Happy Birthday to Me!

So, today's my birthday, and a friend set up a little party for me at a regular HE meet for the kids.

A vegan vanilla sponge, covered in icing and fruit, jam doughnuts, crisps and more fruit on the side. Yum. (I'm not vegan, but my friend is.  The cake was lovely and moist, really sweet and delicious.)

When there, I was asked what I had been given for my birthday, I had to confess that I'd received nothing so far.  

Actually, that's strictly not true, as I know some family have put some money straight in my bank account - since we were kids, my sister and I have given each other a fiver for our birthdays.  As her birthday was yesterday (though there are 2 years between us), I would giver her a £5note, marked somewhere, so I could tell whether she had returned the same money to me or not!  As we're not in the 21st century, we do the same routine, but over bank transfer!

I do know of two presents that I am getting today.  The first because DD1 kept repeating that my husband had bought a CD, despite that he was trying his best to stare at her, and convince her to stop talking, and that she shouldn't be saying anything, because he definitely did not buy a CD...  DD1 just did not pick up on it at all, until I stated quite calmly that my birthday was in a couple of days, and perhaps the CD was for me, and that he didn't want me to know because it was meant to be a surprise, and that he was pulling that silly face because he was trying to get DD1's attention to stop talking... "Oooooooh!!! Yes, we didn't buy anything. Nope!" No, of course not dear, lol.
And then yesterday, my husband said that he had bought me a new screen cover for my phone, which should arrive today, so that can be for my birthday too.

I had been subtle and send him a link to a massager that had been recommended to me, but he hadn't commented on it, lol.  Apparently it's very good for toning up the stomach muscles too.
And in totally unrelated news, it turns out that we have sex more often than the average couple so maybe the massager isn't needed. Sorry not sorry  for the TMI.

So, Happy Birthday to me!  After getting up at 7am for the washing machine repair man, going to our usual HE club in the afternoon, I am now sat waiting for DD1 to finish her dance lessons, so I can drive her to her gym lessons, whilst DD2 has more dance lessons, then my husband will pick her up.  And finally, I'll go to my church's growth group tonight. This is with new people as the previous 2 groups were getting too large, so they have split them again, so there are now 4 groups.  

I don't know what is planned for tea, but I hope my husband is buying cake.  Yes, I'm trying to lose weight, but it's my birthday only once a year.

Weekly Update No18

And the first time I missed Monday!  17 successful weeks isn't bad for someone with my memory! Haha.

I've gained weight again this week.  My usual up-and-down pattern is continuing.  I'm not going to dwell on it, but move on and try again.  It's my birthday tomorrow, and there will be cake.  I might even have a birthday week...

Then next week, I am supervising a load of HE children on an activity residential, so I won't have much control over what I eat (certainly won't be a smoothie for breakfast and lunch), but will probably be more active than I usually am.  If I remember, I'll try and post my weekly update on Sunday, otherwise Update No19 will be missing.

Musings about Bea Jaspert's Blog Post on being a Gender Critic

I've just read this blog post by Bea Jaspert on Medium.

