Memorandum
submitted by Hertfordshire Home Education Group
Herts
Home Education Group: background information
A
meeting was arranged at Fleetville Community Centre, St
Albans, Hertfordshire on 16th April 2009 at the request of the
elective home education review team. 15
members of the Herts local group and 10 young people participated.
The
Herts Home Education Action Group was formed as a result of our grave concern
about the standard of the review and the unsound nature of the
recommendations. We are writing to
inform the Select Committee of our disquiet at the attitudes shown by Graham
Badman at the St Albans meeting and also to
comment on the review recommendations.
Our members are very concerned about our experience of discussing home
education with Graham Badman in our local meeting and also about the
implications that Mr Badman's opinions have for the conduct of the review.
1 Evidence relating to the conduct of the
Badman review
1.1 Mr Badman was very unwell when he came to the
meeting. He was suffering from a severe
flu-type illness. The meeting had
already been cancelled several times by the review team and he had decided to
attend in order to avoid a further cancellation. One of our group contracted the infection
from him and was ill and unable to work properly for over three weeks. It is reasonable to conclude from this that
Mr Badman's ability to work intensively on the review must have been reduced
for a similar length of time. Given the
shortness of the time allowed for the entire review this would have had a
serious effect on the integrity of his findings.
1.2 Mr Badman was also heavily involved with the
demanding and high-profile Baby Peter review while he was reviewing home
education. At our meeting someone
referred to the difficulty of conducting the two reviews concurrently, and he
asserted strongly that the two issues were entirely separate in his mind. This may or may not be the case but we
believe that the demands of the Baby Peter review must have reduced his ability
to give proper consideration to the complex subject of home education.
2 The review's
lack of objectivity
2.1 Mr Badman's questions to the meeting were
framed from a perspective of a lifetime's familiarity with school-based
education and its philosophy and pedagogy.
It was clear to us that he had come to home education as an IT expert
who was expecting to find a 'system' (this concept occurs at crucial points in
the review report) and he was irritated and perplexed by the diverse nature of
home education which does not yield to a systems approach. He seemed to regard the varied nature of home
education as a problem that required a solution. This is not a problem
for its practitioners. After the meeting
people remarked on the lack of objectivity in his questioning and also in his
comments to the meeting.
2.2 Mr Badman spoke of his concern that home
educating families did not have a body through which to make their views
known. He did not seem to want to accept
that no council or association could represent the views of home educators
because there are as many different viewpoints and methods as there are home
educators. He did not understand that
there is no 'system': there are only home educators.
3 Evidence which indicates that the review's
findings were predetermined
3.1 At an early stage in the meeting Mr Badman
said firmly to the group: 'I want you to know that things can't stay as they
are...' despite having stated publicly (in a meeting reported in the Home
Education Advisory Service Bulletin, Spring 2009) that the Secretary of
State might either accept his recommendations or decide to make no
changes.
3.2 Mr Badman became visibly irritated when
people gave accounts of their young people's successes, especially when their
achievements were due to an informal style of education. People observed afterwards that he was
looking for negative aspects and problems.
His mind appeared to be made up although he had asked for the
opportunity to meet families as part of his fact-finding about home
education. It emerged that he was very
interested in the Tasmanian model of monitoring of home education by home
educators themselves. He said to the
group: 'I've been trying to get you to say this but nobody is saying it, so
I'll say it for you: what about self-monitoring?' He seemed surprised and disappointed by the
robust refusal of this concept and he did not seem to understand that no home
educator would wish to put him or herself in a position of judging
another. One parent commented: 'He came
across as a man with a preconceived agenda and no genuine interest in really
engaging with us.'
3.3 It was noticeable that when people responded
to his questions he did not make eye contact with them while they were speaking
as soon as he found that their reply did not interest him. On the other hand, when people responded in a
way that fitted in with his agenda he fixed his attention on them straight
away. Several people said afterwards
that this behaviour made them feel most uncomfortable and some said that it
made them reluctant to make any further contributions to the meeting.
3.4 Even making allowances for his poor state of
health at the time, the participants were shocked and disturbed by his
patronising attitudes and by his dismissive responses to the evidence which was
given to him. When the discussion turned
to the outcomes of home education, he was openly sceptical to the point of
rudeness when parents told him of the attitudes of universities and further
education colleges towards home educated students. He dismissed their accounts as
'anecdotal'. When one mother mentioned
research into outcomes he interrupted her in a manner that was reminiscent of
heckling, saying 'Research? What
research? Go on - what research? There
is none that I am prepared to accept ... '
The meeting was taken aback and embarrassed by his discourteous
reaction.
