HomeSchooler.org.uk

Thank you to the author for her permission to reprint this. Personal or identifying information has been removed at her request.

"Dear Mark,

Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you last week and also for your letter today. I'm very pleased[...] that you are keen to take the issue to another debate. Much of the last week has been spent trying to find more information for you so I hope you find some of what follows useful.

As I mentioned when we met, my husband [...] and I made a positive choice to home educate, having met a home-educating family [in the course of my husband's work]. We have stayed in touch with the family and seen the results blossom into adulthood [... and] we found the results of home education very impressive indeed.

As a home-educating parent I am even more impressed by the process and results, and so have had no cause to consider what is happening to state education until this latest review. Now that I have had to engage with the Government's vision for children, I find the situation extremely worrying.

As all the reviews/consultations/policies stem from 'Every child matters' I began drafting this letter with the idea of showing how the five outcomes are easier to meet through home education. The other main issue is that of responsibility, in that the Government appears to be eroding parental responsibility and trying to take on more powers itself. Ideologically I find this disturbing but much of what follows shows that the Government and/or LAs are not competent to take on further responsibilities.

A brief recent history of Home Education

Home education is not new. c.AD170 Marcus Aurelius wrote 'To my great-grandfather I owed the advice to dispense with the education of the schools and to have good masters at home instead - and to realise that no expense should be grudged for this purpose'.

Education other than at school has always been legal but was usually associated with the upper classes eg our Queen had a governess.

More recently people from all parts of society have chosen to educate their children 'otherwise' than at school but they have tended to keep a low profile to avoid too much interference from LAs. (We were advised that if we wanted to home educate it was best to do so from the outset as that way we could avoid being known by a potentially unsympathetic LA.) Consequently, it is very difficult to know how many home educating families there are in the UK. One study estimated 50,000 about a decade ago. (http://www.dur.ac.uk/p.j.rothermel/Research/Researchpaper/3-13.htm)

Presumably once Contactpoint is fully operational accurate figures will become available, but as you may imagine, few home educators are rejoicing at this innovation.

In 2007 the Government launched a major review of home education that caused a great deal of anxiety within the community, as it was feared that the Government was seeking to introduce inspections and control of curricula. In order to oppose these possible changes home educators had to become more visible. The guidelines resulting from the 2007 review maintained the previous position and most families felt very relieved. Last autumn there was another consultation relating to 'Children Missing Education'. This was more concerning as it appeared to redefine home-educated children as children potentially missing education. I wrote to you about this at the time as, to my mind, this is a worrying reversal of the principal of 'innocent until proven guilty'.

The statutory guidance produced as a result of last autumn's consultation was issued in January, at the same time as the current review was announced, and just before Contactpoint came in to operation. In theory there is no change in legal status but before Christmas if an LA discovered that someone was home educating all they had to do was to make a note of it. This year all home educators will eventually be located as a result of Contactpoint and LAs are then required to 'determine as far as they are able' whether a child is receiving a suitable education. This puts home educators into an invidious position as the LA has no right to the information they are being instructed to request, but if our response is to remind them of this, we risk giving them 'cause for concern'. The wording of the new guidance also seems to suggest that they can decide what constitutes 'suitable' rather than the parents. This contradicts the 1996 Education Act and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The timing of this latest Government review is very strange. Two major changes have only just been enacted so it would seem sensible to wait to see what effect they have before wasting more time and money on a review. The review was launched citing child protection issues. If there had been a recent case of child abuse linked to home education that might have been understandable and would also have made sense of the timing. However, there is no such scandal but the Government has, nevertheless, succeeded in linking home education with the spectre of child abuse in the public's mind.

I am not alone in finding the Government's tactics extremely worrying. Many home educators feel that the Government is trying everything in its power to bring them under its control, tightening its grip with each successive review. This most recent review is particularly worrying as the manner of its announcement suggests they are launching a smear campaign to cast suspicion on us and ultimately undermine us in the eyes of the public.

As I said earlier, I elected to home educate for entirely positive reasons and so, despite being an ex-teacher and ex-school governor, I have not really considered the situation of state education until this year. There are doubtless many good things going on in state schools and many dedicated teachers working extremely hard, but it is the system itself that troubles me. Tight control of the curriculum and constant testing are the tactics used by totalitarian regimes. This sort of schooling is not education, it is merely a form of social control that leaves children ill equipped to think independently or creatively. See:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/feb/10/teaching-sats

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7896751.stm

It may be that this current form of schooling is not driven by a particular ideology. It might have come into being as an unfortunate accident as none of the ministers at DCSF has any background in education. However, there is considerable evidence of similar tactics in other areas of legislation and as a consequence I am extremely concerned. See:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5811412.ece

Education and Welfare

Few people would disagree with the desire to safeguard children's well-being. The problems lie in the practicalities.