It's really interesting reading, not least because I find myself ignorant, conflicted and confused by the matter. It is hard to find people who can coherently explain opposing points of view, without going tribal, us and them, and throwing insults around. I am ignorant (in the genuine sense) and I want to learn more. I understand there are some people who are intersex or have multiple sex chromosome combinations, beyond the simple XX or XY. I understand gender dysphoria**. What I don't understand is changing your gender identity when you don't want to change your body? I even understand, to a point, is changing the descriptor you use for yourself to a gender-neutral one, as a way to try and promote equality. What I struggle to understand is why can't we celebrate diversity, rather than seemingly forcing a change? As a child, I wore blue, I had more male friends than female, I got on better with boys, I loved football and had a season ticket at Old Trafford, I enjoyed maths and science, I hated fashion, make-up and especially shopping, I liked rock music, rather that pretty-boy-band pop, I drank pints... I could go on. I am female. I love being female, and I find it crazy that some girls with traits such as mine could be convinced that because of these external things, they may actually be a boy. Similarly, why can't boys like pink, wear dresses, play with dolls, like fairies over action heros, want to grow up to be a dad or a childminder or anything else, without people thinking they are gay (which they may or may not grow up to be) or considered to be less male? The world needs more caring men! Why are we so scared of diversity, that we're coming full circle almost and restricting things to male/female, but based on likes and dislikes, rather than science? I'm not even going to attempt to talk about things that I don't understand. I saw a meme comparing the treatment of Caster Semenya and Michael Phelps. I can't find that, but did find this article from the Washington Post talking about it. Again, I don't know the full details, but it appears from what I have read is that Caster Semenya is being treated totally unfairly. What I do know, however, it that women do need to have safe spaces. I spent a few months of my childhood living in a women's refuge, and I would hate to think that the women's safety and privacy could be shattered by a man, who identifies as a women. Before my words get twisted, I'm not accusing all men as being predatory, nor am I accusing all men who identify as women as doing so in order to be predatory, however, women who have finally got to the shelter of being in a women's refuge have been through hell. They need time to recover and grow. They will be on edge, they will be scared, they may make mass generalisations about men, but most of all they need time and they need to feel safe. Safety isn't just a physical thing, they need to mentally and emotionally recover too, and that may not happen if a man is present. If a female identifying trans person has suffered violence, yes, they need to be supported and made safe too. Just, as there are female refuges and male refuges, there should also be various gendered trans refuges too. Going back to Bea's blog, the comments about identifying as female in the boardroom, or in other scenarios, to claim businesses have equality etc. As a feminist, that is a terrifying prospect. Sexism is real and is innate within our culture. Big businesses are already known to be unethical, so this 'get-around' isn't as far-fetched as it might seem at first glance. So, am I a gender critic? I don't know. I don't understand enough either way to make that call.

**For clarity, I'm highlighting this has been edited. I previously mistakenly used the term body dysmorphia, rather than gender dysphoria. As I have repeatedly said, I am ignorant, so I apologise if I have accidentally offended anyone. That certainly wasn't my intention. If anyone reading this is confused about the terms, please read this article or this article.

Weekly Update No17

I've lost 1.5kilos since last Monday (over 3lbs) which is good going.  I'm not getting overly hungry having just a smoothie during the day (not least because I'm being 'naughty' and having a whole bottle a day, rather than two thirds of one - it's only 500kCals in total, so I figure that's fine, the weightloss will just be slower), and am having a proper diner in the evening.

I've even eaten at a restaurant this week, carefully choosing to ensure I eat Veggies Most, and my weight is still slowly coming down.  Yey!

Other than that, I've been a bit quiet this week.  I got the results from my annual mammogram (until I have my mastectomy), and everything was clear.  I also had my ultrasound scan on my abdomen, because of the stomach pain I get. My gall bladder, pancreas, spleen, liver, kidneys and more were all checked, and all look healthy.  So no gall stones, and no pancreatitis. The next step is a camera down my throat to see what could be the problem.

I'm also not reading as fast as I normally would like.  A combination of factors, including the fact I'm trying to keep reading 50 Bible Chapters each week, which is taking up some of my time in the evenings.  I'm still ploughing through Lorna Doone, which I'm enjoying but need to be awake enough to read it (which usually means, after I've read 15-20 chapters of the Bible, I'm too tired to concentrate).  I've also discovered the Chapters App, which are slightly animated short stories, and are really easy to read, chick lit where you can choose your own path. Some of the stories are more graphic than others, so not suitable for young children, but any teens that read Young Adult fiction would be fine.  I've even read one of the stories for real (Dirty Little Secrets by Liliana Hart - well worth reading) so they are real novels (rather than made-up fluff, for the app) and I'm interested in reading some of the real books to see how they compare to the choices I've made.

I've also started doing another MosaiCraft - DD2 had one that she can't be bothered to finish, so I'm completing it for her.  It should be finished next week.

Voss Water Bottle

Before our trip visiting family over Easter, I popped to the shops to buy drinks for the journey, and I was really impressed by something I found - Voss Water.  It costs only £1.80 in Asda, for 800ml of water.  At this point you may be thinking "Only? I can buy water for around 50p!" but the difference is that this water comes in a glass bottle!

Given, that buying good quality water bottles cost from a fiver upwards, with this, you get a reusable water bottle, plus mineral water, for less than two quid.  No more throw-away plastic, no more plastic that gets "recycled" by our councils (aka burnt as fuel or sent abroad), but eco-friendly glass.  I hope other water providers follow suit.

Weekly Update No16

By now, you know that I take 2 steps forward, and 1 step back, so you'd be unsurprised to know that I have put on weight over Easter. 

