Home Education Consultation April 2019

Here are my thoughts regarding the New HE consultation that is open from2nd April – 24th June 2019. The questions you get asked vary depending on how you have answered previous questions, so there will be some questions that are not visible to me.

The overview says:

This consultation is about establishing a local authority registration system for children who do not attend state-funded or registered independent schools.Why We Are ConsultingThis consultation is a follow-up to the consultation and call for evidence on elective home education held by the Department for Education in 2018.It seeks views on proposed legislation to establish a register maintained by local authorities of children not attending mainstream schools, together with associated duties on parents and the proprietors of certain educational settings. It also consults on proposed legislation to establish a duty to support parents who educate children at home and seek support from their local authority in doing so.

The Introduction says:

IntroductionThe survey may appear lengthy from the number of pages it contains. However, please note the following:After some preliminary questions about you as a respondent, the survey is structured around the four basic propositions in the accompanying consultation paper, which if possible you should read before completing the survey:a duty on local authorities to maintain a register;a duty on parents to supply information for the register;a duty on certain settings to supply information; anda duty on local authorities to provide support for home educationFor each of these four propositions, you are asked whether or not you agree with the proposition. An answer is required. Whether you answer 'yes' or 'no' determines the next page of questions presented to you, which is about details related to that proposition.For each proposition, the subsequent questions on detail are almost identical whether your answer to the initial question is 'yes' or 'no', but seeking responses on the details separately for respondents who agree or disagree with the propositions helps us to analyse responses more meaningfully.After the basic question and detailed questions on each of the four propositions, there is a final page of concluding general questions.This structure means that the number of questions put to each respondent is only just over half of the total in the overall survey form.Thank you.

The first page asks you for your name, email and in what capacity you are answering the question (eg home educating parent, or on behalf of an organisation or whatever). Incidentally, you do NOT have to fill in either your name nor email, if you don't want to.  Because I have answered that I am a home educating parent, my first question is no7:

Do you agree that local authorities should be obliged to maintain a register of children who are not registered at specified schools (those listed at paragraph 2.2 of the consultation paper) or being educated under s.19 arrangements?

Following my response of ‘No’ to question 7, I then encounter questions 20-31. For each set of questions, I'll give a few of my answers.
There should be no register for home educated children.

A register will hold no benefit for anybody. Any child that is removed from school is ALREADY registered with their LA. Many LA EHEOs are not qualified in home education, let alone pedagogy, teaching or how children learn best. LAs do not have enough funding/budget to adequately support home educators, and having to maintain a register will cause monies to be stretched even further, resulting in the individual families and children not receiving the care they deserve. In order to try and reduce this increased workload, LAs will be forced to cut corners and "encourage" all home educators to tick-box, and coercively restrict the education provision for these children until it mimics a school environment.

There should be no register of home educated children.

Children who are being educated under s.19 arrangements should ALREADY be on a register - either from the school or tuition service that is being provided. As the LA are responsible for providing such arrangements, of course the LA should be aware of who is receiving such services.

There should be no register of home educated children.

Flexi-schooled children will already be registered at the school which they attend.

There should be no register of home educated children.

IF there is a welfare concern, of course information should be shared between various other LAs and agencies. There is ALREADY a procedure in place that can be followed should it be required.

There should be no register of home educated children.

However, if such a register were to be created, of course the LA should be open to inspection from other bodies.

The only non-voluntary registers are birth and death (which are both understandable) and a register of criminals. Home educators are not criminals, and should not be forced to join a register because they have opted to take full responsibility for their children's education, rather than outsourcing it.

Question 32:

Do you agree that parents should be under a legal duty to provide information to their local authority about a child who is within scope of the proposed registration requirement?

To which I answered ‘No’, and it opened up questions 38-42.

Parents should not be forced to provide any information about their children.

Parents should not be forced to provide any information about their children. Parents are legally responsible for the education of their children. If this legal responsibility were removed from parents, there would be many cases of schools being sued because they have not fulfilled their duty of keeping children safe, nor educating them adequately.

Question 43:

43. Do you agree with the general approach that the proprietors of settings providing education in school hours - other than specified types of school - should be under a duty to supply information to local authorities about any child in scope of the proposed register?

I think this means that if a club or service provider, runs during school hours, it will be forced to inform the LA about any children that it caters for.  I said “No”, and got Qs 49-53 – some of which specifically include non-registered HE groups...

Unless their is a welfare concern about a specific child, service providers should NOT be passing on details to the LA about any children.

Q54: Do you agree that there should be a statutory duty on local authorities to provide support on request to parents who educate children at home, of a type to be prescribed by the Secretary of State in regulations?

I found it difficult to understand what was meant by this question:
Does this mean (a) IF a parent requests it, the LA must provide support, OR (b) the LA has been requested by the government to contact all HErs to offer support? My answer to each of these questions would be different.

I’ve decided to assume it means (a) but will clarify exactly what I mean in each text box on the next set of questions.

Assuming this is at the parent's request, so is optional.

There should be no register of home educated children.

LAs should share information about groups, websites and online-groups as requested by local home educators. They should not claim that their legal team has said they are not allowed to give information where they have the express permission from the organisers of said groups.

These should be available to all, and not determined on whether the family is on a register or not.

Q71:

Do you have any comments on the conclusions set out in the published equalities log, UNCRC analysis and family test?

Where are the links to these published documents to enable the question to be answered from an informed position? By not providing easy access to the documents, you could claim that many people have no concerns about the conclusions drawn, when in fact they have been unable to answer due to not knowing what the documents say.

There seems to be multiple ‘Equalities Log’s and I couldn’t find one relevant to this topic.

I don’t know what specific UNCRC analysis is being referred to, but alink to the UNCRC pdf can be found here. 

Here’s a link tothe Family Test. 

There should be no register of home educated children.

Access for support should be entirely voluntary and at the request of the parent. Should support be requested, then LAs should do everything in their power to help the family and child, whatever support is required, including, but not limited to, helping the family to get in touch with other home educating families and local peer-run support groups.

Some home educators want financial support for accessing exams, and enabling home educated students to take exams as private candidates. Again, this should be optional, at the request of the parent, but should it be requested then it should be implemented.

So this is an overview of some of my responses to the consultation. I am not claiming they are perfect answers, but give a guide as to how I answered the questions.
Please don't simply Copy & Paste my answers. However, you are more than welcome to use anything I've written in this post as the basis of your response and to change it into your own words.