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Memorandum submitted by the Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS)
Executive Summary
· The recognition of parents' well established rights to home educate children as fundamental to the review is welcomed as is the government view that it has no plans to change that position.
· It is only right that the government considers systems to keep children safe and in receipt of suitable education and that they are as robust as possible; ADCS supports this view.
· It is essential that local authorities are enabled to deal with any concerns about the safety and welfare, or education, of a home educated child, with effective systems in place to address these.
· However, ADCS believe that it is important to be clear which of these proposals are intended to ensure a good education and which are related to safeguarding concerns - our response is laid out accordingly. While the Every Child Matters framework clearly encourages services to take a "whole child" approach, this should not cause confusion as to the purpose of any given intervention.
· The recommendations made by the Badman review are proportionate and evenly balance the right of the parent to home educate and the right of the child to receive a suitable education and the duty of local authorities to ensure both an appropriate education and the safety of all children in their area. This includes:
o mandatory registration, with the provision of basic information; o the role of the school in supporting home education; o the need for home visits and to see the child alone on a regular basis; and o the need for restrictions on freedom to home educate where children are deemed to be at risk of harm.
· There are some details to be further considered, such as the resourcing of home visits and legal technicalities to ensure local authorities have the powers they need.
1. Introduction The Association
of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS) welcomes the opportunity
to give evidence to the Select Committee regarding the recommendations of the
Badman review of home Education . ADCS is the national leadership
organisation in
2. Overview of position on home education
2.1 The recommendations made by the Badman review are proportionate and evenly balance the right of the parent to home educate and the right of the child to receive a suitable education and the duty of local authorities to ensure both an appropriate education and the safety of all children in their area. There are some details to be considered, such as the resourcing of home visits and legal technicalities to ensure local authorities have the powers they need. 2.2 The recognition of parents' well established rights to home educate children as fundamental to the review is welcomed as is the government view that it has no plans to change that position. 2.3 It is only right that the government considers systems to keep children safe and in receipt of suitable education and that they are as robust as possible; ADCS supports this view. It is essential that local authorities are enabled to deal with any concerns about the safety and welfare, or education, of a home educated child, with effective systems in place to address these. 2.4 However, ADCS believe that it is important to be clear which of these proposals are intended to ensure a good education and which are related to safeguarding concerns - our response is laid out accordingly. While the Every Child Matters framework clearly encourages services to take a "whole child" approach, this should not cause confusion as to the purpose of any given intervention.
3. Recommendations related to ensuring a suitable education. The aim of any regulation of home education must primarily be to ensure that every child receives a suitable and age-appropriate education, even those who do not attend school. This is the legal basis for the current arrangements and must continue to be so.
3.1 We agree that the proposals strike the correct balance between the rights of parents to home educate and the rights of children to receive a suitable education.
3.2 Registration
3.2.1 ADCS support the keeping of registers for home educated children. The information proposed as being required at registration is basic and probably fulfils the minimum requirement which would support local authorities in ensuring a suitable education. 3.2.2 Requiring parents to register and to keep that register up to date is essential in our view, leaving the responsibility of choice for education with parents, and yet enabling local authorities to fulfil their various roles under Every Child Matters and in particular the achievement of educational outcomes. 3.2.3 Converting the requirement to register into a legal responsibility for parents again supports the local authority in carrying out its duties. However, the timing of any legal enforcement should be considered by the local authority in much the same way as the enforcement of the requirement to attend schools is dealt with through current systems so as to allow for ongoing engagement with families.
