be based on ‘what works’, a more objective base for policy formation is required than is provided by the Review.
My submission to the select committee
Memorandum submitted by Maire Stafford
See all the others
Summary
This memorandum considers the recommendations of the Review of Elective Home Education in England (hereafter the Review), it finds:
• There is a lack of evidence of abuse in the home educating community.
• The recommendations are disproportion to the perceived problem.
• The recommendations, if implemented, will have a negative effect on the ability of home educators to educate efficiently.
• There is anecdotal evidence that local authorities fail to understand and implement current legislation, and so cannot be trusted with further powers.
• The recommendations would results in an inefficient use of public money.
• Implementation of the recommendations would require a change in the law that would alter the relationship between all parents and the state.
• And they would create a new criminal offence only applicable to home educators exercising a completely legal choice.
• Relationships between home educators and local authorities would be further damaged if the Review's proposals were implemented.
1 Lack of evidence of abuse in the home educating community
1.1 The Review fails to make the argument that its recommendations constitute a proportionate response. The author states
'... no evidence that elective home education is a particular factor in the removal of children to forced marriage, servitude or trafficking or for inappropriate abusive activities. Based on the limited evidence available, this view is supported by the Association of Chief Police Officers. That is not to say that there are not isolated cases of trafficking that have been brought to my attention.' (para. 8.14)
1.2 Also the evidence of home education being used as a cover for child abuse presented in an associated working paper only identifies a very small number of cases in absolute numerical terms. Only four Serious Case Reviews are identified in the working paper[1] as involving home educated children - and even these are not 'clear cut' in the sense that the Review's recommendations would not have prevented the abuse from occurring, and there were opportunities in three possibly four cases (if I am correct about the Birmingham case) for the abuse to have been identified prior to the home education commencing.
1.3 Indeed, most of the cases mentioned in the Serious Case Reviews were children who were already seen and care was thought to be satisfactory; the changes recommended by the Review would have made no difference.
1.4 A series of Freedom of Information requests to local authorities have been collecting data on the actual percentage of abuse amongst home educated children. As I write the percentage of home educated children found to be at risk of harm stands at 0.32% based on data from 129 local authorities, less than a third of the number of children at harm in the population as a whole.[2]
Yet the government is still disseminating disinformation about home educators. As late as 9th September 2009, Ed Balls was publicly asserting that: 'there have been high profile cases of 'home educated' children who have been very badly neglected. Graham makes clear that this is a small minority, though disproportionately larger among home educated children.'[3]
2 The recommendations are disproportion to the perceived problem
2.1 A key statement from the Review, informing its recommendations is:
'The question is simply a matter of balance and securing the right regulatory regime within a framework of legislation that protects the rights of all children, even if in transaction such regulation is only necessary to protect a minority.' (para 3.2)
This guiding 'principle' is presented with no provisos or limits. It is highly risk adverse position, and assumes that all parents are capable of abuse. This leads to disproportionate recommendations. Indeed, it logically follows from this 'principle' that parents of all pre-school children must be registered and inspected annually; even that visits are required of children attending school during vacations. In fact it would seem to suggest exactly the wrong balance: and if this attitude were generally adopted in public policy then all citizens would, for instance, have their homes inspected in case they contained stolen goods.
3 The recommendations will have a negative effect on the ability of home educators to educate efficiently
3.1 The Review's first recommendation would in effect demand that home educating parents seek a one year licence from the Local authority in order to carry out their responsibilities under Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 - instead of delegating them to a local authority or an independent school.[4] This is troubling as it would override the parent's current responsibility to choose the best education for their child.
3.2 Many other parts of recommendation 1 would also be problematic in the context of home education but most importantly it states:
'At the time of registration parents/carers/guardians must provide a clear statement of their educational approach, intent and desired/planned outcomes for the child over the following twelve months.' (recommendation 1, page 10)
3.3 The demand for a 12 month plan within one month of deregistering would mean that de-schooling would be next to impossible. De-schooling is a well recognised requirement for children who have been unable to cope with school or who have found the school unable to meet their needs. It allows their confidence and curiosity to recover while removing coercion from the environment. The inability to allow a child to do this would seriously compromise the chances of home education being successful.
3.4 The Review's author has also publicly declared that all children should be able to read at 8.[5] A primary school classed as excellent by Ofsted was unable to achieve this with one of my dyslexic children even though his cognitive ability was discovered to be in the top 3% of the population by the school's educational psychologist. He did not learn to read at all fluently until eleven and still tests below his age and way below his IQ; despite this he has just started a university degree. That a child should read at age 8 is the sort of mistaken demand I fear parents would get from ill-informed local authority officers who will be backed by the power to remove permission to home educate from parents - even though the parents may well actually be doing an exemplary job.
3.5 This requirement would also effectively outlaw autonomous education as when educating autonomously parents do not know what their child will be learning the next day never mind for the next year. My daughter has been very set against any sort of classroom based teaching since leaving school, however after recently spending time with a child taking a private class in French she requested to join and has happily completed a term of lessons. This could not have been predicted 12 months ago. While the home educating parent and the community provides many resources and ideas, uptake is decided by the child and one can never be sure where their interest may take you both. It would be equally important to let her leave the class if she chooses to do so; something that would be even more problematic in the event of an enforced one year plan. In summary, it makes no sense to plan learning outcomes a year in advance or to specify the 'place' of education for a child learning autonomously. The very nature of the recommendations illustrates that the Review lacks a full understanding of what is meant by 'autonomous education'. However, informal learning at home was recently found to be an exceptionally effective pedagogy; an 'astonishingly efficient way to learn', in a recent study by Alan Thomas and Harriet Patterson at the University of London.[6] A study remarkable for its absence from the Review's associated literature review.[7]
3.6 Also as Summerhill School is not expected to supply planned outcomes for each pupil and can operate their school following a philosophy which allows children autonomy, home educating parents should have the same freedom.
3.7 Another of the reports' suggestions would interfere with parents' ability to provide an education that meets the needs of their children:
'However, such is the demand and complexity of 21st Century society and employment that further thought should be given to what constitutes an appropriate curriculum within the context of elective home education' (para 3.1)
This implies imposition of a 'one size fits all model' onto home education just as government is planning to introduce personalised education in schools. It is unlikely that a single curriculum is desirable; we are after all not fitting children for just one role in society. It would seem that while the Review recognises the diversity of home educators, it fails to take this in to account in its 'one size fits all' recommendations.
