Memorandum submitted by Tania Berlow
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This memorandum considers some of the statistical evidence from the Review into
Elective Home Education (hereafter the Review) and compares it to evidence
collated by myself in a spreadsheet link which contains data obtained through
Freedom of Information requests to all English Local Authorities . In order to
fully appreciate the statistics it is essential that the link to the
spreadsheet is used in conjunction with this submission.
Here is the link-
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ao_d0FTV62i4dHR3aDZLV1YzZXhYWE5PbHNJd0hJT0E&hl=en
http://tinyurl.com/mq25xg
・ An
introduction and personal experiences gathering statistics
through Freedom of Information requests
・ Factual information summary of
the breakdown of the statistics in the spreadsheet link
・
・ Some examples of educational
concerns from the Local Authorities
・
・ Analysis of educational concerns
within the Home Education Community
・
・ Comments about the use of the
questionnaires given to Local Authorities in the Review and concerns
regarding statistics
・
・ Important questions not
addressed in the Review
・
・ Conclusions
1 Introduction
1.1 I have been working on gathering statistics via
Freedom of Information requests (FOI's) about the number of educational
concerns there are for Electively Home Educated children from all 152 Local
Authorities (LA's). Many of the Local Authorities were on annual leave over the
summer break and did not reply until after the time limit for a response had
passed. Some of these Local Authorities needed further questions asked in order
to clarify their data. To my dismay,many interpreted this as a reason to wait
another 20 working days. Some of the difficulties were overcome by raising to '
internal review' after the first 20 day time limit but still there were LA's
who refused to elaborate or simply did not respond in time for this submission.
The overall effect of the stalling from the LA's meant that until this week, I
have not felt there was a reliable enough picture with a robust enough sample
size. I cut short my holiday in the summer to work on these statistics and have
most of it committed to memeory and a much clearer picture of what the situation
is from both sides of this wall that is betwen many home educators and the LA's
. One of the main problems has been the limited amount of time to gather
all the information needed to make a submission to the Select Dommittee. The
DCSF has released information piecemeal and with each new FOI response comes
another set of questions and concerns regarding this Review.
1.2 A further compounding difficulty is that
being Jewish, I belong to a minority group which happens to have its
major High Holy Days around the date of this submission.
1.3 I contend that the spreadsheet statistics and
comments make a compelling case for questioning the disproportionate
recommendations of the Review and also provide a case for wondering why so many
questions were left untouched in the Review. I read that the author of
the Review is now asking Local Authorities for further data and has been given
an extension by the Star Committee. I am personally mentioned as '
disputing the evidence base that shows that a small but significant
proportion of home educated children are receiving no, or an inadequate,
Education'.
1.4 There is no 'evidence base' for the above assertion. I have seen all the
evidence and workings that the DCSF has released and the questions about
education were asked of 25 Local Authorities. Some local Authorities in the
Review did have high figures. I can explain the majority of these particular
LA's figures if I could finally get responses to the in depth follow on
questionnaire used in the review and sent to 25 LA's . I can also give you a
national average amongst 85% of LA's. There is no way the author of the Review
could collate all this again with his time frame. It is over 500 work hours. I
welcome my statistics to be used by the author for they are complete and actual
data not 'estimates' . I would like the author to be asked by this Committee to
produce this evidence base so it can be compared to the spreadsheet
findings and also the abuse and neglect spreadsheet submitted by others
and compiled by Ahed (Action for Home Education).
1.5 I have requested to be heard for oral evidence as
my findings are difficult to summarise without being asked direct questions
regarding them. I have spoken to upwards of 30 LA's and can see a pattern which
is not possible to explain in a 3000 word submission.
2 Factual information on the breakdown of the statistics in the
spreadsheet
2.1 Any new FOI responses after the date of this
submission will still be added to the spreadsheet. For the most concise and up
to date figures please look at the spreadsheet link. There may be a different
number of LA responses and a different overall concern rate percentage to what
is quoted in this submission today.
2.2 I can however summarise my findings below:
129 LA's out of 151 have responded so far (85%).
32% of LA's have no educational concerns for any of their registered EHE
population.
56% of LA's have less than 5%.
71.5% of LA's have less than 10%.
16.3% of LA's have 10-15%.
12.2% of LA's have a higher than 15% concern rate.
