Graham Stuart on Home Education

I posed this question on Graham Stuart's Facebook wall on Friday

“Found this a little weird, are the enemy still ensconced in cushy unaccountable positions in Westminster like Partridges and old Pennys? and included a link to this post.”

On Sunday I received this answer

"I think we can get new guidance which emphasises that LAs have a duty to support parents (where they want it) and that spells out the limits of the LAs' responsibilities so that they stop hankering after more powers. Just leaving it isn't an option. I want a stake put through the heart of the whole monitoring/licensing approach so that it doesn't ever get resurrected."

This was my response

"Graham can I blog this, thank you for responding. I will be behind that stake in spirit and person, lol, given half a chance but I feel we need to be on high alert for any attempt to hijack the process by those with their own agenda."

This is the first time I have taken a serious interest in things political and it was through necessity not curiosity.  Part of my lack of interest stemmed from suspicion that I would find much of what I learnt disgusting and depressing.  I was not wrong.

But I also discovered that it is possible to be a politician and also be quick to understand an issue from your constituent’s point of view, to be intelligent and approachable, to eschew spin and to be accessible beyond my wildest imaginings.

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.

Worries about the Petition

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

I’m suspicious for a number of reasons:

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

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

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