3.8 I note that Ed Balls plans to bring in the Report's monitoring and registration recommendations at the earliest possible opportunity, whilst leaving the supportive recommendations such as training for local authority officers in doubt.[8]
4 There is anecdotal evidence that local authorities fail to understand and implement current legislation, and so cannot be trusted with further powers
4.1 Some local authorities appear to be expressing concern about home educating families because some families will not submit to the councils' demands and instead choose to exercise their rights in current law. That is, sending an educational philosophy and report rather than accepting a visit from an official, or educating without a structure in a child-led way. There is anecdotal evidence that these local authorities can and do use bullying and intimidation in order to get their own way, as can be readily seen in the information on their websites, and as the report acknowledges. These councils currently breach existing legislation and should not be rewarded with greater powers. It is worrying to consider where their mission creep might take them once able to force themselves into private homes and demand a certain approach to home education as the Review suggests.
4.2 My own home educated child who feels let down and traumatised by her time in the local authority school would feel betrayed and unsafe if we were forced to abandon her to interrogation by personnel from the same organisation, as this report demands.
5 The recommendations would result in an inefficient use of public money
5.1 Baroness Morgan in an answer to Lord Lucas states that:
'An impact assessment is not required for the consultation at this stage as the proposals are still at an early stage of development. We do not expect them to place any significant additional burdens on local authorities as most already monitor home education.'[9]
She is factually incorrect; at the moment local authorities have no duty to monitor home education, rather they have a duty to intervene if it comes to their notice that no education is taking place (para 2.7).[10]
5.2 Even if local authorities do, in contravention of current law, monitor the home educators they know about (estimated by the Review to be 20,000), if it becomes a criminal offence for a home educator not to register with them their responsibilities will at least double and may increase enormously if the upper estimates of 150,000 home educators mentioned in the literature review for the Review are correct. The Home Education Advisory Service has calculated that the costs nationwide could be as much as £500 million. [11]
5.3 Furthermore, the money required to implement the Review's recommendations would be far better spent on better training and resources for the authorities involved so that they were in a better position to spot abuse when it was brought to their notice and could respond more effectively when it was confirmed.
6 Implementation of the recommendations requires a change in the law that would change the relationship between all parents and the state and remove from home educating parents the presumption of innocence and a redrafting of Section 7
6.1 In painting the background for the report's recommendations the Report says:
'Few would argue with the assertion that parents are the prime educator within or outside of a schooling system.' (para 1.5)
6.2 However, the Review's proposals would take primary authority for educational choice away from the parent and give it to the state through the local authority. This would be against the wishes of the major stakeholders as evidenced by the 80% of respondents to question 6 of the Review's own on-line questionnaire who thought that current arrangements were adequate.[12] Moreover, such a change would undermine the parent's legal responsibility as it would require a redrafting of Section 7 of the 1996 Act - otherwise it would discriminate against home educators.
6.3 The report argues:
'However, there has to be a balance between the rights of the parents and the rights of the child.' (para 1.5)
Here the Review is suggesting a conflict that doesn't exist in order to make the recommendations seem reasonable. Parents do not have a right but a duty to ensure a suitable education for their child. The vast majority of parents will know their child better than anyone else and wish for them the best possible future in the world. Yet the Review suggests that in every case the local authority knows better and has better intentions than the parents, so should investigate all home educating parents as if they may all wish to cause their child harm. This would isolate home educators, alone amongst parents in England as unsafe to be with their children unless checked upon. It would remove the presumption of innocence from this minority section of the population alone.
6.4 Furthermore, the ability to interview a child alone, even against their wishes and the wishes of their parents, without any evidence or suspicion of harm being done, is something no government agency or any other agency has at present. If this recommendation became law, then home education officers from the local authority would have more power with regard to children than the police or social services. Surely no one should have automatic 'right of access' to our children.
6.5 One of the justifications for this requirement is to give the child a voice; there is a suspicion that children are being home educated against their wishes. There is, worryingly, no confirmation that the child's voice will be heard when they say no to an interview. It would also surely be discriminatory if only home educated children had the right to a voice where their education is concerned, surely if they are to be asked, with the implied promise that the local authority will take action if they are unhappy with their parent's choice, then children at school are entitled to be asked the same question.
6.6 Extremely worryingly, a major omission seems to be the establishment of any appeals process for parents to challenge a local authority officer's decision. This lack of an appeal seems to assume complete competence and an absence of prejudice on the part of the local authority that it is not logically consistent with Review's limited evidence. The Review says that many local authorities are not performing adequately (para 1.4), but then recommends they have more powers that cannot be challenged. Without an analysis of why local authorities are failing it would seem inappropriate to give them more powers; this would simply create problems and maladministration claims in the future.
6.7 And in the light of this the 'anything else' (para 8.12) reason for refusing permission for a parent to home educate it is particularly troubling.
7 And they would create a new criminal offence only applicable to home educators exercising a completely legal choice
7.1 The recommendations of this review would create a new criminal offence of failing or refusing to register that was only applicable to home educators. I know very little about criminal law but surely this is not the way it should be developed.
8 Relationships between home educators and local authorities would be further damaged
8.1 The report says:
'I have taken account of the views of local authorities who are strongly of the opinion that the current guidelines are unworkable in that they are contradictory and confer responsibility without power.' (para 1.4)
However, the Review appears to only have taken into account the view of local authorities and only a self selected number of them; it has ignored the views of the vast majority of home educators and members of the public. Yet the Review states:
'Good relationships and mutual respect are at the heart of the engagement of local authorities with home educating parents - this is evidenced in many authorities but such is the number of children now within elective home education that the development of these relationships cannot be left to chance or personality.'(para 1.4)
I know from my membership of numerous home education support lists that many of the good relationships that the Review observed have been destroyed by its mere publication. The intrusiveness, suspicion and bias evident in its recommendations have offended many. Healing these relationships is unlikely to be achieved by stigmatising home educators with the slur of potential abuser (when accurate research shows that abuse is exceptionally low in the home educating community) and allowing local authorities to ride rough shod over their privacy, human rights and civil liberties.
September 2009
________________________________________
[1] See http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/14543/response/41308/attach/html/3/Safeguarding%20evidence%20briefing%20paper%202%204.doc.html
[2] See http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rbrk5-GEdrUdcmfi670Mihg&gid=2
[3] See http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_live_events/820977?pg=13 message from Ed Balls at 13.40:14
[4] See http://tinyurl.com/sectionseven
[5] See http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jun/11/home-education-parents-face-tighter-regulation
[6] See Alan Thomas and Harriet Patterson (2008) How Children Learn at Home, Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.; 2 edition (31 Jan 2008)
[7] See http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/literature_review_produced_for_g#outgoing-24510
[8] See http://www.freedomforchildrentogrow.org/Ed%20Balls%20to%20Graham%20Badman%20110609.pdf
[9] See http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2009-06-29a.6.4#addcomment
[10] See http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/localauthorities/_documents/content/7373-DCSF-Elective%20Home%20Education.pdf
[11] See www.heas.org.uk
[12] See http://maire-staffordshire.blogspot.com/2009/08/analysis-of-6-question-online.html
See all the others
Summary
This memorandum considers the recommendations of the Review of Elective Home Education in England (hereafter the Review), it finds:
• There is a lack of evidence of abuse in the home educating community.