There is a total of 14,500 registered children accounted for.
There are 800 noted concerns about the education of these 14,500
children.
Overall if you average the concerns amongst the 129 LA's there is a
5.7% educational concern rate.
2.3 There were 33 reports of 'ultra-vires' actions either by
the LA itself (contained in the FOI response ) or by the EHE community
who were given the option of commenting on their own LA. This is 25% of all
responding LA's and is likely to be under-estimated. Ultra-vires is defined as
acting outside of current law and 2007 EHE guidelines.
2.4 Those LA's with a higher than average
percent of educational concerns accounted for almost double the amount of
ultra-vires actions than did the LA's with a lower than average concern rate.
The 4 LA's with the highest concern rates were all shown to be
ultra-vires.
2.5 There are a total of 14500 children and 800
educational concerns. Of these 800 concerns only 47 School Attendance Orders
(SAO) have been issued or are in the process of being issued. The SAO rate is
only 5.5% of all 800 concerns but only 0.3% of the total registered EHE
community as a whole.
2.6 There are 22 LA's who said they could not
answer the question due to the amount of time it would take ,or did not respond
even to internal review in time for this submission. There are a further 12
LA's where clarification has been sought for the category of concerns who also have
not managed to respond in time.
2.7 I compared the spreadsheet with the Review which
contacted 90 LA's asking for their opinions and a few estimations of their
numbers of educational concerns .The Review mainly used a mere 25 LA's for more
in depth statistics (which remain indecipherable). A few LA's met in
person with the author of the Review as did some home educator groups.
Having made 167 Freedom of Information requests and spoken to 30 LA's ,
My conclusion about the Local Authorities is similar to the author's conclusion
about home educators. I 'believe' they are a disparate lot when it comes to
their procedures and policies regarding EHE and how they categorise any
type of concern, be it educational or safeguarding (or whether they conflate
the two).Therefore I conclude that the Review does not separate
educational concerns from abuse and neglect concerns as there is no data in the
Review which breaks it down separately. In addition I contend that many of the
responses from the Local Authorities are estimates whereas the spreadsheet is
hard data obtained through Freedom of Information requests. Of greater worry is
that the 25 Local Authorities who answered more in depth to actual numbers ,
seem to have listed children more than once so for example if 'Jonny' had
previously been de-registered because of truancy issues and happened have an
alcoholic father with some domestic violence issues previously raised (in the
past 5 years) and as a result his mother was noted to have depression, then
'Jonny' would appear four time in the columns. If you answer that Jonny does
not receive full time education as defined in the Initial questionnaire
for the Review as 20 hours a week, then he would appear five times. No
where in any EHE guidance does 20 hours appear as a bench mark -indeed the EHE
2007 guidelines specifically say this is not to be used for EHE. I would
details the exact paragraph where the Guidelines detail this but the DCSF have
taken the 2007 guidelines down from their website so now no-one has access
except those who stored them in PDF.
3 Examples of types of Local Authorities concerns
3.1 The 'educational concern' rate for 129 out
of 152 Local Authorities (85%of all English LA's)) stands at an average of 5.7%
This figure includes children where the LA has responded that they have
concerns even when this particular LA indicates these concerns to be
ultra-vires. Below are some of the examples of what constitutes ultra-vires
activity and some of the other reasons given for concern.
3.2 Listing children under the 'concern'
category when parents decline a visit if the parents have previously submitted
a report and plan over which there are no concerns. This means that a family
with no previous indication of any concerns will be treated as though they must
have a visit or risk the wrath of the LA. Guidance and legislation do not give
LA's the duty to visit where there are no concerns and parents have every right
to refuse a visit. This also can include families for whom there were no
previous concerns but have merely moved house and not notified the LA, as they
have no duty to inform them. Trafford reported that any family, no matter if
there have been no previous concerns and no matter if they have sent in an educational
plan as per 2007 guidelines, will be treated as suspect and a safeguarding
procedure will be implemented whereupon the police will be called out to visit
them and a case conference will be discussed with Social Services. Trafford
indicated that this was the case for all of Greater Manchester and seemed to
think that the Review had given them the go ahead to do this. They did not seem
to care much for the 2007 guidelines when I mentioned them nor parental rights
regarding visits and the option to send in a written plan. A handful of
LA's mentioned that they do not visit as a matter of course and indicated they
understood guidelines and law. However many LA's expect to visit and are
suspicious if a family declines. Some even have written their own policies in
contradiction to guidelines.