3.5 At an early stage in the meeting Mr Badman
said that he was hoping to capture the philosophical base of home education so
that he could find a way to keep everyone happy. Afterwards several people commented that at
various points in the meeting they became aware that he was offering
inducements to persuade people of the value of being known to the local authority. He asked what support people wanted and he
seemed surprised and disappointed when all the participants except one
expressed a firm rejection of the idea of support.
4 Mr Badman's failure to understand home
education
4.1 Mr Badman showed a complete lack of
understanding of home education throughout the meeting. It was clear that he had made assumptions
that were not based on knowledge. For
instance, he seemed to have no idea that families worked together to provide a
range of experiences for their children.
He offered a list of resources and activities that he thought home
educators would want and should have, including access to sports facilities,
museum trips, skiing, ICT facilities, swimming lessons and science
instruction. The group informed him
immediately that all these opportunities and more were already offered on a
regular basis in local home educators' groups including our own; he seemed to
be taken aback by this information.
4.2 At one point a parent asked him what school
had given to him that we could not provide for our children, and he replied:
'Books'. This extraordinary comment
would have been laughable if it had not shown such a lack of understanding of
home education and what is possible for its practitioners. Later Mr Badman noted the advantages of ICT
provision in schools and referred to concerns that children at home would miss
out on this essential resource. Several
of the young people assured him that their home IT facilities were far superior
to any of the resources that had been available at school.
5 Evidence of the review's unsound methodology
5.1 Mr Badman was dismissive of UK home education research. He
referred to Paula Rothermel's study but said that the sample used was too small
to yield significant results. Given this
attitude it is puzzling to find that he quotes two DCSF-commissioned studies
conducted by York Consulting and NfER in his review document which use even
smaller data sets.
5.2 The question of the numbers of home educators
was discussed in some depth during the meeting in the context of Mr Badman's
safeguarding concerns about families who are not known either to the local
authorities or to the home education networks.
He said confidently that there were large numbers of these unknown
families. He could not give sources for
this claim and he said that for every family known to the local authority there
is another one who is 'unconnected'. The
point was made to him that it was impossible to have any idea about the
existence of families who were not known to anyone, and he seemed unable to
appreciate the absurdity of the notion that unknown families can be
quantified. He enlarged upon the concept
of safeguarding risks among families who are unknown to anyone, but he did not
seem to realise the difference between a risk (a probability that may be
assessed) and a suspicion (a fear about which no evidence may be adduced).
5.3 A further example of unsound methodology
arose over the issue of young people who are not in education, employment or
training (Neet). Mr Badman was emphatic
that our group was not typical because no-one could think of any young home
educated person who was Neet. He was
incredulous and insisted that one of us must know someone in this category. He said that information from local
authorities and from Connexions indicated that as many as 25% of home educated
young people were Neet. He did not
realise that local authorities are not reliable sources of information about
the outcomes of home educated children because they do not always follow them
up in the last year of education. Very
few families have any contact with Connexions so it is impossible to make any
meaningful statement about young people's destinations. Anecdotal evidence from home education
networks remains the most reliable source of information about outcomes.
6 Evidence of bias towards local authority
concerns
6.1 Despite the fact that the terms of reference
of the review should have included an enquiry into the relationship between
local authorities and home educating families, Mr Badman was very reluctant to
accept the fact that some families have problems with their local
authorities. We are fortunate in having
good relationships with the local authority in this county - this has taken
years of work to achieve - but we noted that Mr Badman was not interested in
our experience of our local authority and whether or not we had any concerns.
7 Conclusions drawn from the meeting
7.1 Everyone noted that the flaws in Mr Badman's
understanding of home education were painfully evident. Our meeting was held after he had seen other
home educating individuals and groups, and it took place very near to the end
of the information gathering phase of his review. If his understanding of home education was so
poor at this late stage, we doubt whether he had discovered any relevant
information about the subject at all.
This has serious implications for the review's integrity. The members of the meeting agreed afterwards
that Mr Badman did not seem to have been open to any consideration of the collective
experience of the group, therefore it was unlikely that he had gained any
knowledge of home education as a result of the meeting.
8 Comments on the review recommendations
8.1 Space forbids comment on all of the
recommendations; we would like to address the four 'urgent' recommendations
only. This should not be taken to
indicate approval of the remaining proposals.
