This is a personal response to the questions for the Elective Home Education Review (ends 20 February 2009). Feel free to use any of it to inform your own answer.
Do you think the current system for safeguarding children who are educated at home is adequate? Please let us know why you think that.
Answer: Not Sure
The current system for safeguarding children may or may not be adequate but that does not vary with the place of education of the child. Children who are electively home educated are at no more risk and are no less likely to be safe than those who are enrolled in school.
I understand that we have a presumption of innocence in this country. This means, among other things, that parents are presumed to be carrying out their legal responsibilities towards their children unless there is reason to believe otherwise. If there are reasons to believe that children are at harm, there are systems and procedures in place for Social Services to investigate and intervene. Those systems are the same for all children, regardless of how their education is provided, and this is the correct situation - it would be morally wrong, confusing to practitioners and potentially dangerous to children to have different procedures for children in different groups, however so defined. I cannot imagine you asking Do you think the current system for safeguarding children who [are black / are Christian / are female / have MPs as parents / are Islamic (delete as appropriate)] is adequate?
On the other hand, I do not think the current system for safeguarding children is at all adequate. Baby P, Victoria Climbié and the Spry children (to name but three examples) were all well-known to LA staff but this did not protect them. Many more children are traumatised by their experiences in school and in the care system. I am a volunteer worker with children and young people and I do not see that CRB checks and all the other pieces of paper that have to be completed do anything towards keeping children safe. In fact, I think they contribute to children being in unsafe situations because the adults are too busy filling in paperwork or not getting close to children in order that they may not be seen as unsafe.
Do you think that home educated children are able to achieve the following five Every Child Matters outcomes? Please let us know why you think that.
I have answered all the parts of this question “Not Sure” in case your system discards answers marked “No Response”. It is not reasonable to include this question in the review as it assumes prior knowledge of the Every Child Matters (ECM) paper and does not even include a link to it. Not all home-educating parents will have been aware of the ECM outcomes before trying to answer these questions. LA staff, on the other hand, have been working with this terminology for a couple of years. How can this be a fair question?
I have read the ECM paper, but this question and its parts make very little sense to me. My understanding is that the ECM outcomes define the priorities for LAs and their partners in providing services for children. It does not make sense to refer to them as targets for individual children and young people, still less to ask if they can be achieved by any particular grouping of children. The wording of the question seems to imply incredulity if the answer were to be “yes” but the ECM outcomes are so ridiculously non-specific that the answer could hardly be anything other than yes!
In general, home-educated children are no less able than children educated in school to “achieve” the ECM outcomes; in fact, I would contend that there is every reason why home-educated children are more likely to “achieve” the ECM outcomes.
Answer: Not Sure
ECM suggests that this means being physically, mentally, emotionally and sexually healthy with a healthy lifestyle and choosing not to take illegal drugs; that parents, carers and families promote healthy choices. In those terms, of course a home-educated child can “be healthy”. Most children are healthy, most of the time – and most normal people (those of us with children to raise rather than with government boxes to tick) do not regard this as an “achievement”. Health is not dependent on whether or not a child is home-educated. If a child has asthma, Down’s syndrome, foetal alcohol syndrome, HIV or even a bout of the common cold, do you define them as failing this outcome? I think that it is appalling that you are suggesting that families and children who are coping every day with ill-health or disabilities are failures.
Home-educated children are more likely to “achieve” this outcome: a home-educating parent can quickly spot a passing illness and deal with it in an appropriate fashion without fear of being pursued under truancy legislation.
Schooled children with chronic illnesses, disabilities or educational special needs are regularly found to be the target of bullying; they then add mental and emotional distress to their other difficulties and some are at risk of inappropriate and unhealthy sexual contact. Children who are deregistered from school for home education gain immediate relief from these additional problems and can regain as much health as possible.
Similarly, many children in school are subject to peer pressure in the area of drugs (alcohol and nicotine, as well as illegal drugs) and may also be subjected to “education” about sex and drugs that is not appropriate to their stage of development. Home-educating parents can introduce such subjects when the child needs the information. They are often very close to their teenaged children (because both parent and young person are working towards the same goal) and are in a better position to guide the young person’s actions.
Answer: Not Sure
So, your question is Do you think that home educated children are able to achieve ‘stay safe’? ECM suggests that this means safe from maltreatment, neglect, violence, sexual exploitation, accidental injury and death, bullying and discrimination, crime and anti-social behaviour; that they have security, stability and are cared for; that parents, carers and families provide safe homes and stability. In those terms, of course a home-educated child can “stay safe”. Most children are safe, most of the time – and most normal people do not regard this as an “achievement”. Safety is not dependent on whether or not a child is home-educated.