• The recommendations are disproportion to the perceived problem.
• The recommendations, if implemented, will have a negative effect on the ability of home educators to educate efficiently.
• There is anecdotal evidence that local authorities fail to understand and implement current legislation, and so cannot be trusted with further powers.
• The recommendations would results in an inefficient use of public money.
• Implementation of the recommendations would require a change in the law that would alter the relationship between all parents and the state.
• And they would create a new criminal offence only applicable to home educators exercising a completely legal choice.
• Relationships between home educators and local authorities would be further damaged if the Review's proposals were implemented.
1 Lack of evidence of abuse in the home educating community
1.1 The Review fails to make the argument that its recommendations constitute a proportionate response. The author states
'... no evidence that elective home education is a particular factor in the removal of children to forced marriage, servitude or trafficking or for inappropriate abusive activities. Based on the limited evidence available, this view is supported by the Association of Chief Police Officers. That is not to say that there are not isolated cases of trafficking that have been brought to my attention.' (para. 8.14)
1.2 Also the evidence of home education being used as a cover for child abuse presented in an associated working paper only identifies a very small number of cases in absolute numerical terms. Only four Serious Case Reviews are identified in the working paper[1] as involving home educated children - and even these are not 'clear cut' in the sense that the Review's recommendations would not have prevented the abuse from occurring, and there were opportunities in three possibly four cases (if I am correct about the Birmingham case) for the abuse to have been identified prior to the home education commencing.
1.3 Indeed, most of the cases mentioned in the Serious Case Reviews were children who were already seen and care was thought to be satisfactory; the changes recommended by the Review would have made no difference.
1.4 A series of Freedom of Information requests to local authorities have been collecting data on the actual percentage of abuse amongst home educated children. As I write the percentage of home educated children found to be at risk of harm stands at 0.32% based on data from 129 local authorities, less than a third of the number of children at harm in the population as a whole.[2]
Yet the government is still disseminating disinformation about home educators. As late as 9th September 2009, Ed Balls was publicly asserting that: 'there have been high profile cases of 'home educated' children who have been very badly neglected. Graham makes clear that this is a small minority, though disproportionately larger among home educated children.'[3]
2 The recommendations are disproportion to the perceived problem
2.1 A key statement from the Review, informing its recommendations is:
'The question is simply a matter of balance and securing the right regulatory regime within a framework of legislation that protects the rights of all children, even if in transaction such regulation is only necessary to protect a minority.' (para 3.2)
This guiding 'principle' is presented with no provisos or limits. It is highly risk adverse position, and assumes that all parents are capable of abuse. This leads to disproportionate recommendations. Indeed, it logically follows from this 'principle' that parents of all pre-school children must be registered and inspected annually; even that visits are required of children attending school during vacations. In fact it would seem to suggest exactly the wrong balance: and if this attitude were generally adopted in public policy then all citizens would, for instance, have their homes inspected in case they contained stolen goods.
3 The recommendations will have a negative effect on the ability of home educators to educate efficiently
3.1 The Review's first recommendation would in effect demand that home educating parents seek a one year licence from the Local authority in order to carry out their responsibilities under Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 - instead of delegating them to a local authority or an independent school.[4] This is troubling as it would override the parent's current responsibility to choose the best education for their child.
3.2 Many other parts of recommendation 1 would also be problematic in the context of home education but most importantly it states:
'At the time of registration parents/carers/guardians must provide a clear statement of their educational approach, intent and desired/planned outcomes for the child over the following twelve months.' (recommendation 1, page 10)
3.3 The demand for a 12 month plan within one month of deregistering would mean that de-schooling would be next to impossible. De-schooling is a well recognised requirement for children who have been unable to cope with school or who have found the school unable to meet their needs. It allows their confidence and curiosity to recover while removing coercion from the environment. The inability to allow a child to do this would seriously compromise the chances of home education being successful.
3.4 The Review's author has also publicly declared that all children should be able to read at 8.[5] A primary school classed as excellent by Ofsted was unable to achieve this with one of my dyslexic children even though his cognitive ability was discovered to be in the top 3% of the population by the school's educational psychologist. He did not learn to read at all fluently until eleven and still tests below his age and way below his IQ; despite this he has just started a university degree. That a child should read at age 8 is the sort of mistaken demand I fear parents would get from ill-informed local authority officers who will be backed by the power to remove permission to home educate from parents - even though the parents may well actually be doing an exemplary job.
3.5 This requirement would also effectively outlaw autonomous education as when educating autonomously parents do not know what their child will be learning the next day never mind for the next year. My daughter has been very set against any sort of classroom based teaching since leaving school, however after recently spending time with a child taking a private class in French she requested to join and has happily completed a term of lessons. This could not have been predicted 12 months ago. While the home educating parent and the community provides many resources and ideas, uptake is decided by the child and one can never be sure where their interest may take you both. It would be equally important to let her leave the class if she chooses to do so; something that would be even more problematic in the event of an enforced one year plan. In summary, it makes no sense to plan learning outcomes a year in advance or to specify the 'place' of education for a child learning autonomously. The very nature of the recommendations illustrates that the Review lacks a full understanding of what is meant by 'autonomous education'. However, informal learning at home was recently found to be an exceptionally effective pedagogy; an 'astonishingly efficient way to learn', in a recent study by Alan Thomas and Harriet Patterson at the University of London.[6] A study remarkable for its absence from the Review's associated literature review.[7]
3.6 Also as Summerhill School is not expected to supply planned outcomes for each pupil and can operate their school following a philosophy which allows children autonomy, home educating parents should have the same freedom.
3.7 Another of the reports' suggestions would interfere with parents' ability to provide an education that meets the needs of their children:
'However, such is the demand and complexity of 21st Century society and employment that further thought should be given to what constitutes an appropriate curriculum within the context of elective home education' (para 3.1)
This implies imposition of a 'one size fits all model' onto home education just as government is planning to introduce personalised education in schools. It is unlikely that a single curriculum is desirable; we are after all not fitting children for just one role in society. It would seem that while the Review recognises the diversity of home educators, it fails to take this in to account in its 'one size fits all' recommendations.