We travelled to see family on Friday, and Friday itself I was prepared and had a smoothie during the day, and a chicken salad (comfortably saying no to the backed potato) in the evening.  Saturday, however, we went out for lunch with my father-in-law.  I had a salad again, this time with halloumi fries, but I should have stopped eating before I did. And on the way home, I accidentally picked up a chocolate orange ganache dessert, instead of the fruit salad I was aiming for, because it was reduced in the services.  I did say no to the KFC that my family were eating (but ended up eating some of DD2's when she got full).

Yesterday was Easter, and I went to church in the morning.  One of my friends is a great baker, and she made a variety of hot crossed buns, so I had to try both the chocolate and cinnamon and the white chocolate and cranberry flavours.  And the sponge cake with icing.  We went to the beach in the afternoon, and I had forgotten to take my smoothies with me.  So, I shared fish and chips at the cliff-top, and because I ended up driving home, I bought a coffee with copious sugars in (I don't like coffee unless it is very sweet).  It worked, in that I wasn't tired driving, but isn't helpful when trying to lose weight.

So, this morning, I have put on weight.  And even that didn't stop me from ordering pancakes for our Easter Monday Breakfast.  I have learned that bought smoothies do work for me, though, so I will buy some more and stock my fridge up with those.  Also, my husband has decided he wants to lose weight too.  He doesn't fancy having smoothies/juices like me, but he does think going low carb in the evenings is a good thing, so hopefully I'll get some more support for eating meals back with veggies, and be less tempted by takeaways.

Here's hoping!

CME guidance vs EHE guidance

It has been pointed out to me that CME guidance is statutory, and refers to the EHE guidance.  As I have not read the former before, I figured it would be sensible to do so.

For those who don't know, CME stands for Children Missing Education, and is meant to exclude EHE children, ie Electively Home Educated children, so we'll see...  Again, to try and clarify that which I'm referring to, I will colour the quotes - purple for CME and I'll stick to red for EHE.  Some of the quotes have subscript numbers/letters that have copied across - I'm not going to copy across the notes, if you are interested, please read the guidance itself.

CME guidance starts:

This statutory guidance sets out key principles to enable local authorities in England to implement their legal duty under section 436A of the Education Act 1996 to make arrangements to identify, as far as it is possible to do so, children missing education (CME).

Whereas EHE starts:

This is departmental guidance from the Department for Education. It is non-statutory, and has been produced to help local authorities understand their role in relation to elective home education.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, Statutory means "decided or controlled by law", and Statute Law means "a system of laws that have been decided and approved by a parliament", which basically means if something is statutory, you MUST do it, else it is illegal; whereas non-statutory means it's more of a preference or a process, rather than a law that you must obey.

I'm only interested in the parts of the CME guidance that are relevant to HE, but the whole document is linked to above, so if you are interested, you can read it through.

CME says:

All schools (including academies and independent schools) must notify their local authority when they are about to remove a pupil’s name from the school admission register under any of the fifteen grounds listed in the regulations1 (Annex A)...Schools must make reasonable enquiries to establish the whereabouts of the child jointly with the local authority, before deleting the pupil’s name from the register if the deletion is under regulation 8(1), sub-paragraphs (f)(iii) and (h)(iii) (see Annex A).

This confirms that it is the School's Duty to inform the LA that a child has been deregistered to be home educated.  As parents, if you wish to deregister your child (assuming it is not a special school), you simply need to inform the HT of your decision and that you wish your child's name to be deleted.  You do NOT have to inform the LA yourself, that is entirely the school's legal responsibility.

I'll include Annex A when I get to it, at the end of the document.

Section 2 of CME guidance says:

Children missing education are children of compulsory school age who are not registered pupils at a school and are not receiving suitable education otherwise than at a school.

So from the outset, it recognises the fact that children can be receiving a suitable education otherwise than at a school.

Again, Section 4 says:

Local authorities have a duty under section 436A of the Education Act 1996 to make arrangements to establish the identities of children in their area who are not registered pupils at a school and are not receiving suitable education otherwise. This duty only relates to children of compulsory school age2

So, the LA has a duty to identify those children in their area who are not receiving a suitable education, NOT (as some LAs will have you believe) identify all children, without consideration.