However, it is also not something that a child can “achieve”. It is self-evident that not all children “stay safe” – open any newspaper and you will find stories of children who are maltreated, hit, killed in a car or plane crash, fall from a tree or off a bike, suffer bullying or name-calling, or have their mobile phone stolen. In the terms of this question, those children have “failed to achieve” this outcome. The terminology makes it the failure of the children if they are maltreated, neglected or the victim of violence, sexual exploitation, accidental injury or death, bullying, discrimination, crime or anti-social behaviour.
Every day, children assess risks as they go about their normal life; sometimes they assess the risk incorrectly and have an accident. This is a normal part of life, experienced by everyone; in fact, it is a necessary part of life – humans learn through making mistakes and sometimes they learn by things hurting. Parents hope, and try to ensure, that their children learn without killing themselves.
Home-educated children are more likely to “achieve” this outcome than schooled children: a home-educating parent is likely to be around for their child to ask for advice and to help the child to make good decisions. Schooled children spend a lot of time in groups of around the same age with few adults present or in a hierarchical environment where they are expected to defer to various sorts of authority. A child being bullied or abused (whether by a child or an adult) is likely to keep quiet and turn in on themselves, including self-harming. Home-educated children tend to socialise in peer groups with a wide range of ages. For example, the robotics team that meets in my house has five boys from 10 to 14 and three women; we all have equal status and are all accorded respect. There is no need for anyone to bully anyone else. In groups of home-educators, there tends to be a high number of adults – one to every two or three children. This means that any problems can be nipped in the bud at an early stage and the adults can model socially acceptable behaviour.
Answer: Not Sure
So, your question is Do you think that home educated children are able to achieve ‘enjoy and achieve’? ECM suggests that this means children should be ready for school; attend and enjoy school; achieve stretching national educational standards at primary school; achieve personal and social development and enjoy recreation; achieve stretching national educational standards at secondary school; and that parents, carers and families should support learning. In those terms, a home-educated child cannot “enjoy and achieve” (apart from “achieve personal and social development and enjoy recreation”). However, this simply indicates that the ECM criteria were badly written: the author and reviewers presumably did not know that school is not compulsory, which does not give one much confidence.
Statistics indicate that many children at school do not “achieve” this outcome. Many children (especially boys) are not ready for school at four years’ old, when LAs and headteachers coerce their parents into putting them into school. An estimated 1 million children each year demonstrate that they do not attend and enjoy school as they play truant. Many children do not achieve national educational standards (more than 1 in 6 children each year leave school unable to read, write or add up) and many others do not find those standards stretching. Once again, I object to the idea that it is the children who are “failing to achieve” this outcome. It is inherent in the system that a percentage of children will fail – the school system fails those children and young people.
Parents, carers and families often cannot support school learning because they are not up to date with what is happening in their child’s school; too often (especially when a child has SEN), parents find themselves in a battle with the school system to try to get appropriate help. Enjoyment of and achievement in life is not dependent on school – upwards of 55,000 home-educated children are testament to that. Many of them have been de-registered from the school system because of systemic failures and are now thriving in their personalised education.
If we replace the school-based criteria above with criteria based on education, we might say that children should be ready to learn and enjoy learning; achieve their own personal educational standards; achieve personal and social development and enjoy recreation; and that parents, carers and families should support learning. Home-educated children not only can achieve these outcomes, they are extremely unlikely to fail to achieve them.
Schooled children with chronic illnesses often miss lessons and fall behind because schooling fits a timetable laid down by the government and must also accommodate 30 other children. Home-educated children with chronic illnesses can pause in their academic development while they undergo hospital treatment and recovery. Home-educating parents can ensure that their education progresses with respect to the age, aptitude and ability of the child (and, of course, any special needs the child may have).
Many families de-register a child who is failing at school and is predicted never to be able to take exams. After a few years at home developing at their own pace and not suffering the daily humiliation of not keeping up with their age peers, those same young people often go to college or take exams as an independent candidate and do very well. The most important thing that home-educating parents provide is a respect and belief in their child that contributes to rebuilding a self-esteem that the school system has often well-nigh destroyed.
