HomeSchooler.org.uk

"Dear xxx,

Thank you for your recent email about the important issue of the Badman
recommendations. I apologise for not replying sooner but it has been an
exceptionally busy period in my office. I would like to point out that
the Green Party does not have detailed policy on the proposals
contained within the Badman Report so the comments in this letter are
very much my own personal views, albeit within a policy context that is
very supportive of home education. We are aware that the DCSF is in the
middle of a consultation period which will end on 19 October.

The Green Party has a very comprehensive education policy which can be
found in the Education chapter in The Green Party of England &
Wales Policy and Manifesto for a Sustainable Society (on the Internet
on www.policy.greenparty.org.uk). Of particular relevance to home education are
Sections ED320-322, ED350-357 and ED390.

The Green Party fully supports the principle of home education and
flexi-schooling. Clearly, full-time school attendance is not
necessarily going to be appropriate for all children and we believe
that society should be flexible enough to allow suitable alternatives
such as home education. The benefits of autonomous learning, as you
say, are supported by both US and UK reports which show it is a very
efficient educational approach. I can see that freedom of choice to
decide the way in which your child is educated, especially where a key
factor is the child's involvement in the decision-making process, is an
important emotional and philosophical choice for a parent.

I am therefore very sympathetic to the general tenor of your remarks.
There may be some aspects of home education which need to be addressed,
such as this option being a response to eg bullying but there are a
huge number of positives and much to be gained by interaction between
both systems.

Before dealing with particular recommendations, there are some other
points about the Badman report which I would like to mention:

1. It is worrying that the report was immediately accepted by the
Government when it clearly contains a number of contentious issues,
some of which you mention. I also note with concern that the Government
is already pushing ahead with its "registration and monitoring
arrangements" without waiting to take public reaction into account. I
largely agree that the case for further legislation has hardly been
proved, let alone such instant reaction.

2. The Green Party takes the view that education must be tailored to
suit the individual child within the framework of a suitable and
efficient education as currently defined in Section 7 of the Education
Act 1996. This specifies that full time education must be suitable to
a) the child's age, ability and aptitude and b) any special educational
needs he/she may have. This definition is flexible enough to allow a
course of education appropriate to each child. Unfortunately, Mr Badman
seems to think there is only one type of education and that is one
which suits all children, which of course is nonsense, and wishes for
further tighter definition in this area.

3. Mr Badman's report is buttressed by a number of citations which are
highly dubious. I draw here on an excellent letter to Ed Balls,
Secretary of State at the DCSF, by Louise Thorn who is in contact with
Rachel Fryer, our Education spokesperson.

For example, against the background of derogatory remarks by Baroness
Morgan, the children's minister, that home education could be a cover
for abuse, Badman can find no evidence to support the idea that home
education is a cover for forced marriage and other similar behaviour
other than in isolated cases. Given this government's evident lack of
enthusiasm for home education, you can imagine how few such instances
there must have been for him not to draw some kind of case from them.
Instead, to bolster his argument, he states that he was provided with
evidence "showing that the number of home educated children known to
Children's Special Services in some LAs was disproportionately high
relative to the size of their home educating population." However, his
statement is unsupported by data. Louise Thorn has accordingly made a
request under the Freedom of Information Act to see this information.

Louise Thorn also highlights Mr Badman's selective use of statistics.
Of these two thousand responses to a call for evidence, a huge
percentage - over 75% - were from home educating parents or home
educated children. Yet Mr Badman chose to quote from only two of these
over 1500 letters and one was to the detriment of the home education
case. Louise Thorn concluded that this was because HE families do not
have a national organisation to represent its views.

Ms Thorn's cites various other techniques Mr Badman used to produce as
negative a case as possible against home education, and also comments
about the imperfections, bordering on systemic failure (SATs etc), of
the current English school system and much else, but I feel the above
are sufficient examples.

To respond now to some of the specific recommendations:

Recommendation 1. I fully support the principle that home education
should be flexible enough to be autonomous and child-led. This would
clearly be impossible where, as the Badman report recommends, "a clear
statement of their educational approach" etc has to be laid out by
parents/guardians etc a year in advance with reviews every 12 months.
This is a very inflexible approach and does not allow for the normal
variations in a child's progress. What must be especially worrying to
parents is the scope given to the education authorities for action
against them as parents if they (the authorities) perceive
discrepancies in a plan which might have pre-determined as much as a
year before. The Green Party does recognise the need for regulation of
some form to ensure that home educated children make progress, but
certainly not in the form proposed in the report.

Recommendation 7. These rights of access by local authorities to
home-educated children would exceed those of the social services under
the Children Act 2008. It is one thing to have some broad overall
process which will protect against extreme cases and quite another to
put in place a system which will lead to micro-managing home educators.
The requirement of right of access and the power to question children
alone is, as HEdline (Brighton & Hove Home Education Group) says,
completely disproportionate and probably in contravention of Article 8
of the European Convention on Human Rights. I also agree that the
report goes too far in requiring parents to re-register every year.

Recommendation 15. The injunction against schools advising parents in
favour of home education because it might be a convenient way of
excluding a difficult child is again an example of the report's
heavy-handedness. It seems to assume that parents will meekly do as a
school demands whereas my experience is that parents are highly
independent especially with regards to such an important issue as their
child's education.

Recommendation 23. I think that this recommendation is too widely
drawn. As with so much of this report, the scales are very much loaded
in favour of the LEA and not the parent. Overall, this is a typical
response of a government which has repeatedly favoured excessive
government control, e.g. ID cards, over upholding personal rights, such
as those of families to decide how their children should be educated.
It implies that the State has a greater responsibility for the
education of a child than any other party to the extent that local
authorities will become legally liable if children do not receive a
suitable education. As I understand it, the responsibility for a
child's education is currently shared among four different parties.
This is known as the "fourfold foundation" and was cited by Lord
Bingham in a 2006 case (Ali v. Lord Grey School). These four parties
are: 1. The parents; 2. The Secretary of State for Education; 3. Local
Education Authorities; and 4. The schools themselves. In October 2006
the then Secretary of State, Lord Adonis, quoted from Lord Bingham's
judgement with approval. Therefore, the Badman Report proposes a
fundamental change in this balance of interests by making the State's
interest paramount. The Green Party's philosophy is that power flows
upwards from the people, not downwards from the government. The issue
of home education is a very clear expression of the difference between
our party and the Labour Party's approach.

Yours is one of a number of expressions of concern that have reached me
on this issue. I can assure you that the Green Party will work actively
to do whatever it can to support the rights and freedoms of home
educators. For your information, our education spokesperson is Rachel
Fryer on fryerrachel@.... The newly-elected Hove councillor Alex
Phillips at alex.phillips@... is also actively
involved in this issue. There are also very involved groups such as HEdline at
enquiries@...
which I am sure you have come across. I enjoyed my visit to South Downs
Learning Centre enormously and am pleased that your daughter recognises
the Green Party's support for the critical issue of home education -
please pass on my best wishes.

Thank you again for your views and comments.

Yours sincerely

Office of Dr Caroline Lucas
Green Party MEP for SE England
Suite 58, The Hop Exchange
24 Southwark Street
London SE1 1TY
Tel: 020 7407 6281
Email: carolinelucas@...
www.carolinelucasmep.org.uk"