3.8 I note that Ed Balls plans to bring in the Report's monitoring and registration recommendations at the earliest possible opportunity, whilst leaving the supportive recommendations such as training for local authority officers in doubt.[8]
4 There is anecdotal evidence that local authorities fail to understand and implement current legislation, and so cannot be trusted with further powers
4.1 Some local authorities appear to be expressing concern about home educating families because some families will not submit to the councils' demands and instead choose to exercise their rights in current law. That is, sending an educational philosophy and report rather than accepting a visit from an official, or educating without a structure in a child-led way. There is anecdotal evidence that these local authorities can and do use bullying and intimidation in order to get their own way, as can be readily seen in the information on their websites, and as the report acknowledges. These councils currently breach existing legislation and should not be rewarded with greater powers. It is worrying to consider where their mission creep might take them once able to force themselves into private homes and demand a certain approach to home education as the Review suggests.
4.2 My own home educated child who feels let down and traumatised by her time in the local authority school would feel betrayed and unsafe if we were forced to abandon her to interrogation by personnel from the same organisation, as this report demands.
5 The recommendations would result in an inefficient use of public money
5.1 Baroness Morgan in an answer to Lord Lucas states that:
'An impact assessment is not required for the consultation at this stage as the proposals are still at an early stage of development. We do not expect them to place any significant additional burdens on local authorities as most already monitor home education.'[9]
She is factually incorrect; at the moment local authorities have no duty to monitor home education, rather they have a duty to intervene if it comes to their notice that no education is taking place (para 2.7).[10]
5.2 Even if local authorities do, in contravention of current law, monitor the home educators they know about (estimated by the Review to be 20,000), if it becomes a criminal offence for a home educator not to register with them their responsibilities will at least double and may increase enormously if the upper estimates of 150,000 home educators mentioned in the literature review for the Review are correct. The Home Education Advisory Service has calculated that the costs nationwide could be as much as £500 million. [11]
5.3 Furthermore, the money required to implement the Review's recommendations would be far better spent on better training and resources for the authorities involved so that they were in a better position to spot abuse when it was brought to their notice and could respond more effectively when it was confirmed.
6 Implementation of the recommendations requires a change in the law that would change the relationship between all parents and the state and remove from home educating parents the presumption of innocence and a redrafting of Section 7
6.1 In painting the background for the report's recommendations the Report says:
'Few would argue with the assertion that parents are the prime educator within or outside of a schooling system.' (para 1.5)
6.2 However, the Review's proposals would take primary authority for educational choice away from the parent and give it to the state through the local authority. This would be against the wishes of the major stakeholders as evidenced by the 80% of respondents to question 6 of the Review's own on-line questionnaire who thought that current arrangements were adequate.[12] Moreover, such a change would undermine the parent's legal responsibility as it would require a redrafting of Section 7 of the 1996 Act - otherwise it would discriminate against home educators.
6.3 The report argues:
'However, there has to be a balance between the rights of the parents and the rights of the child.' (para 1.5)
Here the Review is suggesting a conflict that doesn't exist in order to make the recommendations seem reasonable. Parents do not have a right but a duty to ensure a suitable education for their child. The vast majority of parents will know their child better than anyone else and wish for them the best possible future in the world. Yet the Review suggests that in every case the local authority knows better and has better intentions than the parents, so should investigate all home educating parents as if they may all wish to cause their child harm. This would isolate home educators, alone amongst parents in England as unsafe to be with their children unless checked upon. It would remove the presumption of innocence from this minority section of the population alone.
6.4 Furthermore, the ability to interview a child alone, even against their wishes and the wishes of their parents, without any evidence or suspicion of harm being done, is something no government agency or any other agency has at present. If this recommendation became law, then home education officers from the local authority would have more power with regard to children than the police or social services. Surely no one should have automatic 'right of access' to our children.
6.5 One of the justifications for this requirement is to give the child a voice; there is a suspicion that children are being home educated against their wishes. There is, worryingly, no confirmation that the child's voice will be heard when they say no to an interview. It would also surely be discriminatory if only home educated children had the right to a voice where their education is concerned, surely if they are to be asked, with the implied promise that the local authority will take action if they are unhappy with their parent's choice, then children at school are entitled to be asked the same question.
6.6 Extremely worryingly, a major omission seems to be the establishment of any appeals process for parents to challenge a local authority officer's decision. This lack of an appeal seems to assume complete competence and an absence of prejudice on the part of the local authority that it is not logically consistent with Review's limited evidence. The Review says that many local authorities are not performing adequately (para 1.4), but then recommends they have more powers that cannot be challenged. Without an analysis of why local authorities are failing it would seem inappropriate to give them more powers; this would simply create problems and maladministration claims in the future.
6.7 And in the light of this the 'anything else' (para 8.12) reason for refusing permission for a parent to home educate it is particularly troubling.
7 And they would create a new criminal offence only applicable to home educators exercising a completely legal choice
7.1 The recommendations of this review would create a new criminal offence of failing or refusing to register that was only applicable to home educators. I know very little about criminal law but surely this is not the way it should be developed.
8 Relationships between home educators and local authorities would be further damaged
8.1 The report says:
'I have taken account of the views of local authorities who are strongly of the opinion that the current guidelines are unworkable in that they are contradictory and confer responsibility without power.' (para 1.4)
However, the Review appears to only have taken into account the view of local authorities and only a self selected number of them; it has ignored the views of the vast majority of home educators and members of the public. Yet the Review states:
'Good relationships and mutual respect are at the heart of the engagement of local authorities with home educating parents - this is evidenced in many authorities but such is the number of children now within elective home education that the development of these relationships cannot be left to chance or personality.'(para 1.4)
I know from my membership of numerous home education support lists that many of the good relationships that the Review observed have been destroyed by its mere publication. The intrusiveness, suspicion and bias evident in its recommendations have offended many. Healing these relationships is unlikely to be achieved by stigmatising home educators with the slur of potential abuser (when accurate research shows that abuse is exceptionally low in the home educating community) and allowing local authorities to ride rough shod over their privacy, human rights and civil liberties.
September 2009
________________________________________
[1] See http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/14543/response/41308/attach/html/3/Safeguarding%20evidence%20briefing%20paper%202%204.doc.html
[2] See http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rbrk5-GEdrUdcmfi670Mihg&gid=2
[3] See http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_live_events/820977?pg=13 message from Ed Balls at 13.40:14
[4] See http://tinyurl.com/sectionseven
[5] See http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jun/11/home-education-parents-face-tighter-regulation
[6] See Alan Thomas and Harriet Patterson (2008) How Children Learn at Home, Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.; 2 edition (31 Jan 2008)
[7] See http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/literature_review_produced_for_g#outgoing-24510
[8] See http://www.freedomforchildrentogrow.org/Ed%20Balls%20to%20Graham%20Badman%20110609.pdf
[9] See http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2009-06-29a.6.4#addcomment
[10] See http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/localauthorities/_documents/content/7373-DCSF-Elective%20Home%20Education.pdf
[11] See www.heas.org.uk
[12] See http://maire-staffordshire.blogspot.com/2009/08/analysis-of-6-question-online.html
Monday, 2 November 2009
Home Educators have the Association of Directors of Children's Services to thank for their misery
They are the people who want to own home educating family’s lives, and probably every other family’s but they are keeping quiet about that for now.