Many home-educating families follow an autonomous path in which they are led by the interests of the child. They often do no formal lessons. In my own case, I decided to home educate before my children were born so they were never registered in school. One child started to read from the age of two; the other did not read until eight. This was not a problem for either of them as we never did formal lessons in numeracy and literacy – instead we carried out informal learning through the medium of life. Both are now (at 16 and 14) studying with the Open University. Informal learning is astonishingly efficient, according to Alan Thomas and Harriet Pattison (How Children Learn at Home, Continuum Books). I know of no home-educated young people who are on the streets or claiming benefit. Those without qualifications are running businesses or have become apprenticed and increasing numbers are accepted into university, with or without formal qualifications. All are enjoying their lives and achieving what they want to achieve.
Answer: Not Sure
So, your question is Do you think that home educated children are able to achieve ‘make a positive contribution’? ECM suggests that this means that children should engage in decision-making and support the community and environment; engage in law-abiding and positive behaviour; develop positive relationships and choose not to bully and discriminate; develop self-confidence and successfully deal with significant life changes and challenges; develop enterprising behaviour; and that parents, carers and families promote positive behaviour. In those terms, of course a home-educated child can “make a positive contribution”. It is not dependent on whether or not a child is home-educated.
Because home-educated children and young people are not closeted in a school for 30 hours per week and do not have additional hours on top of that spent in homework, they have more time to be involved in activities that “make a positive contribution”. Because they have self-determination, they are less likely to feel the need to oppress and bully others.
Answer: Not Sure
So, your question is Do you think that home educated children are able to achieve ‘economic well-being’? ECM suggests that this means they should engage in further education, employment or training on [reaching the end of compulsory school age]; be ready for employment; live in decent homes and sustainable communities; have access to transport and material goods; live in households free from low income; and that parents, carers and families are supported to be economically active.
Yet again, I do not see how a child (home-educated or otherwise) can “achieve” this. It is illegal for a child to be economically active – CRB checks and health and safety regulations make it increasingly difficult for young teens to get part-time work of the type that was common a generation ago and families are prosecuted when their children help out in the family business. A child (home-educated or otherwise) cannot “achieve” living in a decent home and a sustainable community, access to transport and material goods, living in a household free from low income or that their parents, carers and families are supported to be economically active. The very question is a nonsense.
Assuming you meant something like Do you think that adults who were formerly home educated are able to achieve ‘economic well-being’? Of course they can – their ability to do these things is not dependent on whether or not they were home-educated. Let us examine one criterion: living in a household free from low income. This is grammatical nonsense – a household with no income would be free from low income; I will assume it means living in a household with a greater than low income. I am not sure how this would translate into money in the bank, but does someone (formerly home educated or otherwise) who becomes a nurse or a cleaner in the NHS “achieve” this? If not, is it the nurse or cleaner who has failed or the Minister for Health because the minimum wage for those jobs is set low?
Do you think that Government and local authorities have an obligation to ensure that all children in this country are able to achieve the five outcomes? If you answered yes, how do you think Government should ensure this?
Answer: No
I’m glad there are only five “ECM outcomes” – it was getting boring analysing them. I hope you have taken the point that the questions are meaningless when applied to individuals, whether home-educated or not.
Fortunately for the government and local authorities, there is no obligation on them to ensure that all children can achieve the five outcomes. If there were such an obligation, presumably people who do not achieve them would be able to sue the government or local authority for failing to ensure their achievement:
Not only is there no such obligation, it would be impossible for the government to fulfil it if it did exist. I cannot ensure those things for my children (I cannot be sure that they will not be involved in an accident, for example, no matter how careful I am). However, I am best placed to work towards it. Even if the government were to provide me with three people per child to work in shifts looking after the child, it would still not ensure the prevention of a freak accident, such as a driver mounting the pavement. It is a waste of taxpayers’ money for the government to discuss how to fulfil such an obligation.
Do you think there should be any changes made to the current system for supporting home educating families? If you answered yes, what should they be? If you answered no, why do you think that?
Answer: Not Sure
It is difficult to answer “yes” or “no” when there is no current system of support that could be changed. I am tempted to say I prefer it like that because I suspect that any system would not support families but would seek to impose a centralised idea of what support the families should need.
If there were to be a support system, it should help people to achieve their aims. For example, some home educators would like access to sports facilities, GCSEs and A levels. Local authorities could provide those things but they do not. For example, my LA provides a discount card for leisure centres. If I were a foster carer, I would get it for free and would pay almost nothing for my children to use the facilities. As a home educator not on benefits, I have to pay for the card and get only a small discount on use of the facilities.