Legally parents are responsible for both the education and welfare of their children. LAs have the right to intervene when there is evidence of abuse; they are also able to enforce SAOs (school attendance orders) in cases where they believe a suitable education is not being provided. This is consistent with the 'innocent till proven guilty' understanding of law.

However, the Government seems to have little confidence in parents being able to carry out their responsibilities and increasingly wants to take on more responsibilities for the well-being of children. I believe that the opposite is actually required, so what follows is an explanation of how it is easier to meet the five outcomes of  'Every Child Matters' through home education, and then an ad hoc list of how the Government is failing to meet those outcomes for a large proportion of the school population.

The 'Every Child Matters' outcomes are: be healthy; stay safe; enjoy and achieve; make a positive contribution; achieve economic wellbeing.

• Learning for home-educated children is 'personalised', frequently child-led and free from the detrimental effects of curriculum constraint, constant testing and standardisation. They learn more efficiently, frequently learn autonomously and achieve more.

• Home-educated children have greater flexibility over use of time and can enjoy more activity indoors and outdoors. This is good for their physical health. Closer parental bonds and freedom from the stresses of bullying and testing in schools is beneficial to their emotional health.

• Home-educated children learn and socialize with adults as well as both older and younger children and so suffer less from the negative aspects of peer pressure (eg experimentation with drugs and alcohol). Adult to child ratios are consistently higher than at school and parents are far more motivated to ensure the well-being of their children so home-educated children are surely more likely to stay safe than children at school.

• The 'ECM' website states: 'Parents, carers and families are the most important influence on outcomes for children and young people'. Home-educating parents are clearly supportive parents in that they forego free child-care in the form of schooling and invest time, money and effort in their children's education.

In announcing the review even Baroness Morgan said:

'Parents are able, quite rightly, to choose whether they want to educate children at home, and a very small number do. I'm sure, the vast majority do a good job.'

See Dr Rothermel's research cited earlier, also studies on home education in USA and Canada:

http://www.nheri.org/content/view/174/62/

http://www.nheri.org/Research-Facts-on-Homeschooling.html

http://www.ontariohomeschool.org/fraserstudysummaries.html

The latest Government review was launched expressing concerns regarding possible child abuse. To date the only case I know of is the Eunice Spry case. The following summary appears in http://aim1he.blog.co.uk/2009/02/20/aim-ehe-review-response-5611836/

Eunice Spry was known to Social Services years before she took her adopted children out of the system to educate them at home. Mrs Spry's contact with Gloucestershire Social Services began in 1979 when she applied to become a child-minder. This application was initially declined because of unspecified concerns from the health authority but these concerns were subsequently lifted and approval was granted. Mrs Spry's first application to become a foster parent in 1983/4 was declined as it was felt her lifestyle was not conducive to her being a foster parent. These objections were also removed and she was approved as a local authority foster carer from 1985 until 1994. ?By November 1994 Mrs Spry had removed all 5 of her children to home educate them. ?Between October 1990 and 2000, concerns about the care of the children were expressed on 12 occasions. Social Services did respond to these concerns, however the concerns were not at a level that was subsequently revealed through the criminal trial and therefore these responses did not lead to continued social work involvement. ?All of the professionals involved with Mrs Spry, and there were many of them over a period of years, failed to spot or to stop the abuse she meted out to her children. Lack of training, funding, personnel and collaboration between agencies were all to blame for the prolonged and continued abuse of Mrs Spry's children.?

See also:

http://www.gscb.org.uk/home/subcommittees/Documents/ES%20SCR%200105%20May07.pdf

In a recent newspaper article the Victoria Climbie case was also mentioned. The website set up by her parents refutes this. See

http://www.victoria-climbie.org.uk/

The Government's Record

On Education:

The number of pupils achieving grades A* to C has risen by a half of one point on last year to 57.1%

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1504315.stm

This means that by the Government's standards 40% of pupils are failing.