These people would feel much better if we would just behave as pawns in their much more important lives and careers.
They are mistaken if they think that access to our homes and children would really help as it is their own incompetence that has caused them trouble, that and a consistent underfunding and lack of respect for real expertise.
Funnily enough ADCS agree with all the intrusions and assaults on our civil liberties suggested in the consultation, this is probably because they had a large hand in writing the questions.
The major players who have so far come to light seem to be
I want my knighthood and to impose my prejudices on you all Graham Badman
Cover my own back Peter Traves
Snotogram ‘two words’ Maggie Atkinson
but I am sure we have not uncovered all the dirt yet.
We could of course write to these people as part of our campaign to defend ourselves from their attacks.
This response has been compiled on behalf of ADCS by Becky Godar, ADCS Press and Policy Officer. Any queries regarding this response should be addressed in the first instance to Rob Belli, Administrative Officer, ADCS (e) robert.belli@adcs.org.uk.
I am not religious but some sayings from the religion I was brought up in come to mind.
And why do you take note of the grain of dust in your brother's eye, ... the splinter in your brother's eye, and not notice the beam which is in your own eye?
Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.
Well the stone has been well and truly thrown and it would seem that it has been thrown because of the splinter in their eye and the sins on their conscience.
I used to have some sympathy with social workers, it cannot be an easy job, it must often be harrowing for people with humanity and integrity. It cannot be easy to strike the right balance at all times and it must be terrible to be vilified in the press for making a mistake especially when it costs a child their life. The Association of Directors of Children’s Services do not seem to worry about little things like truth, integrity, humanity or justice though. In their campaign to divert negative attention away from the mistakes of their members it doesn’t seem to matter to them who they slur. Well maybe that is not quite true; they probably want access to the home and the child alone of every family in the country, but they know that campaigning for that would create an outcry. So as a misunderstood minority, often verbally abused by school going families for our implied criticism of their choices, suspected of all sorts of unsavoury ulterior motives for our choice we stand as the first barrier to the takeover of all families’ lives.
We cannot afford to give in, those terrible mistakes these people make could be imported into our lives if we do, and for no good purpose. We do not know what prejudice or error on their part might put our family at risk; please do not be complacent and assume it will not happen to you.
We must fight this in every possible way, and if we cannot persuade we must just say NO!
These people would feel much better if we would just behave as pawns in their much more important lives and careers.
They are mistaken if they think that access to our homes and children would really help as it is their own incompetence that has caused them trouble, that and a consistent underfunding and lack of respect for real expertise.
Funnily enough ADCS agree with all the intrusions and assaults on our civil liberties suggested in the consultation, this is probably because they had a large hand in writing the questions.
The major players who have so far come to light seem to be
I want my knighthood and to impose my prejudices on you all Graham Badman
Cover my own back Peter Traves
Snotogram ‘two words’ Maggie Atkinson
but I am sure we have not uncovered all the dirt yet.
We could of course write to these people as part of our campaign to defend ourselves from their attacks.
This response has been compiled on behalf of ADCS by Becky Godar, ADCS Press and Policy Officer. Any queries regarding this response should be addressed in the first instance to Rob Belli, Administrative Officer, ADCS (e) robert.belli@adcs.org.uk.
I am not religious but some sayings from the religion I was brought up in come to mind.
And why do you take note of the grain of dust in your brother's eye, ... the splinter in your brother's eye, and not notice the beam which is in your own eye?
Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.
Well the stone has been well and truly thrown and it would seem that it has been thrown because of the splinter in their eye and the sins on their conscience.
I used to have some sympathy with social workers, it cannot be an easy job, it must often be harrowing for people with humanity and integrity. It cannot be easy to strike the right balance at all times and it must be terrible to be vilified in the press for making a mistake especially when it costs a child their life. The Association of Directors of Children’s Services do not seem to worry about little things like truth, integrity, humanity or justice though. In their campaign to divert negative attention away from the mistakes of their members it doesn’t seem to matter to them who they slur. Well maybe that is not quite true; they probably want access to the home and the child alone of every family in the country, but they know that campaigning for that would create an outcry. So as a misunderstood minority, often verbally abused by school going families for our implied criticism of their choices, suspected of all sorts of unsavoury ulterior motives for our choice we stand as the first barrier to the takeover of all families’ lives.
We cannot afford to give in, those terrible mistakes these people make could be imported into our lives if we do, and for no good purpose. We do not know what prejudice or error on their part might put our family at risk; please do not be complacent and assume it will not happen to you.
We must fight this in every possible way, and if we cannot persuade we must just say NO!
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Khyra Ishaq a tool in the government’s campaign to oppress children and families.
There is much fear amongst home educators that despite a record 5342 responses to the consultation on registration and monitoring of home educators the government will slip something into legislation that will bring the changes it wants to see into law without them going through due process and without the consultation responses being analysed and taken into account. Government has already sneaked past a dozing parliament major changes to the right of entry to our homes that give the LA and others the power invade homes and seize assets if it suspects citizens of minor misdemeanours. Power to enter our homes without a warrant in a way the police cannot.
If proof were needed that this is a very real danger long before the consultation closed the government had a clause about registration and monitoring for EHE in the Improving Schools and Safeguarding Children Bill.
Plans were hatching back in January when the following exchange took place involving Ed Balls, Maggie Atkinson and the ‘completely independent’ Graham Badman, an expert in Elective Home Education because of his many years of dedicated service to Children’s services, the very people clamouring for entry to our homes and access to our children as a right.
‘On Friday January 16th 2009 the joint president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services wrote about
"a 24-hour session with the Department for Children, Schools and Families and partners about the Children's Plan. Ed Balls introduces. The event is excellent with a great sense of opportunity and shared commitment. My co-president John Freeman and directors Maggie Atkinson and Graham Badman fly the ADCS flag."
DCSF launched the Badman Review of Home Education on January 19th.'
Apart from my vehement philosophical and moral objections to the government enacting laws that make it the parent of first resort I have very real pragmatic concerns which the Adam Smith institute shares.
‘The government is practically teaching children that they need to be protected from their parents. If public-run institutions are any indication of how well things turn out under government control, then I’m afraid families don’t stand a chance.'