3.3 Involvement of schools in home education 3.3.1 Children should remain on the school roll for a short period after the notification of the intention to home educate. This will allow potential alternative solutions to home education to be explored. The time period should be the same period in which a child should be seen at home after home education begins (4 weeks as proposed in the Badman review). Information gathered on the visit, whether on the suitability of the education or the views of the child, may result in the child returning to the roll and it would be helpful if they were still on the roll. 3.3.2 Schools retain a responsibility for pupils and we agree that where parents remove children from school to home education, the school should in the first instance respond to this responsibility, and be required to inform the local authority of the change in status of the pupil from a school roll registration to home educated. Similarly the school holds information on the child and this should be shared with the local authority including the expected and future attainment data. This data should be shared with local authorities to enable them to continue monitoring of educational progression for every child. 3.3.3 One aspect of a school's involvement in the education of children educated at home. The school, via the local authority receives funding for every pupil in school, but when a child is educated at home this funding is removed. It would be useful if the per pupil funding for these pupils could be redirected to resource home visits made by a team in the local authority.
3.4 Role of central government If registration and monitoring of home educated children is to become a requirement, it would be helpful to have some statutory guidance on how this should be implemented. However, as with all guidance, care must be taken to ensure that it does not become too burdensome for the school, local authority or parent involved in the process, whilst ensuring that the system's objectives - to ensure an appropriate education and the safety of home educated children, is achieved.
3.5 The voice of the child The child should be seen, preferably alone, in the first 4 weeks of home schooling. This would allow the child's views about being removed from school to be taken into account when assessing the suitability of home education. This is as important to ensure a child is engaged with their education, wherever it may take place. This complements provision for a child to stay on the school roll for a short period after removal - the two measures together will provide a more flexible system to accommodate those who want to return to school in this early period.
4. Keeping children safe Schools operate as part of an integrated children's service that allows education professionals to share safeguarding concerns with other professionals so that appropriate action can be taken. While not a school's main purpose, it should be acknowledged that children not in a school environment are less likely to have these concerns identified where they arise, due to their lack of contact with professionals. There is at least one high profile safeguarding case which demonstrates that removal from school was a missed milestone, when if the reasons for removal had been more closely examined, other risk factors would have become apparent. Home education may also impact on other outcomes for these children - for example immunisation records will not be as complete as for those who receive thee services through school.
4.1 Registration The information that the review suggests would be required is basic and probably fulfils the minimum requirement which would support local authorities in keeping children safe. Most local authorities keep a register of children who are educated at home, and this is good practice, enabling links to be made with health visitors and other health services for example, which can inform safety and well-being concerns. Making this standard practice would be an advantage. Clearly where the register is used to identify possible risk of harm, the legal requirement to provide true information to the register is of paramount importance.
4.2 Restrictions on home education for children with a protection plan We agree that where there are children about whom the local authority has substantial safeguarding concerns there should be the power and the authority to not allow them to be home educated. This is particularly relevant to those who may be looked after at home and would enable the school to be an integral part of the intervention programme. We have some concerns about whether a change in the law to enable local authorities to insist on school attendance due to safeguarding concerns would be feasible or enforceable. It should be considered in the light of the current arrangements for insisting on school attendance due to concern about a child's education at home - the right exists but is very difficult to enforce.
4.3 Visits and interviews with the child 4.3.1 The local authority should visit the premises where home education is taking place, and two weeks notice of this visit should enable parents to be engaged in this process. Regular visits by the local authority to premises and interviews with the child would enable safeguarding issues to be addressed. 4.3.2 It would be helpful and supportive for the local authority to have the power to interview the child, alone if this is judged appropriate, or if not in the presence of a trusted person who is not the parent/carer. We are concerned, however about the legal framework required to give local authorities the right to speak to children alone in this context - as far as we are aware, child protection investigations do not have the legal authority to demand this, even though it is seen as best practice. It is difficult to see how this could be resolved without legislative changes. 4.3.3 Additional resources will be required if home visits are to be required at 4 weeks, 6 months and annually, seeing children alone would add an additional resource requirement. In principle, however, this is an acceptable approach. (see paragraph 3.3.3 above)
5. Conclusion The recommendations made by the Badman review are proportionate and evenly balance the right of the parent to home educate and the right of the child to receive a suitable education and the duty of local authorities to ensure both an appropriate education and the safety of all children in their area. There are some details to be considered, such as the resourcing of home visits and legal technicalities to ensure local authorities have the powers they need.
September 2009
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