Review of Evidence from Children's Commissioner Office HED0970

HERE is a link to the information that I am reading through.  It is the written submission to the Education Select Committee as part of their Home Education Inquiry from the Children's Commissioner Office. I have coloured the background of their words in pale blue, and will keep them in quotation marks.

There is no initial summary here, so I presume the submitted evidence is under 3000 words.

Introduction

"The Commissioner has long had concerns that some home educated children may receive insufficient support and that there is little formal oversight of their educational progress or wellbeing."
And this report continues how it means to go on...  This first paragraph links to several reports (including Invisible Children which I reviewed the TV report of the same name HERE) but would take too long for me to go through each of these in detail now.

"The Commissioner welcomed the Government’s commitment to introduce a compulsory register of children in home education and looks forward to it being introduced at the earliest opportunity."
Has the government made such a commitment? When? How has this information been passed to home educators?

"It is thought that much of this increase is accounted for by families for whom home education is a last resort" - as I stated repeatedly in my read-through of Unicef's evidence, just because something is a last resort does not mean it is an uninformed choice.  Improve schools, definitely, that will improve things for many many children, but don't try to prevent people from home educating, just because you don't want to admit schools are failing.

"Often families make the decision without knowing what home education entails and receive little support to make a success of it, putting parents under immense strain and children missing out on education." I would like to see some stats here please.  Where is the evidence?

"In other cases, we have heard of families who have chosen to remove their children from school in order to go under the radar." Within the current guidance and law, this should already be impossible.  Any child who is removed from a school roll, the school should promptly inform the LA.  Children who are being home educated are not invisible nor hidden.

What the data shows us

Numbers of children being home educated has increased.  Good.  Parents are exercising their duty to educate their children otherwise than at school.  That alone should not be considered a bad thing.  If schools are failing, sort the schools out.  But it could just be because numbers are increasing, information is more available, and the number of people who have been home educated and are now adults are talking about their experiences, showing that HErs are not weird, but are well educated and fit right into society.

"The fact that many children come off the school roll into home education from a small group of schools suggests that the school itself is a key factor in that process. It might be that the parents are dissatisfied with the school and share their knowledge about home education as an alternative option. Or it could be that these schools are somehow encouraging, or perhaps even pressuring parents into making the decision to home educate. Our data does not allow us to tease apart these two explanations."
And in both of these scenarios, it is the school that needs to be further investigated, and not those who choose home education.

"On average, the rate of children being taken out of school into home education in schools rated ‘Inadequate’ in their most recent inspection13 was twice that of schools rated ‘Good’, and over three times the rate of schools rated ‘Outstanding’."
So in schools that are deemed inadequate, parents are doing their legal responsibility and ensure their children get a good education by removing them from the inadequate school? I don't know whether to simply reply 'good' or 'no shit, Sherlock!'.

What needs to happen now

"But children should only be in home education if it is for the right reasons. And it is clear that some children end up in home education because school isn’t working for them. In some cases they have been denied the educational and pastoral support they need to thrive at school, leading to delayed educational progress at home, poor mental health and wellbeing and increased familial stress."
As opposed to all those children who are in school who are not making educational progress there, have poor mental health and wellbeing and increased familial and academic stress?

"Home education is an enormous undertaking for any family, especially those who may have struggled with school themselves."
Evidence Please.

"Parents often do not receive the support they need to make an informed choice before making the decision to home educate. Where proper advice and information is available, it is clear to see that most parents choose to keep their children in school."
Evidence Please.

"Furthermore, it is unacceptable that there is currently so little oversight of children being educated at home. Without this, there can be no guarantee that all home educated children are safe and getting the education they need and deserve."
Why? Education and welfare should never be conflated.

"A statutory register of children not in school must be introduced without delay. The Government announced plans to create a register following the publication of the Commissioner’s previous report on home education and consulted on its proposals last year. However no Government response has yet been published."
Search this blog if you want to see my thoughts why a register is not a good idea.

"Termly visits" No, just no.
"In October 2019 a Serious Case Review found that there is very little local authorities can do when they suspect problems with a home educated child’s welfare or education" This isn't actually true.  If LAs suspect problems with a child's education, they can serve a Notice to Satisfy s437, and if they are still not satisfied, they can give a School Attendance Order.  As for welfare, again, there are things that can be done.  If you look at the SCR referenced, it says that the child was not taken to medical appointments nor to CAHMS, and because of the missed appointment, rather than being chased up, the child was simply removed from these lists.  It is these protocols that are of concern to a child's welfare.

The recommendations 3-5 under Improved Support for Home Educators, aren't actually too bad.  I think they should be optional, as 'support' of this kind often has strings attached, but better compared to the rest of this report.

The final section of this report is all about how schools can improve, so should not be listed under a review into EHE, imo.
Paragraph 9 does say "The process for taking a child off the school roll to be home-educated should be aligned with the process for a permanent exclusion, so that it involves the same level of oversight, and safeguards – including a governors’ panel and independent review panel." and as long as this governor's panel and independent review is internal and investigative for the school, it's not an issue, however we need to be careful that this doesn't become a stepping stone to the parents/child needing approval before EHE is granted.