We are living in peculiar: times
We know that politicians are not known for their honesty in fact the profession rather like that of estate agent is somewhat renowned for it’s lack of it but even the most cynical amongst us have been shocked by the extent to which so many dishonest politicians have been seen to be cheating the taxpayer and setting up rules to enable them to pay themselves more without the public realising it. They now whine ‘please miss it wasn’t my fault they said I could do it’ and expect to be forgiven. Let us not forget that the very system was set up as a means to deceive us!
This government in its mad dog days has been setting up more and more improbable and improper legislation, vetting and barring and useless crb checks give parents a false sense of security when they leave their precious children with strangers but parents themselves are deemed unsafe to be around children.
Then there is the drugs fiasco proving that this government have no time for evidence based policy, they much prefer to make it up to comply with prejudiced and ill informed attitudes. Well they do not do this in my name, like many others I do not want my children manipulated by government as if they were too stupid to assess the information for themselves.
So this stupid, any economist would know that a financial incentive creates a moral hazard, dishonest, refusing perfectly reasonable Fois because the truth may make people who have been vilified and harassed even more angry, and sinister government has gone too far.
It cares not about the false positives that will arise from the screening of innocent families for child abuse and the harm this will do to them, it is on a positive campaign to remove our civil rights and reverse the principal of innocent until proven guilty. It does not care about the harm done to innocent children by the harassment of perfectly well functioning families in its no holds barred campaign for total control.
It cares nothing for the waste of money the country hasn’t got even though social services are thoroughly underfunded and understaffed and cannot meet their obligations to children known to be in danger.
Children like Khyra Ishaq, from a family reported to social services while the children were still at school, out of school and therefore a child missing education for many weeks before she was deregistered. A child where there was more reason than most for social services to insist on entry to the house and access to the child on her own; powers they already have in circumstances like this, but powers they didn’t bother to use and so this child is dead. But do the Government and the Directors of Children’s Services hold their heads in shame and say mea culpa, we will make enormous efforts to make sure nothing like this happens through our carelessness again?
No. They say ooh goodie this is an opportunity to get some control of those pesky home educators; look the child was home educated for ten weeks. We can use this to deliver that shopping list of powers we have been after for almost ever. No one will object; we can pretend that if we had had these powers we could have saved little Khyra, who could argue with that. We can lie about these dead children, the NSPCC’s Vijay Patel will help and Maggie Atkinson, the children’s commissioner elect, she will lie for us after all she wants the job. And the period of Kyra’s trial will be a time when lies may abound in our lazy media and opportunities may be created for pushing through draconian legislation due to the moral panic created.
And evidence of this shopping list from Las is here from Lancashire and Derbyshire.
One of the many hysterically ridiculous points here is the idea of Las planning to implement a conciliation service before parents can remove their children to HE. This clearly shows how little they know of what goes on as many parents plead, beg and try to coerce schools to meet their obligations to their children for years before giving up and realising that it would take some effort to do a worse job themselves. These arrogant and ignorant LAs should have stepped in long before if they wanted to stop the total breakdown of such relationships. I tried to liaise with my LA years ago about my one of my kids, guess what, total waste of time and I expect most parents have found the same. How many parents have had to go to tribunal to make Las meet their obligations to children with special needs, a process that eats up a year of your time to say nothing of the stress involved? This is not about helping kids, they really couldn’t give a damn, it is about protecting their own backs and maintaining control of the peasants. Well I don’t work for them so they can bugger off!
Don’t forget to give your guy that extra special expert touch on Guy Fawkes Night this year!
If proof were needed that this is a very real danger long before the consultation closed the government had a clause about registration and monitoring for EHE in the Improving Schools and Safeguarding Children Bill.
Plans were hatching back in January when the following exchange took place involving Ed Balls, Maggie Atkinson and the ‘completely independent’ Graham Badman, an expert in Elective Home Education because of his many years of dedicated service to Children’s services, the very people clamouring for entry to our homes and access to our children as a right.
‘On Friday January 16th 2009 the joint president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services wrote about
"a 24-hour session with the Department for Children, Schools and Families and partners about the Children's Plan. Ed Balls introduces. The event is excellent with a great sense of opportunity and shared commitment. My co-president John Freeman and directors Maggie Atkinson and Graham Badman fly the ADCS flag."
DCSF launched the Badman Review of Home Education on January 19th.'
Apart from my vehement philosophical and moral objections to the government enacting laws that make it the parent of first resort I have very real pragmatic concerns which the Adam Smith institute shares.
‘The government is practically teaching children that they need to be protected from their parents. If public-run institutions are any indication of how well things turn out under government control, then I’m afraid families don’t stand a chance.'
We are living in peculiar: times
We know that politicians are not known for their honesty in fact the profession rather like that of estate agent is somewhat renowned for it’s lack of it but even the most cynical amongst us have been shocked by the extent to which so many dishonest politicians have been seen to be cheating the taxpayer and setting up rules to enable them to pay themselves more without the public realising it. They now whine ‘please miss it wasn’t my fault they said I could do it’ and expect to be forgiven. Let us not forget that the very system was set up as a means to deceive us!
This government in its mad dog days has been setting up more and more improbable and improper legislation, vetting and barring and useless crb checks give parents a false sense of security when they leave their precious children with strangers but parents themselves are deemed unsafe to be around children.
Then there is the drugs fiasco proving that this government have no time for evidence based policy, they much prefer to make it up to comply with prejudiced and ill informed attitudes. Well they do not do this in my name, like many others I do not want my children manipulated by government as if they were too stupid to assess the information for themselves.
So this stupid, any economist would know that a financial incentive creates a moral hazard, dishonest, refusing perfectly reasonable Fois because the truth may make people who have been vilified and harassed even more angry, and sinister government has gone too far.
It cares not about the false positives that will arise from the screening of innocent families for child abuse and the harm this will do to them, it is on a positive campaign to remove our civil rights and reverse the principal of innocent until proven guilty. It does not care about the harm done to innocent children by the harassment of perfectly well functioning families in its no holds barred campaign for total control.
It cares nothing for the waste of money the country hasn’t got even though social services are thoroughly underfunded and understaffed and cannot meet their obligations to children known to be in danger.
Children like Khyra Ishaq, from a family reported to social services while the children were still at school, out of school and therefore a child missing education for many weeks before she was deregistered. A child where there was more reason than most for social services to insist on entry to the house and access to the child on her own; powers they already have in circumstances like this, but powers they didn’t bother to use and so this child is dead. But do the Government and the Directors of Children’s Services hold their heads in shame and say mea culpa, we will make enormous efforts to make sure nothing like this happens through our carelessness again?
