Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Written evidence submitted by A Person Who Wishes to remain Anonymous to The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee (CWSB 56)

1. I am writing as a home educating parent of three children.

2. I have significant concerns over the current draft of the bill especially the fact that much of it could be in secondary legislation and subject to less scrutiny. The wording is ambiguous and broad, with little by way of checks and balances. It also does not achieve the stated aims and unfairly links home education and safeguarding.

3. It will negatively impact on home educated children and their families, especially those with SEN and disabilities. Many of those children have extensive school trauma and have self-harmed and even attempted suicide because of unmet needs in school.

4. It will also have a wider impact on the ability of parents to advocate for their child’s needs, including those in school, due to the competing and conflicting interests that schools and LA’s will have when deciding what is in a child’s "best interests." A decision usually for a court of law.

5. Many, like myself, were forced into home educating due to the failures of a school and the LA to recognise and support my children's needs. If my children were forced back into a school setting the impact would be catastrophic. This could end up being a choice between my child’s mental health and my liberty, in that one of the intended consequences of not complying with a school attendance order is to be imprisonment.

Prior to home educating (relevant context)

6. Our middle child struggled with school attendance from the outset. There was little concern from the school at first as she was not compulsory school age. We muddled through reception, had some relief from these difficulties during lockdown, but difficulties began again on return.

7. She experienced a high level of distress over attending school attendance. She would be highly anxious and struggling to sleep at night and in the morning, she would repeatedly strip her uniform off and hide naked in tears behind the couch.

8. With no support, yet pressure to attend, I am sad to say that many a time she was carried kicking and screaming from home to the car and again from the car to school. She would be "peeled off me" by staff in the entrance and restrained whilst I was encouraged to "leave quickly". Unfortunately, she has trauma from this, as have I, acting against all my instincts as a parent. At no point did the school intervene and say let us consider why she is struggling so much.

9. In fact, we were kept in the dark about her struggles in school and led to believe it was a parenting issue. I noticed she did not speak when she arrived and asked the school (after some extensive research) if they thought she had selective mutism. It was quickly brushed off as "mum being anxious" and I was effectively warned off from contacting the teacher and told to allow time for "interventions to bed in".

10. We were told the interventions were "working" yet later we found out she never spoke at any of the "talk about" sessions - which were clearly an inappropriate provision for a child with anxiety over speaking. She "passed" Well-comm assessments despite only being able to write down answers. We also found out "accidentally" from a class mate that she did not speak at all in school, and later when asked directly, her new year 2 teacher then responded to my question about speech with "no not a word, is she not like that at home?" So, despite me raising concerns and sending videos of her speech, her new class teacher was not even aware she was verbal! Yet at the same time I had been told I was effectively imagining her issues.

11. After arranging referrals myself, she was diagnosed with selective mutism 17 months after I first raised concerns (a huge length of time being nearly two school years in practice). Prior to that we paid privately for therapy and even paid for and arranged training for the school staff. Nothing happened until we pushed for it. Temporarily things got better, as some class-based support was in place, however staffing changes meant it was withdrawn without warning a few months after.

12. Our daughter's distress escalated again. No matter what we did there were new barriers daily, be it sensory, exhaustion, or otherwise. Lack of planning and reasonable adjustments by the school meant her attendance plummeted despite us effectively micro managing the school on her needs. We begged for support in class and a meeting was finally arranged over two months later. By this point my daughter was in crisis: "I don't like life" and "what is the point of me". She was 7 years old.

13. Up until this point she wanted to stay in school but lost faith in them to support her. Even using the toilet was problematic as she relied on a friend to ask for her. Because she had no class-based TA support she was expected to sit in the office during PPA time. She was completely non-speaking in school and very isolated. We saw little evidence of any work being completed, and received no real reports or updates. On the days she attended she would hide under a blanket for hours after school. We were losing our funny, energetic, amazing daughter bit by bit.

14. At the final meeting the staff rejected any suggestions we had (pending her EHCP which I had applied for). Her absences were to be unauthorised, no class-based support offered, and they also ignored specialist advice. They did not see the link between lack of support and her difficulties attending. We were now at risk of being prosecuted.