3.3 Using 20 hours or 23 hours as a guide for
the definition of 'full time'-even although this is not in guidance and
specifically mentions in CME material that children who receive education
otherwise than at school for varying reasons - a service which the local
authority provides, should not be considered the same as EHE children when it
comes to the definition of full time. The Ivatts report on EHE in the
Gypsy/Roma and Traveller community in 2006 also mentions 20 hours with no
indication of where this figure comes
from.(http://aim1he.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/ivatts.pdf) However some LA's
consider it adequate to provide 5 hours a week tuition for children unable to
attend school who are not EHE (for example ill children, excluded pupils and
truants). AS previously mentioned, the Review itself asks in one of its
questions in the first questionnaire to 'estimate the proportion of children
not receiving a suitable full time (20hrs) education' making it appear that
this is in fact current guidelines. If one compares the FOI responses of LA's
to this initial questionnaire you get answers that look very different. If a
local authority answered for example that they has a 3% concern rate to my FOI
request, they may have answered in the review that only 80% were receiving a
'full time' suitable education. Several LA's have indicated they are already
changing their procedures and policies following this Review and before
this Review even reaches consultation stage.
3.4 Requiring written work or evidence of a particular
'school-like' structure. Assessments based on school attainment (Key Stages) or
using Educational psychology assessment tools. One LA released it's responses
to the in depth questionnaire and attached the actual case review notes for two
families. They used these case studies as examples where there 'could be'
safeguarding concerns as the family happened to spend half the year overseas.
Despite the fact that the report was glowing in educational terms and the fact
that the family concerned had no idea that there may have been safeguarding
'issues' about them. This same case study indicated that the visitor assessed
the child according to the peer group at school and also used an educational
psychology assessment tool .Both these measures are not current protocol for
the EHE population. This LA had to take down the public response as several
people complained. The family was readily identifiable and by the end of the
day the family were informed by myself of the day's events regarding their
child (whose actual name was redacted).The second family in these case notes
were a religious family and the father refused visits 'vociferously' .
The concern of the LA was that he was more concerned about 'his rights' ( as opposed
to his childrens or the LA's?) .Current guidelines are clear that there is not
a duty on parents to accept visits nor on LA's to conduct them and that written
evidence is enough. This family had sent written evidence and a plan and there
were no safeguarding issues nor educational concerns but were used as an
example -in the absence of any real cases of concern? Currently there is no
onus on families to produce their children's written work for the LA's to
assess. My own daughter has always happily shown her work but not all children
want to . I had visits because I trusted my Local Authority and the
person visiting but mainly because my daughters father was taking me to court
as he wanted her to go to school and the LA were able to show she was happy and
progressing and they had no concerns. In this regard I needed the LA , however,
had her father not been of the type to make issues where none exist, I can
think of no reason why I might want any LA involvement and my particular LA is
respectful of this parental choice and recognise what the law firmly states and
how guidelines interpret this law.
3.5 Some local authorities have included in their
figures children who have just de-registered and conclude that because they
have not yet been processed them they will be counted as 'concerns' until
parents proven 'innocent' by whichever policy and procedure the LA
follows. Again it was not possible in all cases to decipher how many of each
particular LA's concerns were due to this but they are included in the 5.7%
overall rate of concern. Also included are children who have simply moved
house. There is no onus to inform an LA of a house move not in the general
population nor the EHE population.
3.6 Although not ultra vires, the 5.7% concern rate
includes the children for whom there are concerns about parental literacy
(particularly in the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities who would
invariably be known to the LA through Traveller Liaisons). Some LA's have high
rates of concern and high rates of G/R/T community. Some LA's did not comment
on the percentage of GRT but those whose responses we have to the initial
questionnaires have answered this question and it is included in the comments section.
These concerns are well known and the Ivatts report has commented extensively
on the G/R/T EHE community.
