Ofsted’s report is seriously flawed

Press release from Graham Stuart MP.

NEWS RELEASE
June 17th, 2010

Ofsted Home Education Report Seriously Flawed Says Graham Stuart MP

Graham Stuart MP, who last week was elected to take the Chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, today condemned Ofsted’s report on home education, “Local Authorities and Home Education” as “an unpleasant hangover of the last government: a manifesto for more state power at the expense of dedicated home educators and their children”.

Mr Stuart went on, “It is astonishing that the Chief Inspector of Schools should stray onto home education and get it so wrong. In Ofsted’s official press release she says that “it is extremely challenging for local authorities to meet their statutory duty to ensure children have a suitable education”, when they have no such duty. Parents, not the state, have the statutory duty to ensure that their children have a suitable education.

“I find it deeply concerning that, after months of work, the Chief Inspector should make such a basic mistake and so utterly confuse the duties of local authorities and parents. Parents who home educate deserve our respect and awe at their dedication and achievements, not the relentless suspicion of an over mighty state.”

Under section 436A of the Education Act 1996, inserted by the Education and Inspections Act 2006, local authorities have a duty to identify children who are not receiving a suitable education in their area, so far as it is practical to do so. As the 2007 Elective Home Education Guidelines for Local Authorities make clear, however, ‘local authorities have no statutory duties in relation to monitoring the quality of home education on a routine basis’ and are only required to intervene if it appears that parents are not providing a suitable education.

Mr Stuart went on, “As local authorities do not have the power to demand access to home educated children and cannot insist on parents registering with them, the obvious and correct answer is for local authorities to improve their support for families so that more families make contact with them voluntarily. If they did this and made sure that they employed sympathetic staff who built good reputations, then the number of “unknown” children would be reduced. Such a positive approach would respect the primacy of parents in determining the education of their children and put the onus on local authorities to serve and support, rather than catalogue and monitor, families who home educate.

“Ofsted’s report has little to say about improving local authority support for home educated children and says only that the Department of Education should “consider” funding an entitlement for home-educated children to take public examinations. Ofsted’s report is seriously flawed and damaging to the confidence of home educating parents who had hoped that the relentless disinformation and bullying of the previous regime was over.”

ENDS


More details here.

Dyslexia

Beth is dyslexic amongst other dys's and became so stressed in school from the demand to perform and be independent before she was ready that for the sake of her mental health we deregistered her and she is now home educated. We have taken it very easily and done no school work at all, just lots of outings, educational tv, cooking, sewing and being read to.


On Saturday she asked to read to me for the first time in months, and read all the way through 'The Tinder box' with very little help. She worked really hard and by the end I was totally exhausted from holding my tongue and letting her work the words out.

just as we started home education in October 2006 another home educator, soon to become a good friend advertised free books from a school that had recently closed down. This book from the Ginn reading scheme was one of the books I picked up then. It is well pitched for Beth as it is a classic fairy tale so the plot is good in spite of the limited and repetitive language. In fact the repetitive language is an integral part of this style of literature.

We were all delighted and luckily I had a potential birthday present hoarded away so could immediately underline how pleased we were. Beth absolutely adores the slings for her babies, but I think she was just as delighted at the progress she had made with no painful enforced practice. She has of course been practicing all the time, but with material she chose, at a time that suited her and for as long or short as she wanted, usually just signs, birthday cards and notices, baby steps of reading.

And shortly after that Bruce remembered last christmas eve at midnight when Beth had read Jack and the Beanstalk from beginning to end, we couldn't say no inspite of the time.