Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Written evidence submitted by Shirley Watson to The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee (CWSB245). 

Summary

· The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill in its current form would submit home educating families to over-regulation and limit the freedom to educate in the way we feel best for our children.

· Most local authorities already have a list of families in their area who have chosen to home educate their children.

· Children missing from education are not included in this proposal for a register. The Bill does not include any proposals to protect these children (CME).

· It is just not true that there is no scrutiny when a child is deregistered from school. Local authorities make enquiries about the suitability of the education offered at home (that it is efficient, full-time and fit for purpose). If the local authority is not satisfied, it can serve a notice 437(1) and ultimately a school attendance order if concerns warrant this.

· Local authorities can refer families to children’s services if there are safeguarding issues. Elective home education is not in itself a safeguarding matter.

· The data required for the proposed register would over burden parents and education providers. The level of detail required would mean many current styles of home education would not be possible.

· If a register must be in place then criteria should be uniform across all local authorities to prevent further lapses in behaviour by those LAs. (436/ Part 3)

1. Thank you for this opportunity to share our views about the proposed legislation. We are a home educating family. I deregistered my two children now aged 12 and 8 a couple of years ago. School was a bad fit from the start aged three in nursery for my eldest. She suffers from anxiety and this got much worse in school, where her emotional needs were not met. After I saw the transformation in her after just a short time at home, I decided that HE was the way for both my children. School, with its prescriptive curriculum and behavior rules aimed at controlling large groups of children, just did not work. It didn’t value the things my two are good at, things which I think make for a much richer world (their creativity, their curiosity, their spontaneity).

2. In our home we take a child-led approach, giving them both complete autonomy in how and what they learn. We go at their pace. We meet them where they are at, without worrying if they are at the right stage for their age, rather are they at the right stage for them? Children don’t all develop in the same way, at the same time, and we prefer to let them follow their own path. Workbooks and whiteboards don’t work for us. They learn through play, through hands-on experiences, watching documentaries, reading books from the library, doing online courses, museum trips, through talking about things. They enjoy socialising with people of all ages and backgrounds (in Home Ed groups and other clubs, with our neighbours and friends, with people we know within our local community) and don’t miss the days of school when they had to sit for hours without talking to anyone.

3. They thrive in the freedom and autonomy this gives them to pursue their passions. We are laying the foundations for them to be lifelong learners, adept at learning the skills they will need for whatever path they follow in life, to be adaptable, able to think for themselves.

4. As you can imagine, I watched the debate in Parliament on the Children’s Wellbeing Bill with growing dismay. A piece of legislation which says the state, not a parent, can decide whether a child can be taken out of school is an affront to basic rights. The Bill in its present form takes away my freedom to educate my children in the way I feel is best for them.

5. The Bill is a ‘blunt instrument’ as I think one of the speakers in the debate called it, which will burden home educating families with unnecessary regulation and will make our form of home education impossible to do.

6. I understand the strength of feeling following the tragic case of Sara Sharif and that we all want to prevent another case like it. The Bill and the proposed register won’t do that. Sara was long known to social services, who failed to use current legislation to protect her. Home education is not a safeguarding issue by itself.

7. The Bill won’t do anything to trace the ‘missing’ children which speakers in the debate were keen to find and number; the proposal only includes details of home educators, nothing about Children Missing from Education (although I think more than one speaker in the debate seemed to conflate the two: the two are very different. Children missing from education should be getting one; home educated children are in education and should not be in school.)

8. Home educating families are already known to their local authorities and we provide responses when asked to satisfy them that we are providing an efficient full-time education suitable to their age, ability and aptitude. It is just not true that there is no scrutiny when a child is deregistered.

9. The current wording of the Bill would make the type of home education we pursue impossible. We don’t do set hours at a desk at home; we are usually out and about exploring. For example a trip to the seaside led to beachcombing, finding rocks and fossils and talk about geology, prehistoric creatures and coastal erosion. This was followed up with looking at books about dinosaurs, what Britain looked like millions of years ago - and a coastal-erosion design built at Lego club. We use a multitude of resources, online and otherwise. My children talk to many different people. We would spend more time reporting all these resources/ contacts to the local authority than time spent enabling our children to learn. The sections of the Bill related to home education are written by people who have I suspect little knowledge and experience of home education, who expect HE to look like school at home, with worksheets, whiteboards, tests, and a timetable. Some people do home educate this way, and that is fine, it is their choice, but it isn’t the only way and we want the freedom to do it our way.

10. The Bill contains the threat that a local authority would have the power to enter our home, our safe space, to carry out checks. This would do irreparable harm to my children and others. There is plenty of evidence that local authorities are not impartial and benign, that they can lie, misquote the law, overstep their duty and cause irreparable harm to families like mine. (Please see the research on this aspect done by Educational Freedom www.educationalfreedom.org.uk) For similar reasons I am opposed to Section 436C Part 3 of the Bill which says "A register under section 436B may also contain any other information the local authority considers appropriate." Criteria should be uniform across all local authorities.

11. The education providers we know and use (we do sessions in science, forest school/ ecology and occasionally history with a few different providers) are also worried about the burden the Bill will place on them. We are worried that they will think it not worth their while to provide sessions and courses for HE children because of the amount of data they have to provide about each child, or face a fine, and we will miss out on so much that is enriching for our children.

12. Please look again at the Bill. Its current wording is dangerous and will cause serious harm to the home educating community.

February 2025.