3.7 Also included are previously excluded or truanting
children. These are children who would be already known to the LA
through CME . Interesting is the increasing numbers in this category
compared with previous investigations 5 years ago done by Mike Fortune Wood who
runs HE-UK. This may be explained by the new CME legislation with statutory
guidelines -failure of parents to ensure attendance results in fines and jail and
also costs each LA a significant sum of money. It is unclear whether parents
are catching onto the 'de-registration to avoid prosecution' motif or if LA's
themselves are encouraging it as then they have less outlay both in terms of
finances and input for what are often children who would be troublesome cases
whether in school, in LA tuition programs or at home. What is evident is that
not all 'deregistered' due to truancy or exclusion are necessarily educational
concerns for once the EHE department takes over some of these children improve
their attitude , some find EHE is a better option for them. Children who
develop school phobia (refusal) also frequently come under CME as truants. Once
parents realise they can home educate the situation improves all round, however
many LA's consider school refusal to be the childs problem and try and force
the family to support efforts to return the child to a school. Those families
that decide they know best and finally deregister for their child are often
noted as 'concerns'. It is interesting to note that if asked in more detail it
seems that although , for example, ten children appear in this category, some
LA's have not got educational concerns for all ten
3.8 The concern rate includes numbers where it
was not possible to ascertain the reasons for these concerns and also clear
reasons such as no educational provision, inadequate provision not meeting age
,aptitude or ability. These clarifications are marked as such on the
spreadsheet. It was not possible to collate the interesting conversations I had
with various LA's but I have many examples if asked to give verbal evidence.
4 Analysis
・ 4.1 The
spreadsheet may hold the key to why so many EHE families do not wish any
involvement with their Local Authority. Whilst not wishing to include all LA's
in this category , there was no general picture given by the LA's of
equity for an educational choice which is equally as valid in law as school
attendance. There was a top down approach with LA's considering themselves to
be 'in charge' rather than 'in partnership'. The zero educational concern
rate for one third of all responding local authorities does not necessarily
mean that their literature and practices are in line with current law and guidelines
and therefore even a zero educational concern rate does not indicate that a
particular Local Authority has good relations with its EHE community. 15%
of the 41 'zero concern' LA's indicated ultra-vires activity. That
means that although they indicated no concerns currently, they do have policies
which do not indicate an understanding of law and guidelines.
・
・ 4.2 There is also a
concern amongst home educators about the employment of
ex-school teachers without further training in differing educational
approaches, whose EHE department may or may not like or follow current
guidelines and law. Until these issues are addressed it seems unlikely that
relationships will improve. The Review has done much damage to the prospect of
improving relationships in the near future. Of great alarm is the statistics
used in the Review which are refuted by the larger sample size from the
statistics gathered by home educators . In order to get some of the detail
which seems to be lacking in the Review questionnaire answers , I had to
be like a 'dog with a bone' to pick apart many of the LA responses to the Freedom
of Information requests. However, the data from all the FOI's regarding abuse
(Ahed statistics) and this 'Suitable Education ' spreadsheet, add weight to the
argument that the review has taken a sledgehammer to crack a nut
with out properly discerning exactly what sort of nut this is. The feeling is
that this lack of discernment was entirely intentional - what was not discussed
in the Review is much more revealing that what was discussed.
・
・ 4.3 The comments on the
spreadsheets regarding Home Educating families experiences of Local
Authorities replicate the findings of the Scottish Consumer
Council's report which , unlike the recent Review, did listen to home educators
views and did make clear to Local Authorities why the Scottish guidelines were
introduced in 2007 without a need for changing laws.
・ http://www.schoolhouse.org.uk/news/scc_hbe_report.pdf
・
・ 4.4 The English
guidelines in 2007 were lifted straight from the Scottish Parliament's findings
except that the English LA's were not provided an explanation of the findings
of the Scottish Consumer Council which made clear the extent
of the harassment and bullying of home educators amongst Local Authorities.
Instead our English Local authorities were handed guidelines with out any
background information and were the told in CME legislation in early 2009 that
they had a duty to identify (so far as is possible) EHE children missing
education . According to the opinions of many Local Authorities , this CME
legislation weakened the case for following the 2007 EHE guidelines and they
are now choosing to interpret the CME legislation without due heed to the
wording ' so far as is possible' - i.e. they must act within current EHE
guidelines and law .The situation regarding individual hostile practices of
Local Authorities in Scotland was greatly reduced because the Scottish Consumer
Council Report made public the behind closed doors attitudes and actions of
Local Authorities towards the EHE community so that the Local Authorities could
no longer get away with such practices.