15. They blamed us for her struggles even with a diagnosis, and without a proper assessment of her needs. They wanted an (intrusive) "Early Help" assessment of the family instead. When I declined the referral and reiterated it was lack of support in school, I was told by the Headteacher if I did not agree to Early Help, she would need to make a "safeguarding referral" to social services.

16. I should add we also had our eldest signed off sick by the doctor by this point and they had not bothered to ask about him for 3 months let alone offer anything useful. To me, it was a clear attempt to assert her authority and stop me advocating for my daughter.

17. We realised we were not going to get the support she needed to stay and all trust was gone. We later found from a Subject Access Request that "misleading" information had been recorded, painting us in a bad light to the LA. The LA officer also later recording that we had declined "planning" and support alongside (supposedly optional) Early Help when it was only the latter declined.

18. After a further week of difficulties and being ignored by staff on arrival at school, we deregistered to home educate as the situation was impossible. No safeguarding referral was made because there simply were not grounds for one (confirmed by the LA in writing). We had effectively been "managed out" of the school.

19. Our resulting concern is that under the bill, where similar safeguarding "threats" are carried out, they could prevent deregistration, and lead to prosecution and escalating family distress alongside unwarranted social services interventions.

20. We had complaints later upheld by the LGO and SENDIST (regarding disability discrimination) but there were no real consequences for the school. The damage however to my children and our family was extensive.

21. My daughter now has a professional report stating she found school "psychologically distressing" and that attending school "came at a huge cost" to her. Whilst she was at school, she could not cope with anything outside of school, and was not gaining anything from it either other than trauma.

Home education onwards

22. Since being home educated my daughter has been able to attend a wide number of activities with parental support. A mixture of home education and after school classes including gymnastics, art, horse riding, swimming, brownies and piano. We still need to advocate for adjustments but have found there are people more willing to help outside of a school setting.

23. She has also since been diagnosed autistic with a PDA profile. Seeing her struggles close-up day in day out made us more aware that she was autistic too and reiterated to us how much she was let down.

24. She has also joined an organisation for autistic children and is much more aware of her own needs. Home Education provides her with the flexibility and autonomy she needs as a child with PDA. She gets an education that no longer traumatises her and has got her childhood back. We got our family life back.

25. Despite the common picture painted, she is not hidden or isolated and is much happier. It was clear she had made no progress in 2 years at school, yet at home, with a low demand approach, her maths and writing came on in leaps and bounds, and she has found a passion for horses and a possible future career.

Permission to remove from SEN school

26. Despite her previous difficulties she wanted to try a specialist high school specifically for autistic children. We re-applied for an EHCP for this reason. Since the changes were announced we are reluctant to try now in case we are not able to deregister again despite extreme distress. No-one understood before, why would they now?

27. Prior to the changes we thought if it works, all well and good, if it does not, then we know we have a home educating option that meets her needs. If we are unable to remove her from a school that is not working it opens us up to potential prosecution if she cannot attend, alongside even more trauma to our daughter.

Home visit requirements regarding assessment of a "suitable education"

28. Our daughter is not able to speak to strangers (and even people she knows) and has a frozen demeanour when distressed. Our concern is that a visiting EHE officer will not understand her difficulties, and it will put her through undue and unnecessary stress (she may even run away and hide).

29. They could misjudge her demeanour for something more sinister, they may also not understand that though she does some written work that much of her learning is day to day and practical alongside multiple activities outside the home. These are much better explained in writing by a parent, than "on the spot". There is a risk that whether our education is assessed as "suitable" could depend "on the day" and upon the subjective biases of the EHE officer.

30. If refusal of a home visit means presumption of an unsuitable education, it is effectively giving an unregulated right of entry beyond that of even a police officer or social worker.

School at home:" Home Schooling" and School Trauma

31. My daughter has trauma from school but I should also add about my son who experienced autistic burnout aged 10 in the same school and experienced the same complete lack of understanding. Again, following the outdated EBSA advice which was that "allowing" him to stay off school would only make things worse; we acted against our instincts and pushed him repeatedly back into school.

32. This worked for a few days then he ran away down the road from school. The last straw was when he was home and pushed himself into a wall to stop us "forcing" him. He would also curl up into a ball on the floor. Thankfully the GP did a letter which helped us give him the break he needed. A different GP however would not write similar for our daughter which demonstrates the "lottery" regarding support with such issues.