We note that in his letter to local authorities dated 17th September
2009 Graham Badman asserts that most of his recommendations have not been
challenged; he claims that this reflects the sound evidence base. Herts Home Education Action Group wishes to
repudiate this claim and register our objection to all of the recommendations
in the strongest possible terms. There
is not a single one which would improve the quality of life for home educated
children or their parents. The entire
exercise represents a huge commitment of public money to no discernible end. Most of the recommendations will put
unreasonable pressure on local authorities and this in turn will be transferred
to families. It should be obvious to
anyone that when legislation to enact the four 'urgent' recommendations is
already in the Draft Legislative Programme, concerned people will postpone
consideration of the rest.
8.2 Recommendation 1 seeks to impose compulsory
registration and annual monitoring to approve families' educational
arrangements. Parents will have to
produce a statement of their aims and planned outcomes for the next twelve
months and the suitability of their provision will be judged against their
initial statement. This Ofsted-style
approach is entirely inappropriate at home and it demonstrates a complete lack
of understanding of the difficulties families face at the onset of home
education.
8.3 When children have been withdrawn from school
because of problems they are invariably deeply unhappy and this recommendation
will subject them to severe and unnecessary pressure when they are least able
to endure it. It will have devastating
consequences for those children who are unable to contemplate learning after
the sufferings that they have endured at school. Children who are benefiting from the informal
and individualised approach that is unique to home education will also suffer
because their education will have to be predetermined and organised. Mr Badman offers no explanation of the
benefits which this interference is deemed to bring to the learner and he
presents no evidence to show why he considers it necessary.
8.4 Recommendation 7 is perhaps the most
appalling intrusion into family life and children's privacy that has ever been
suggested in a free society. Under the
guise of 'safeguarding' home educated children a stranger from the local authority
will have the right to enter a family's home and force a child to submit to an
interview with no support from the parent.
The review suggests in all seriousness that this is to give a
hypothetical victim an opportunity to disclose abuse but this action is abusive
in itself. Freedom of information
requests have shown that the insubstantial statistical evidence that the review
offered in justification of this recommendation is improper and that Mr Badman
is seeking to bolster his evidence by a further appeal to local authorities for
more detailed data. We contend that this
extraordinary admission reveals that the review and its conclusions are
fundamentally unsound and should be abandoned immediately before further public
money is wasted on shoring up its inadequacies.
8.5 Recommendation 23 requires other agencies to
inform on parents who are considered to be unsuitable as home educators. This recommendation has not been properly
considered and it is completely illogical.
If parents are substance abusers or if there is a history of violence or
abuse, the child should be removed into the care of the local authority if the
situation is deemed to be unsafe. If the
parents are able to care for their children during the six weeks of the summer
holiday there is no reason why they should be judged unfit to educate them at
home.
8.6 The same principle applies to recommendation
24, which gives local authorities the power to refuse registration on
safeguarding grounds. This proposal
ignores the fact that there are already perfectly adequate procedures that may
be used by children's social care and the education welfare service if children
are known to be at risk of harm. If
children are deemed to be safe with their parents if they are not being
educated at home, then home education is not an issue. This recommendation exposes families to
unwarranted intrusion and it gives the authorities a licence to be both judge
and jury without the safeguard of the independent scrutiny undertaken by a
court of law.
9 The recommendations: conclusion
9.1 We acknowledge that safeguarding may be an
issue in a small minority of cases but the few cases that have come to light
were all known to the authorities. We
ask the Select Committee to consider the effect that the review proposals will
have on relationships between families and local authorities. If anyone is determined to abuse their own
child they will not desist for fear of the penalty that is incurred by failing
to register. If good relations are
maintained with local authorities on the basis of trust and mutual respect,
families would feel able to seek advice if safeguarding problems come to light
within the local home education community.
9.2 We must not lose sight of the fact that the
safety of children is a national issue that has not been shown to have any
correlation with home education. The
review proposals are not a proportionate response to the risk of abuse which is
statistically very small; it is ironic that not only will the recommendations
achieve nothing for the tiny minority of children who are at risk, but they
will cause real suffering to very many children for whom home education is a
last refuge from suffering at school.
Barbara
McDonald
Carolyn
Crawshaw
Karen
Bartlett
Anne
Marshall
Benaifer Bhandari
Surinder Marshall
September 2009