・ 4.5 Many Local Authorities
seem unaware of the amount of ill feeling amongst home educators to
their ultra-vires activities. Those LA's with good practice seem unaware of the
extent of this problem amongst some LA's. Couple that with no substantial form
of incentive for families to have any contact with a Local Authority and it is
obvious why the majority of home educating parents prefer to remain anonymous
to their Local Authorities. If under no onus in law to do so, the majority of
families (possibly up to 75%) simply cannot find any reasons why
they would want a stranger in their homes, who may or may not have an
understanding of the varied approaches to education that is found in our
community and who may or may not come from a Local Authority known to be
hostile to Elective Home Education. Before this review was published in
June 2009, it was common knowledge amongst home educators that some areas were
dreadful to try an educate at home in, due to the attitudes of the LA.
・
・ 4.5 I happen to
live in South Somerset, an area where the Local Authority is
considered to be respectful and understanding of its EHE community .This Local
Authority have even helped fund thrice weekly meetings for EHE families.
The EHE visitors from the Local Authority are made welcome to visit these
meetings . However even in good practice areas ,the risk that personnel change
could happen at any moment and someone who has different ideas about what is
suitable education and their own views on EHE could instantly be in charge of
policy is enough to stop home educators from wanting to register.
Compulsory registration and many of the Review recommendation will increase the
powers of the hostile LA's and make the job of the good practice LA's intolerable
and already built upon relationships unsustainable. At this point in time the
majority of the attendees at my local meetings are unregistered and the LA is
respectful of this choice. These LA's are far and few between. It will no doubt
have been mentioned in many Select Committee submissions the issues that home
educators have with their local authorities if they choose to educate in a way
that does not resemble school. For educational philosophies such as autonomous
education there is real anxiety that the Review will come into being and their
way of life will be made 'illegal'. On the back of this review, many families
are already hoping to move into a postcode where the LA is respectful and
understands autonomous education-whether the Review becomes legislation or not
, some Local Authorities have better relationships with the EHE community than
others and the increase 'traffic' on the EHE lists has resulted in a much more
connected and aware EHE community. This is one positive outcome of the review .
・
・ 5 Concerns
Regarding the Gathering of the Review Statistics
・
・ 5.1 It cannot have
escaped the Select Committee that the complaints about this recent Badman
Review are based on the 'belief' that not only were the outcomes of the review
predetermined (that is, some Local Authorities were intent on making
sure the law and guidelines were changed to increase their powers due to a
small amount of serious concerns) but that the statistics gathered to
substantiate these opinions are not robust nor transparent in the Review.
5.2 In the process of gathering the statistics for the
spreadsheet it has become clear that the figures given through Freedom of
Information requests and those used in the Review , do not match up. An
explanation came from one LA when I directly asked them why this was?
Apparently the Review asked only for 'estimates' whilst the FOI's requested
hard data and reasons. Also in some LA's the Principle Education
Welfare Officer answered the 'estimated' questions and they in turn asked each
of their visiting officers for their individual case load estimates rather than
look in actual files or hold meetings with all concerned present.
5.3 If the home education community's own work in finding out the hard
data is to be believed then there is a small amount of substantiated
abuse/neglect cases nationwide and a small amount of educational
concerns. Certainly smaller than the general population. If schools were
reporting that only 5.7 % of their pupils were failing, truanting or being
excluded the government would announce its Educational Policy a resounding
success. The fact is that there are concerns and it is true that in some local
Authorities, as the Review author points out, these concerns are higher than
the average. What has not been made clear is that 'concern's regarding abuse or
neglect are not the same as actual substantiated cases of abuse or neglect.
Social Services if called in, have a threshold and any on-going cases would
meet that threshold. These substantiated cases do not exist in the number
claimed by the Review. If there are concerns regarding abuse or neglect ,
the Review seems to imply that only a teacher or a LA official could
possibly spot this-as though home educated children are hidden away from the
rest of the world. The educational concerns vary from LA to LA depending on how
much they stick to current guidelines and depending on the training in
alternative methods of education that the visitors have . If the fact remains
that there exist legitimate concerns , even if there were only 10 in the entire
nation, is legislating for an entire community the correct way to go about
solving the issues when those doing the monitoring may or may not be in a Local
Authority with a draconian attitude? Giving all LA's more statutory powers when
already they are abusing the power they have is a recipe for a disastrous
confrontation. A high percentage (73%) of 354 home educating families in
an informal survey indicated that should this Review make legislative changes
to the current status quo they would be prepared to make a stand , risk fines
and imprisonment. 81% of these 354 indicated they did not feel their
views were taken into account at all, 76% thought the Review was not
impartial, 77% said they felt that their LA offered no support at all.