33. In the end all that forcing our son did was break our relationship and make him resent the school. There was no going back so we deregistered him too. It is clear now he has significant trauma from school. His education now must be provided very carefully and in a way that does not look like school. If a school at home approach was required to be "suitable" this would cause substantial distress to our son and set him back.

Disproportionate administrative and evidential burden

34. The extensive registration information required by the bill will substantially add to our workload in expecting us to provide more evidence and at a higher standard than even a school must do, with dire consequences for even unintentional non-compliance. In contrast our ex-school went 11 years without an OFSTED then was found inadequate. The school was also found to have discriminated against our daughter due to her disability, with no real consequence.

35. It seems schools are placed on a pedestal and are untouchable yet parents are seemingly expected to prove their competence or be fined or lose their liberty or rights over their child. The idea that "school is best" is very harmful to children like mine. In practice most school staff have very minimal knowledge of SEND let alone the needs of specific children.

36. If we were required to do the amount of admin currently being talked about it would interfere with our right to a private and family life, being asked to provide much more information about our home and activities than a schooled child with no real justification. It is disproportionate. The current law/guidance is more than adequate in allowing LAs to make decisions on suitability.

37. A register makes us feel viewed with suspicion as does any level of home visits where there are no valid safeguarding concerns. Forced visits would cause our already traumatised children more distress and not really be helpful for us in explaining our provision. The potential threat of fines and imprisonment makes an already stressful situation worse when all we are doing is protecting our children from an inadequate and harmful education system.

38. Many SEND parents also find they have unfounded safeguarding allegations where schools simply do not understand the complexity of the situation or the nuances involved. See Cerebra's report for example on the institutionalisation of parent blame.

Unfair comparisons of school vs home (especially when using the term "home schooling")

39. There is no question that there are sometimes more options and resources in school. It is easier to access the sciences for example. However, what needs to be understood is you could have a world class education waiting for you, but if all the setting does is destroy your mental health nothing is worth that. You cannot access an education in distress anyway. One size as they say does not fit all, but it can also destroy a child in the process, believe us.

40. By referring to home education as home schooling it gives people the idea that it should look like school. I hope it is clear by now that this would simply bring the trauma home. It is important the correct terminology is used.

Potential restriction of parental rights/choice regarding education

41. It is of high importance to us that parents retain responsibility and therefore choice over their child's education, especially when they have SEND. Barring a miniscule minority, the majority of parents have their child's best interests at heart, and know them the best. The minimal knowledge of LA officers making decisions about a child’s education without fully understanding the context and consequences is very dangerous. There is also a huge conflict of interest in their decision-making processes. LAs frequently behave unlawfully (they lose around 96% of tribunal decisions regarding EHCP assessment appeals for example). One only needs to look at LGO decisions to understand that wellbeing of SEND children is not a priority.

42. It has taken around 2 years to "get our son back." We self-fund a mentor and a tutor, he is studying towards a career in sport when 2 years ago he could not leave the house. He understands his needs as an autistic young person and his confidence and self-esteem is returning. This simply would not have happened in a school setting.

43. We were able to close his CAMHS referral as effectively it was the school environment that was making him ill. His needs are simply not compatible with any school setting and for him, home education is not only best, but vital to his wellbeing.

44. We decided not to send our youngest to school as we know from experience that his needs will not be met. Under the current system he is likely to have to "fail" first before putting support in place (which is always too little too late) and we do not want him to have the trauma our other two children have. He is happy and thriving at home.

Rights of the child

45. Where were my daughter’s rights when she was carried into school by staff? When she was restrained? When all she wanted to do was stay with her mum with whom she could communicate and feel safe? Where are her rights if she is forced into a school that does not meet her needs? That causes her trauma?

46. She was discriminated against due to her disability and all she got was a forced letter from the school, no compensation, no meaningful redress. A bill that supposedly considers the wellbeing of a child but reduces a parent’s ability to advocate for their child’s rights and wishes does not deserve the title.

47. Our son is nearly 13, very much of Gillick competence age. Why would he be considered capable of being prosecuted, of making decisions about his medical treatment, yet not able to decide on his education? He should have the right to an education that meets his needs, not forced school attendance.

January 2025.