HomeSchooler.org.uk

This is a four page briefing, designed for use with MPs, journalists, local councillors, etc.

Education Otherwise's video response to the Report, one of a series on YouTube.

"I thought I would compile this list of the 'High' and 'Lows 'of UK Home Educators currently.
Any debate within Parliament should include the many positive aspects of Home Education. As so many institutions fail, (or simply out of Parental choice), it would seem obvious that children are better cared for emotionally and educationally by their own Parents - until now!"

Sections include:
Who was Home Educated?
The Badman Review 'faulty' findings
The 'bits' Badman never published
Who are 'Real' experts in Home Education?
Do Schools kill creativity?
Notable Quotes (missing from Badman Review):
A short history of the Badman Review...
Who are the DCSF anyway?
Another case of deja-vu?
What do THE PRESS and MEDIA say?:

"Quick summary
The review recommendations are completely over the top. A steamroller to crack a nut. And there’s no evidence that the nut even exists. This is not a safety net (waiting to catch us if we fall) it’s more like a butterfly net (trapping us and controlling our movements).
This is not about parents’ rights vs children’s rights, it is about the government not trusting parents to meet our responsibilities. Educating our children is a duty, not a right, of parents. It is not the business of the state to tell us how to do it.
Making a minority choice is not a crime. This is like saying all vegetarians have to register and have their dietary plans approved, or all Muslims should have their houses searched in case they are planning a terrorist attack.
The proposals would give a green light to local authority officers to exercise their prejudices. Annual registration means that parents would have to apply each year for permission to educate their own children. The grounds on which permission could be refused are extremely broad, and depend purely on the assessment of local authority officers, who may not even have worked with the family as a whole."...more...

Published on AHEd's Wiki: http://ahed.pbworks.com/LiesDamnedLiesStatistics#StatisticianComment

"W. Wallace
(BSc MSc MPhil FSS AFIMA.)

Mr Wallace has worked in Local Government as a Statistician and also as a University Statistics Lecturer and Research Fellow.

Dear (AHEd)

Quite frankly I can't believe that you received the Appendix as an FOI request. I had been looking for a statistical / methodological appendix to the Badman report but had not found one. The methodology as shown does not stand up as plausible or acceptable statistically, apart from all the other issues concerning the precise information used i.e. abuse, disability services or known to SS for a variety of possibly unsubstantiated reasons.

The use of a sample median to gross up to a national value requires that all LA's have the same number of EHE children, which they do not.

It is not easily possible to estimate the statistical error introduced by doing this but suffice it to say that the standard error of such an estimate would be so large that it would not be worth using the statistic.

Also quoted is 477 registered EHE children known to the 25 LA's that responded out of the 90 asked to respond as part of the review. We have no way of knowing how representative the 25 are of the 150 LA's and this needs to be checked before any statistics can be quoted. Are we comparing like with like? If we were confident that these 25 reasonably reflected the total 150 then we might take the 477 and divide by the total number of EHE children in the 25 LA's. This would give us an estimate of the proportion of EHE children known to SS per LA. This is what they could have done but did not.

There are at least two main flaws to be noted:

1. The inappropriate use of one measurement instead of the target measure. Using 'known to SS' rather than recorded abuse (often termed an error of operationalisation).

"On Saturday July 4th representatives from Education Otherwise and the Home Education Advisory Service met with barrister Ian Dowty to discuss the Badman Report on Home Education. Here are some extracts from our notes:
"Argument against registration is harvesting all the data and sharing all the data. Includes hearsay and concerns about child. Having a licence to home educate implies that it is the state who registers the child, not the parent.""...more...

"In Graham Badman's Report on Home Education he wrote:
"I have sought to strike a balance between the rights of parents and the rights of the child, and offer, through registration and other recommendations, some assurance on the greater safety of a number of children." (11.2)
I wished to give children the opportunity to respond to this assertion and on 12th June 2009 issued a short survey for home educated children between the ages of 5 and 25.

Instructions at the start of the survey said that, should the child need help understanding the questions or in writing their answers they could ask someone for help, but to make sure that it is was their own opinion.

Out of a total of 591 responses, 588 agreed for their answers to be passed to DCSF. For the purposes of this summary I shall only refer to those responses that are to be shared.

For brevity I have used the term "child" or "children" with no disrepect meant to those young people and young adults who answered!"...more...

"On the 11th June 2009 the Department for Children, Schools and Families published its Review of Elective Home Education in England, which was conducted by Graham Badman. The Secretary of State and the Children’s Minister announced on the same day that the Government accepted all of the Review’s recommendations, ‘subject to identifying funding and workable delivery arrangements’. Currently, the Government is consulting on some of the Review’s recommendations and has stated that the Improving Schools and Safeguarding Children Bill will include clauses on ‘monitoring arrangements for children educated at home’. The Review’s recommendations if enacted will have profound implications for parents and children who educate at home. We wish to raise with you a number of concerns we have about the quality of the Review. There are a number of shortcomings that arguably amount to a breach of both the Nolan Committee's ‘The Seven Principles of Public Life’ and the Civil Service Code. Clearly, these are serious allegations and, if correct, undermine the legitimacy of, and public trust in, the Review and its conclusions. In effect the policy making process has been let down by a poorly conducted Review."...more...

Lord Lucas (Conservative)
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, as required by the Code of Practice on Consultation, they have published an impact assessment to accompany the "Registration and Monitoring Proposals" consultation following Mr Badman's report on Elective Home Education; and, if so, whether they will place a copy in the Library of the House.

Hansard source (Citation: HC Deb, 29 June 2009, c6W)

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Children, Schools and Families; Labour)
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, and our proposals will provide additional powers that will assist local authorities in dealing more efficiently with the small number of cases where home education does not come up to scratch. If we decide to proceed with legislation we will publish an impact assessment and will place a copy in the Library of the House.

Do contribute if you can...