6 Important questions not addressed in the Review.
6.1 A significant proportion of the 800 educational
concerns in the spreadsheet I present, are due to previous exclusion and
truancy i.e. an already known registered population . Some clearer hard data on
the actual proportion was not something that could be achieved given the time
limit with the spreadsheet. However seeing this is also mentioned as an area of
concern in the Review, it is strange that there is not more detail given in the
review as to actual numbers of deregistration due to avoidance of penalties and
jail and the actual level of concern about the G/R/T community .Nor the reasons
why a particular LA may have a 30% educational concern rate and others, no
concerns at all. The review does not address these issues nor suggest differing
ways to deal with particular problem areas, other than to recommend
changes to legislation for the significant majority where there are no
concerns at all. Are Local Authorities really succeeding with the excluded and
truanting children it has on its CME register? Are these children being turned
into model citizens with 5 GCSE's by the age of 16? Is it possible that some of
these children actually do better once removed from the environment that is
clearly not working for them? The NEET statistics were hardly filled in by any
of the LA's regarding the EHE population but what is happening in the CME
population where the children are still under the LA's educational
auspices? Is it not possible that a child with no academic inclination who
hates being in school may be better off sitting at home and literally doing
nothing that resembles a piece of academic work until they work out what it is
they want to do? I am not advocating that this is a great scenario, simply that
there is the possibility that nothing the government tries to do that will work
for some children and the disaffection associated with these children may
not go away until and unless they are left alone to work it out for themselves
-or not. Does intervention work or is the opportunity to return to college at
any age the most important factor in helping young adults change their own
situation?
6.2 The 7 Local Authorities with very high educational
concern rates warrant further investigation. It is apparent that many of them
are acting ultra-vires but what is not clear is whether the breakdown of
the socio-economic or cultural factors amongst families registered is
significantly different from other Local Authorities. Are there some areas and
cities in England
where there are more families who are failing in their duty to ensure adequate
educational provision for their children? Or are there are areas in England where
the Local Authorities have different opinions about their duty in law and
guidance?
6.3 The review concluded that because some LA's had
high rates of concern that there is a problem within the EHE community
.However, Review responses do not differentiate if they mean estimated
safeguarding or educational concerns. It also appears that many of the LA's
reported unsubstantiated 'concern' which may have been no more than a
referral because the child was 'not at school' and a member of the public
or another profession was ignorant of EHE 's standing in law. There also are
LA's who immediately involve Social Services over educational concerns and
those who will call the police if a family refuses a visit and couch this
under 'safeguarding' when in guidance and law the LA has no right nor duty to
compel a visit. Picking apart all these statistics did not happen in the
review. How is it that in 12 weeks home educators have come together and
done this job and produced reliable statistics?
6.4 Is there confusion amongst LA's over what
constitutes a suitable education for some parts of our society? If the
education of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children (G/R/T) prepares them for the
community in which they are part of but there are concerns that this education
may not prepare them for the wider community which they may or may not become
part of in adult life, then surely the ruling by Justice Woolf regarding the
Orthodox Jewish Community should be considered? (R v Secretary of State for
Education, ex parte Talmud Torah Mizrachi Hadassa School Trust. Judicial review
1985) How many Orthodox Jewish children leave their community as adults
and how many G/R/T children choose to do the same? In the case of the G/R/T
community should it not be considered that it is a failing of the wider
community to accept certain cultures and that this community have a higher
truancy and exclusion rate because of the prejudices and hostility found
towards them in mainstream educational setting which in many cases can itself
be accused of failing to provide a suitable education? What about the
parents that several LA's have concerns about their 'ability to educate their
children' due to low levels of literacy? Are these parents not for the most
part graduates of the school system? Is this really something which can
be addressed through further monitoring and regulation of EHE?
