Review of Evidence from the Department of Education HED0987

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 Department of Education. I have coloured the background of their words in pale blue, and will keep them in quotation marks.

Again, there is no initial summary, so I'm assuming it is under 3000 words.

The introduction and the first part of the evidence all seems ok.

P5 "The legal context for home education is set out in the Education Act 1996, section 7 of which sets out that the parent of every child of compulsory school age must cause the child to receive efficient HED0987 full-time suitable education, suitable (a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and (b) to any special education either by regular attendance at school or otherwise. The freedom to discharge this duty ‘otherwise’ than by sending a child regularly to school, in other words through home education, is a fundamental component of the right of parents to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children and the Government is committed to preserving it."

P9 "During 2017 and 2018 there was growing concern about indications of a significant growth in home education, and a Private Member’s Bill was introduced by Lord Soley which provided for a home education registration and monitoring scheme. Against this background, the Department undertook a public consultation in April 2018 on home education policy."

P12 "Over 5,000 responses were received to the consultation and the Government response setting out next steps will be published in due course." including mine HERE.

There's lots of information about how the DfE has strengthened guidance regarding how schools should act.  

Then, in P23 "To support parents and children who may be considering, or have already withdrawn their child from school for, elective home education, we remain committed to a registration system for children not in school." What registration scheme? What will it achieve? Why have Home Educators not known about this upcoming change?  In case you've missed it before, HERE's my views on registration.  "More work is required on the practical aspects of delivery and the Government will also be engaging further with the home educating sector. Further details on this will be set out in the Government response to the CNIS consultation." I should bloody well hope that they will be engaging further with the home educating sector, and I hope we can come together to fight this registration scheme.

And the rest is about schools again.

All-in-all, this document sounds like it understands EHE, until it throws in the comment that they are bringing in a registration scheme and are committed to it.  Clearly further work needs to be done by home educators and HE organisations, to see if we can point out the flaws with registration, the additional costs it will incur, and how ultimately, it won't actually achieve anything it sets out to do.