No. They say ooh goodie this is an opportunity to get some control of those pesky home educators; look the child was home educated for ten weeks. We can use this to deliver that shopping list of powers we have been after for almost ever. No one will object; we can pretend that if we had had these powers we could have saved little Khyra, who could argue with that. We can lie about these dead children, the NSPCC’s Vijay Patel will help and Maggie Atkinson, the children’s commissioner elect, she will lie for us after all she wants the job. And the period of Kyra’s trial will be a time when lies may abound in our lazy media and opportunities may be created for pushing through draconian legislation due to the moral panic created.
And evidence of this shopping list from Las is here from Lancashire and Derbyshire.
One of the many hysterically ridiculous points here is the idea of Las planning to implement a conciliation service before parents can remove their children to HE. This clearly shows how little they know of what goes on as many parents plead, beg and try to coerce schools to meet their obligations to their children for years before giving up and realising that it would take some effort to do a worse job themselves. These arrogant and ignorant LAs should have stepped in long before if they wanted to stop the total breakdown of such relationships. I tried to liaise with my LA years ago about my one of my kids, guess what, total waste of time and I expect most parents have found the same. How many parents have had to go to tribunal to make Las meet their obligations to children with special needs, a process that eats up a year of your time to say nothing of the stress involved? This is not about helping kids, they really couldn’t give a damn, it is about protecting their own backs and maintaining control of the peasants. Well I don’t work for them so they can bugger off!
Don’t forget to give your guy that extra special expert touch on Guy Fawkes Night this year!
Thursday, 22 October 2009
'Independent' review of elective home education
Looks like the DCSF have taken the select committee's advice and published some of the documents relating to the Bad Man report here. Although not the evidence behind the report, which they are keeping secret because poor Badders can't stand the heat. Of course it could be because there isn't any real evidence, just a thought.
The 74 LAs who responded to Bad Mans desperate plea for some actual evidence to back up his allegations against home educators are revealed in the answer to this Foi.
Errors have already been found in this list, so caution and double checking is advised.
The 74 LAs who responded to Bad Mans desperate plea for some actual evidence to back up his allegations against home educators are revealed in the answer to this Foi.
Errors have already been found in this list, so caution and double checking is advised.
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Who initiated the call for supplementary evidence to support the recommendations of Graham Badman's Report of the Review of Elective Home Education?
Who initiated the call for supplementary evidence to support the
recommendations of Graham Badman's Report of the Review of Elective
Home Education?
In particular was it the author or the DCSF?
Whilst the Star Chamber has allowed it who within the department
recommended to the Star Chamber that is should proceed or asked
permission of the Star Chamber to initiate it?
Graham Badman initiated the call for supplementary evidence to support
the recommendations in his review. Penny Jones, Deputy Director,
Independent Schools and School Organisation, asked for Star Chamber
approval to initiate the request.
Foi here
recommendations of Graham Badman's Report of the Review of Elective
Home Education?
In particular was it the author or the DCSF?
Whilst the Star Chamber has allowed it who within the department
recommended to the Star Chamber that is should proceed or asked
permission of the Star Chamber to initiate it?
Graham Badman initiated the call for supplementary evidence to support
the recommendations in his review. Penny Jones, Deputy Director,
Independent Schools and School Organisation, asked for Star Chamber
approval to initiate the request.
Foi here
Monday, 12 October 2009
Dishonesty or Stupidity, Leicestershire Local Authority Statistical Returns to Badman.
A local authority officer has just admitted in an email to a home educator that
'the high percentage of children (actual number taken out as it identifies the LA) arose from all the data we have ever had and therefore that includes people that are now adults. This could have included involvements for other members of the family, referrals where the outcome was no further action etc.
The 9% includes all the children known to social care so if they are known to social care because they are disabled then yes it does include disabled children.
This information was given as clarification of the figures in Leicestershire's response to Graham Badman's request for more data in the second in depth questionnaire to local authorities.'
'the high percentage of children (actual number taken out as it identifies the LA) arose from all the data we have ever had and therefore that includes people that are now adults. This could have included involvements for other members of the family, referrals where the outcome was no further action etc.
The 9% includes all the children known to social care so if they are known to social care because they are disabled then yes it does include disabled children.
This information was given as clarification of the figures in Leicestershire's response to Graham Badman's request for more data in the second in depth questionnaire to local authorities.'
Saturday, 10 October 2009
Dissembling some of Badman’s stats (again)
By guest blogger Bruce Stafford : )
This note is based on a quick look at the statistics contained in the latest (that is, the third) survey of local authorities conducted for the Review of Elective Home Education in England.
Is it a representative sample?
A key issue with the previous two surveys was a total lack of clarity about whether they were representative of all local authorities or not. This is important because if the sample was biased the resulting estimates would not be valid. Notwithstanding various Freedom of Information requests the representativeness of the previous two surveys continues to be unknown.
Given this context, and hence doubts about the legitimacy of earlier Review claims, it might be expected that at the third attempt details would be given about the representativeness of this latest survey; if for no other reason as a courtesy to allay the fears of the home educating community. However, the findings from the survey, submitted to the Select Committee, simply assert that it was a representative sample (para. 5).
Whilst the response rate was 49 per cent (74 out of 150 local authorities responded), that nearly half replied does not make the sample representative – because the half that did not reply might be very different from those that did. More evidence is required to demonstrate that the sample is representative.
Indeed, there are reasons to believe that the sample tends to over-represent those local authorities with a larger proportion of the child population. This would make the sample problematic if either the home educated population was evenly spread across the population, or if it were over-represented in local authorities with smaller child populations, that is, in more rural areas.
Badman states that the mid-2008 population estimate for the 74 local authorities was 4,303,700. The same mid-year population estimates show that the number aged 5 to 16 years was 7,201,400.[1] This means that the 74 local authorities covered 60 per cent (4.5m/7.2m = 59.6%) of children of school age. Or the 76 local authorities that did not respond had a smaller child population (40 per cent). So are home educated families more likely to live in larger (in terms of population) local authorities, presumably urban and metropolitan areas? If not, there is a hint here that the sample is not as representative as claimed.
So it appears that we have gone full circle, or is it that we never left the starting point? The onus, once again, is on Badman to conclusively demonstrate that his sample is representative.
Estimating the size of the home education community
Badman’s report estimated that there were 20,000 home educated children. This third survey reveals that the 74 local authorities know of 11,700 home educated children. As their child population is given as 4,303,700 then 0.27 per cent are home educated (11,700/4.3m). Applying this proportion to the total number of children (7,201,400 * 0.272) gives 19,577.7, which rounding up gives 20,000.
The note implies that this is the estimate for England. However, as the original Review acknowledged many home educated children are not known to local authorities – his estimate is only based on those known to local authorities – and so is an underestimate.