6.5 Is there really an issue of epic proportion where
families uproot and move home in order to avoid the Local Authority when there
are real safeguarding issues or educational concerns? If 'issues' are
found in a child who attends school , simply being known cannot stop a family
from moving areas and nothing compels them to check in with Social Services in
the new area. Is this not an issue that ought to be addressed for all families
in England by Social Services and not just by targeting home educators through
the EHE departments where the visitors have no safeguarding qualifications and
many are not even currently CRB checked? Will the children's database
solve these 'mobility' issues . The spreadsheet indicates that most of the
'missing' children were of no concern prior to them moving away from the area
and seeing as families do not have to inform LA's of there whereabouts it is of
great concern that these children are called 'missing' by some LA's.
6.6 It is known that 2/3rds of adults who confide
that they were neglected or abused at home did not reveal this at school and
the school did not suspect anything was amiss nor have any concerns. Surely the
only way to 'ensure' that children are safe and well is to interview each and
every child in the land on a frequent routine basis. Would the state therefore
become de facto parents? This monitoring would have to include the children of
the rich and famous , the titled and the royal. Those at boarding school and
those not enrolled in school . Will the proposed Children's Database solve many
of the presumed issues regarding EHE?
7 Conclusion
・
・ 7.1 It must be
asked what would Local Authorities do with more powers? To return
to the question of 'suitable ' education, it seems that even although the
recommendations ask for a change in law and guidelines, the current guidelines
are not being used when there actually is an educational concern. The
spreadsheet statistics show that in 14 thousand children there are 800 concerns
about education but only 47 School Attendance Orders. The Local Authorities are
not using the powers they already have in the known cases and yet the
Review is trying to say they want to be able to locate and monitor
up to 75% more EHE children in order to fulfil a duty which currently only
requires them 'as far as is possible' to locate possible children missing
education. The Review does not even begin to explain this anomaly. Why
are the LA's not issuing School Attendance order if they have genuine concerns?
If there are genuine concerns regarding abuse/neglect or education then there
are already genuine steps a LA can take. Is the spreadsheet concern rate of
5.7% regarding education any better in the state schools when the outcomes of
children leaving primary schools shows that up to 20% can barely read and
write?
・
・ 7.2 It is the contention
of the concerned home educators that the recommendations of the review, given
what we know of the actual substantiated cases of abuse/neglect or the
educational concern rate, are disproportionate and disingenuous. The statistics
used in the review are misleading and inadequate at best . Given that the basis
of the review is about safeguarding and educational concerns, the lack of
robust evidence is problematic in that it does not convince a discerning reader
that there is a case to be put forward to change the status quo. This disproportionate
response assumes guilt rather than presumed innocence and I would hope it has
no place in our society any more than a compulsory registration and monitoring
scheme for Moslems because we know that some Moslems may be building bombs
around the kitchen table. When we already know that an unknown percentage of
the 5.7% educational concerns are not legitimate concerns but merely concerns
about families who do not bow under the pressure from LA's to submit to a visit
or supply a forwarding address, or are because some LA's have ideas about what constitutes
a suitable education which is not in line with current guidelines or law, or
are children whose parents have been told or have discovered that school is not
compulsory, is it any wonder the home education community is up in arms?
. 7.3 A proper dialogue has not been initiated .
There are clear areas of concern and they are not addressed as such in the
Review. An open and frank discussion of real concerns on both sides and a
forward plan would have been a much more beneficial way of dealing with any
problems. Much of the problem seems to stem from either a misunderstanding or a
dislike of the current guidelines. One suggestion made was to ask the EHE
community to participate in a long term study of outcomes taking cohorts of
children at different ages from five through to twenty. Paula Rothermel
PHd has done studies but her work was ignored in the Review. There
is currently no forum for Local Authorities and EHE families to come together
and discuss on a local level their concerns.
・ 7.4 The intention behind this
Review was to air the opinions of Local Authorities , who may or may not
be understanding or following current guidelines and the attitude
is more clearly realised in the knowledge that despite the contra-diction the
EHE community has found in the Review, and the fact that the Review concluded
that 'some' Local Authorities had higher numbers of concerns
(educational and abuse/neglect), no-one responsible for the Review nor the DCSF
have deemed it appropriate to ask certain national newspapers to retract their
blaring headlines- these newspapers claim that the following quote came
straight from the mouth of the author.
''Children Educated at Home More At Risk of Abuse''. (The
Independent).
July 2009