Most LAs seem to think that “support” means sending parents who deregister a child a multi-page form asking about their qualifications and the names of tutors they intend to use and telling them that they intend to visit the home and talk to the child. This is not support in any sense that I understand it and can be very traumatic for families (especially if a child has been deregistered in distress because a school is not meeting their needs).
Do you think there should be any changes made to the current system for monitoring home educating families? If you answered yes, what should they be? If you answered no, why do you think that?
Answer: Not Sure
It is difficult to answer “yes” or “no” when there is no current system of monitoring that could be changed. (The November 2007 DCSF Guidelines on Elective Home Education for Local Authorities, paragraph 2.7 states that “Local authorities have no statutory duties in relation to monitoring the quality of home education on a routine basis.”) LAs should read these guidelines and abide by them; they should make no attempt to monitor.
Many LAs think that they should be monitoring home education. Almost no LA education officials have any understanding of home education and many of them are peculiarly resistant to being trained informally by home educators in their area. They persist in attempts to measure home-educated children against their schooled age peers. This is inappropriate (whether the home-educated children are operating at a higher or lower level). The schooling system – and the National Curriculum in particular – does not exist because it is the best way to raise children; it certainly does not have a monopoly on understanding how children learn. It is arrogant in the extreme to ignore all research (e.g. Rothermel and Thomas) into home education and to seek to impose the schooling model on families who choose not to delegate the responsibility imposed on them by section 7 of the Education Act 1996.
Some people have expressed concern that home education could be used as a cover for child abuse, forced marriage, domestic servitude or other forms of child neglect. What do you think Government should do to ensure this does not happen?
This question is extremely offensive. Home education is no more likely to be used as a cover for any of these things than any other family activity and home-educating families are no more likely to abuse their children than other families. I would like to see any evidence which gave rise to this question – home educators have been asking to see such evidence since government ministers and spokespeople from the NSPCC and other public bodies started to perpetrate this slander. I think that it is inappropriate to use taxpayers' money to hold two public consultations on the basis of the unsubstantiated concerns of unspecified people. Some people could express concern that GCSE coaching, churchgoing, a family business, being an MP or any number of other activities could be used as a cover for child abuse, forced marriage, domestic servitude or other forms of child neglect.
The vast majority of parents do not wish to harm their children. Where parents do want to do so, I do not think that it is possible that the government can ensure that it never happens. In most cases of child abuse that come to court, the children are in school and are known to the social services department. This still does not prevent children being abused. Perhaps if social services staff were not overworked and undertrained, they may be better able to prevent tragedies.
In the current climate, a home-educating parent is likely to be reluctant to refer a home-educated child to social services because our experience is that professionals worry about the home education to the exclusion of all else. It would be of more help to children if professionals were in possession of accurate facts about home education. For example, one doctor refused to treat a child, blaming his bedwetting on emotional disturbance caused by home education; when the parents insisted on a referral, the child was found to have a kidney problem that could have caused his death.
As you have not provided a box for any other comments, I will add my comments here.
I am disgusted that no specific reason has been given for this review, particularly when various issues surrounding home education have been thrashed out at length over the last two years. The number of consultations and reviews of which home-educating families are the subject is tantamount to harassment. Please recommend that no changes are made in respect of home education and that no further consultations are initiated until there is clear evidence (in the form of Serious Case Reviews or prosecutions) of a need.
The ability of stakeholders to respond to this review is severely restricted by the only means of submission being via an online form (with very small boxes) in a five-week timescale.
The questions in this questionnaire are biased, leading and misleading as I have detailed above. They give the impression that the outcome has already been decided and that the questions are designed to elicit the required answers. What evidence do you have that home-educated children are specifically at risk of any harm (or even of not meeting the ECM outcomes)?
LAs are invited to respond to these questions, while at the same time there is a separate consultation for LAs – how will the results of these two reviews be balanced? In fact, how can they be balanced? The consultation aimed at LAs is significantly more detailed than this one. This can only result in an imbalance in the conclusions and gives the impression that the opinions of LA staff are more valuable than those of home-educating families.
There are other flaws in the questionnaire for LAs:
You have invited LAs to participate in more in-depth research and interviews in February/March. In the interests of balance, I suggest that you also interview home-educating parents or families. I am volunteering to be one of those interviewees. You can contact me on phone number or at email.