If local authorities only knew about 1 in 2 home educated children the (rounded) estimate would be 39,200, if one in three it would 58,700 and if only one in four it would be 78,300. As we do not the number of home educated children these local authorities do not know about the correct course of action, as home educators have previously pointed out to the review team, should be to present a range for the estimated number of home educated children. Rather than categorically state that the estimate is 20,000 it would be prudent to say the number is unknown, but may lie between 20,000 and say 78,300.
[1] To get these estimates you have to download a zip file from http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=15106, the data by age for England is given in Table 4.
More Damned Statistics
Graham Badman has written to Barry Sherman, Chair of the DSCF Select Committee with a paper called, Elective Home Education (EHE) – results of September data collection from local authorities (LAs). Leaving aside the legitimacy of this exercise and what it says about an expert who produces a report and then has to go scrabbling around for actual robust figures to support it, as I read it these questions come to mind.
According to Badman 0.4% of home educating children have child protection plans, meaning that 99.6% are not unsafe. Does such a small proportion as this make a multimillion pound intervention proportionate or desirable, especially as it’s only point two on one percentage point lower than for all children in the 74 local authorities?
Badman again claims that there are 20,000 home educated children. But what if the EHE population is 80,000 or higher?
That 51 home educated children have child protection plans could be taken to mean that the existing system is working – it’s not evidence that Govt needs to extend its powers further as Badman proposes. What if the LAs who did not respond had no child protection cases in the EHE community, that would mean that 130 local authorities had no child protection cases, over twice as many as are included in Badman’s so say for ease we just double the EHE population without child protection plans to 22,400, I am sure the DCSF have more accurate figures and can do this more precisely, but if we do that the proportion of EHE children with a child protection plan would match the national figure at 2%?
Without knowing details like this the figures could be misleading! Of course some of us would say, Duh, that is the point stupid!
The questions about extent of education received are extremely dubious as, as Badman himself stated in his report some local authorities are not performing well. There has been no investigation into this assertion by the DCSF but home educators have been investigating using the Freedom of Information act and have discovered that some local authorities are trying to coerce home educators into complying with demands that they do not have legal authority to make. These may be the very authorities claiming that education is not suitable perhaps because home educators do not accept a visit or that they educate autonomously. Both perfectly legal options but much disliked by many of the ex teachers and heads that predominate in the Elective Home Education Advisor population.
And the NEET figures, what are they about? Home educators have no obligation to cooperate with Connexions and many have found them intrusive and rude and do not do so. So where have these figures come from. Home education can continue until the age of 19, could the 22% be mostly made up of children that Connexions knows absolutely nothing about? Are they putting these children down as NEET? Not doing the government stats much good quite apart from muddying the waters if this is the case. It has been claimed that NEET stats are fatally flawed anyway as they take a snapshot but take no account of changes in the year.
Missing children? Children whose last educational setting was EHE. There is no obligation for an EHE family to inform the local authority when they move, and if you read what many LAs have said about us in their submission to Badman (use link at the extreme right to go to actual Foi reply ) I would be surprised if any would now willingly do so. So are these children really missing? Probably not from their families or from education, just from the LA’s prying, suspicious eyes.
This bit from the DCSF response to the Badman Review of Elective Home Education in England, made me laugh, it is particularly comically delusional.
‘Above all, it maps out a new relationship between LAs and home educators, envisaging that they will work collaboratively to provide a wide range of opportunities for home educated children. ‘
Since when did collaboration involve coercion?
More of that in another post.
Danae has a message for all LAs, while Tech is confused by the actions of those presumably running a democracy and warns the DCSF to beware a mother scorned.
Friday, 9 October 2009
Support for Home Educating Families the Coercive Way
Diana Johnson announces new support package for home educating families
09 October 2009
Schools Minister Diana Johnson has today announced better access to qualifications and more support for home educated children with special educational needs (SEN), signalling the start of a new relationship between local authorities and families who choose to educate at home.
The commitment comes as Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls today sent the Government’s full response to Graham Badman’s Review of Elective Home Education to the Chair of the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee.
The response sets out a new support package for home educated children, which includes better access to GCSEs, vocational qualifications and further education. The proposed changes to monitoring arrangements will also make sure that the right checks and balances are in place so all children receive a suitable education, in a safe environment.
Key features of the new support package include:
- more flexible access to public examinations and exam centres for home educated children, so their parents no longer have to rely on ad hoc arrangements with schools or colleges that can be a long way from home
- more tailored support for home educated children with special educational needs
- better support for home educated young people who want to go to college
- improved access to music lessons, school libraries, work experience, sports and other specialist facilities in schools and colleges
- a commitment from the Government to look at arrangements for flexi-schooling, so that home educated children can have the option to attend school on a part-time basis.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools Diana Johnson said:
The vast majority of home educating parents offer their children a good education, and the support we have outlined today will help them and their children. It is right that home educated children should have access to things like school libraries, sports facilities and music lessons and also have more tailored support for special educational needs.
We’ve always been clear that parents have the right to educate their children at home. There are no plans to change this, and we understand parents choose to home educate for a number of different reasons.
But we know there are a small number of cases where local authorities have concerns for the safety of home educated children. The Government has a responsibility to make sure that the safety – and rights – of vulnerable children are protected, which is why we are looking at how we can put in place better checks and balances, so we can be confident every child is safe and learning.
Today’s response reiterates the Government’s support for statutory arrangements for the registration and monitoring of home education, so that all children are kept safe and receive a good education. The proposals are currently the subject of a public consultation, which closes on 19 October.
Graham Badman has today also written to the Select Committee setting out the results from a snapshot survey of local authorities, which received 74 responses.
Graham Badman said:
I am pleased that the Secretary of State has accepted my review in full and will provide the resources needed to support home educators to do their job in the best possible way.
The package as a whole will give home educated children far greater access to FE colleges, exam centres, school facilities and wider educational opportunities, while ensuring that they are prepared for life in the wider community as adults.
Local authorities say that most home education is good, but they need stronger powers to deal with cases where it is poor and to step in if they have concerns for a child’s safety. I am glad that the Government is consulting on arrangements to make sure that all home educated children have access to a good and safe education.
The response also outlines that more work will be done to clarify what is ‘suitable and effective’ home education to support new guidance to local authorities on supporting and monitoring home educators. This will emphasise how local authorities can work with home educating parents to make sure that the needs of all children, including those with special educational needs, can be met in the home environment where appropriate. The guidance will take account of findings from the Lamb Inquiry, to be published later this year.
Further information
The report to the Secretary of State for Children Schools and Families on the Review of Elective Home Education in England is available here
The Government’s full response to the review and Ed Balls’s letter to Graham Badman is available here
Graham Badman has today written to the Select Committee setting out results from a snapshot survey of local authorities, which received 74 responses. This is available here
The press release on the publication of Graham Badman’s review can be found here
For more information, contact the DCSF press office on 020 7925 6789
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