To maximize its league table position a school has no incentive to improve the scores of the 30% of children who are well below the target level of five good GCSEs

Forty-three per cent said that other pupils were ''always'' or ''often'' so noisy that they found it difficult to work

28% of children in the most deprived quarter of schools gained five or more good GCSE passes at A*-C. That compared with 67% of children in the least deprived quarter of schools

http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/all_about_us/how_we_do_it/the_good_childhood_inquiry/report_summaries/13959.html

UK Results 17th-24th in world rankings on education

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1571445/World-rankings-for-reading%2C-maths-and-science.html

Comments on the 'Sham' of SATS Results

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2002/may/14/publicvoices

On Health and Well-being:

UNICEF report on childhood in industrialized countries.

The UK ranks in the bottom third of the country rankings for five of the six dimensions reviewed. While the country ranks higher in the educational well-being dimension, the UK lags behind in terms of relative poverty and deprivation, quality of children's relationships with their parents and peers, child health and safety, behaviour and risk-taking and subjective well-being.

http://www.unicef.org.uk/press/news_detail_full_story.asp?news_id=890

The Children's Commissioner for England, Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green, said: "We are turning out a generation of young people who are unhappy, unhealthy, engaging in risky behaviour, who have poor relationships with their family and their peers, who have low expectations and don't feel safe."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6359363.stm

More than 4,000 children under 14 have attempted to take their own lives in the past year, according to NHS figures that show the scale of distress and mental suffering in the young.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/dec/16/children.socialexclusion

Educationists such as Sir Mike Tomlinson say the number of children suffering mental health problems has risen greatly over the last 10 years.

The Department of Health says the number of children and adolescents using mental health services is 160,313. It acknowledges that there was a 31% caseload increase between 2003 and 2005.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7901598.stm

One in ten 5-16 year olds now has clinically significant mental health difficulties - ranging from anxiety, depression, over-activity, inattentiveness (ADHD) and anorexia - through to conduct disorders such as uncontrollable or destructive behaviour

Children's Society report see link above

27 per cent of children are now overweight and research suggests the main problem is a continual reduction in the amount of exercise children take.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/conditions/obesity2.shtml

Between 1991 and 2001, the number of new episodes of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) seen in Genitourinary Medicine (GUM) clinics in England, Wales and Northern Ireland doubled from 669,291 to 1,332,910. (Gov)

On SEN:

Children's Commissioner Sir Al Aynsley Green who said that "it is shameful that this country is failing to provide adequately for children with autism"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5350506.stm

"The Cost of Inclusion"

The report cites cases where medical conditions and mental illness put huge strains on teachers and teaching assistants. The teachers are regularly administering tracheotomies, dealing with incontinence and nappy changing having been trained in these tasks by the children's parents.

Such responsibilities were above and beyond the call of duty and put teachers under constant strain. As one primary teacher said "It's more like nursing than education".

The report, "The Cost of Inclusion" was commissioned from Professors John Macbeath and Maurice Galton of Cambridge University. It examines the costs to schools, pupils and staff of inclusion and looks at how effective the present system is in ensuring proper provision for children with special educational needs.

The report found that while primary schools were more successful than secondary in helping young people cope successfully in mainstream classrooms, teachers parents and children alike felt the strain of inclusion. As one experienced teacher said: "I felt it was something I was failing in. I couldn't cope with it anymore". This became more acute in secondary schools where pupils with complex needs, particularly mental health problems, were not being catered for adequately. Schools had to cope with pupils with such severe mental problems as attempted suicides, schizophrenia and self-harming.

http://www.teachers.org.uk/story.php?id=3731

"You might call it a form of abuse, in a sense, that those children are in a situation that's totally inappropriate for them." Prof MacBeath

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4774407.stm

On Welfare:

The NSPCC ... found that there were 20,758 recorded cases of sex crimes against children in 2007-08 in England and Wales, with around a quarter - 4,984 - involving victims aged 10 or under. Of those, 859 were aged four or younger.

http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2044060_campaign_boss_warns_of_appalling_child_abuse_levels

On average, between one and two children are killed by their parents or carers every week, according to the NSPCC. This has not reduced for the past thirty years, and is widely believed to be an underestimate.

http://www.radical.org.uk/barefoot/scandal.htm

See also http://www.freedomforchildrentogrow.org/best.htm

I would hope it is clear from all the quotes above that there is considerable evidence to show that the Government's record on education, health and welfare is not good. Considering the problems they face it is hard to see why they wish to take on any further responsibilities. The most worrying information I have found during the last week is from the Audit Commission:

Are we there yet? Improving governance and resource management in children's trusts

Date: 29 Oct 2008

Abstract:  This report examined the progress local councils and their partners are making in developing children's trusts. The report concludes that the 'children's trusts' created by the government after the death of Victoria Climbie have been confused and confusing. Five years after the green paper Every Child Matters and eight years after the child's death, 'there is little evidence of better outcomes for children and young people' resulting from the requirement that local areas in England set up arrangements to coordinate children's services. A third of directors of children's services say that their partner organizations are 'unclear' of the purpose of children's trusts, and the uncertainty is hampering their efforts to deliver better services.

http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/reports/NATIONAL-REPORT.asp?CategoryID=&ProdID=17AEBDA5-657E-4ef7-80BB-92214D4C04FF

The same issue is commented on by the Centre for Policy Studies:

The Review (Local Safeguarding Children Boards - A Review of Progress published by the

Department of Children, Schools and Families in June 2007) findings include the criticisms that:

• some Boards are still "getting to grips with the difference between safeguarding and

protection";

• "Boards were finding it challenging to define their role and balance a broader

safeguarding role with the need to continue the focus on child protection";

• "the recommendations from Serious Case Reviews were not always followed up by

the agencies concerned and that, consequently, in some cases lessons had not been properly learned";

• and that some Boards "would not know when they were doing a good job or what

good looks like".

These new Boards are also responsible not only for child protection services but for promoting the Government's 'Every Child Matters' agenda. But with no additional Government funding, the new Boards are being distracted by a constant struggle to raise funds to meet their full range of responsibilities.

Jill Kirby explains:

"Ministers were warned by child protection experts that the Every Child Matters programme was far too ambitious, and would be a massive distraction from the vital duty of protecting the most vulnerable children."

http://www.cps.org.uk/latestarticles/

The Audit Commission released the results of a further review on Thursday which found some LAs have got worse rather than better with respect to child services.

As far as I understand this, if the Government were to increase the required levels of monitoring on home educators, the result would be to take time and resources away from protecting known, vulnerable children. This seems nothing short of perverse irresponsibility.

Assuming the Government goes ahead regardless, the nature of the monitoring will be the important issue. All home educators are different, which does not sit well with the Government's liking for standardization. Some home educators choose this path because of particular philosophies, others (like us) because they see the results, others because they are forced to take their children out of an education system which is failing to meet their needs. Whatever the reason for not being part of the state system, having someone from that same system coming to assess your provision is far from desirable. The main concerns are therefore as follows:

• The experience of most home educators is that LA 'professionals' have little understanding of the law and are frequently hostile to the concept of education other than at school.
• 'Free-range' learning and autonomous learning do not look like schooling since so much of the activity associated with school work is driven by classroom management strategies and the requirement for record keeping. These become irrelevant when there are only a few children but the lack of written work can be misinterpreted by those whose only experience of education is in the school system.
• Children who have been deregistered as a result of bad experiences at school, such as bullying, often take many months to start recovering. During this period they are unlikely to be able to learn or socialise in a 'normal' way. Again this recovery period can be misinterpreted as the absence of suitable education.
• Many home educators view the current regime of testing in schools as detrimental to children's education. It would therefore be of great concern if the Government were to impose some form of testing on home-educated children.

If some form of monitoring does becomes necessary it would be preferable, I believe, to have a form of self-regulation.

When we met you requested some bullet points and I'm sorry that this letter is a little short on those. However, here are three in summary.

• The Government's record on education and welfare is so poor that it has no moral authority to encroach further onto parental territory. It has a duty to encourage parental responsibility, not undermine it
• If the Government insists on further monitoring of home educators this will distract child protection services away from genuinely vulnerable children. Assuming fifty thousand home educated children and on average two per family, annual monitoring would involve five hundred contacts per week. Even Baroness Morgan has said that the Government is sure most home educators are doing a good job, therefore most of these contacts would be a waste of time and resources.
• Where do we draw the line on  monitoring and surveillance? At what point will the Government introduce further monitoring eg in order to 'be healthy' will all families have to have CCTV fitted so LAs can check we are feeding our children the five recommended portions of fruit and veg each day or that parents are not smoking near their children?

There are other issues but I suspect this is sufficient for the time being! I will send a copy of the Home Education Journal as requested,

Yours sincerely

[...]