Interestingly, the Statutory CME guidance, acknowledges a separation between Education and Welfare of the child, as show in Section 11:

Where there is concern for a child’s welfare, this should be referred to local authority children’s social care. If there is reason to suspect a crime has been committed, the police should also be involved. Where there is a concern that a child’s safety or well-being is at risk, it is essential to take action without delay.

Whereas Sections 7.1 and 7.2 of the EHE guidance says:

7.1 A situation in which a child is not receiving a suitable full-time education requires action by a local authority under education law, as described above. But it is important to bear in mind that unsuitable or inadequate education can also impair a child’s intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development, and may therefore bring child protection duties into play. This will depend on the facts of the case, but local authorities should consider whether they ought to take action under safeguarding law, especially where the steps described above have not been, or seem unlikely to be, sufficient to address a risk to a child’s welfare
7.2 Sections 10 and 11 of the Children Act 2004 give local authorities general duties for promoting the well-being and (in relation to their non-education functions) safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in their areas. This includes children educated at home as well as those attending school. Section 175 of the Education Act 2002 requires authorities to make arrangements for ensuring that their education functions are exercised with a view to safeguarding and promoting children’s welfare. Therefore the general duties of local authorities in relation to safeguarding are the same for all children, however they are educated. Social services teams in local authorities and those dealing with home education should take steps to ensure that relevant information on individual children is shared.

In fact, Section 7 of the EHE guidance is titled "Safeguarding: the interface with home education" and there are 15 subsections.

Sections 13, 14 and 15 deal with Parental Responsibilities:

13.Parents have a duty11 to ensure that their children of compulsory school age are receiving suitable full-time education. Some parents may elect to educate their children at home12 and may withdraw them from school at any time to do so, unless they are subject to a School Attendance Order.
14.Where a parent notifies the school in writing that they are home educating, the school must delete the child’s name from the admission register and inform the local authority. However, where parents orally indicate that they intend to withdraw their child to be home educated, the school should consider notifying the local authority at the earliest opportunity.
15.Children with Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans or statements of special educational needs (SEN) can be home educated13. Where the EHC plan or statement sets out SEN provision that the child should receive at home, the local authority is under a duty to arrange that provision. Where the EHC plan or statement names a school or type of school as the place where the child should receive his or her education but the parent chooses to home educate their child, the local authority must assure itself that the provision being made by the parent is suitable. In such cases, the local authority must review the plan or statement annually to assure itself that the provision set out in it continues to be appropriate and that the child’s SEN continue to be met.

 Section 36 says:

.If there is evidence to suggest the child has moved to a different local authority area, contact should be made with the named person in the new authority using secure communication methods. The local authority should maintain a record of the child’s details until they are located or attain school leaving age.

This fits with section 4.8 of the EHE guidance which says:

As set out in the statutory guidance on Children Missing Education referenced above, local authorities should also be working with each other to identify children, and share data about those who have left a school in one local authority area but have moved to another.

Section 52 lists children at risk of missing education, subsection f says:

Children who cease to attend a school – there are many reasons why a child stops attending a school. It could be because the parent chooses to home educate their child. However, where the reason for a child who has stopped attending a school is not known, the local authority should investigate the case and satisfy itself that the child is receiving suitable education.

So the important point for parents to note is that when you write your deregistration letter, make sure that you state that you will Home Educate your child, rather than just ask for their name to be removed from the school roll.

And there is a link to the EHE guidance in their "Additional departmental advice and guidelines".

Highlights from Annex A: Grounds for deleting a pupil from the school admission register:

4 8(1)(d) - in a case not falling within sub-paragraph (a) of this paragraph, that he has ceased to attend the school and the proprietor has received written notification from the parent that the pupil is receiving education otherwise than at school.

So, getting to the end of the document, the Statutory CME Guidance doesn't seem to contradict the Non-statutory EHE guidance (in my limited understanding).


The CME guidance also linked to 2 further documents that may be relevant to home educators Keeping Children Safe in Education and Working Together to Safeguard Children.  These documents are 112 pages and 111 pages, so I'm not going to read these in detail, but use the CtrlF search function to see if either mentions home education at all.

From the Keeping Children Safe document, there are 74 instances of the word (or partial word) "home", 2 cases of "ehe" as partial words and 143 times "education" is used - and NONE of them reference Home Education.  Similarly, the Working together documents has 61 instances of the word "home",  4 cases of "ehe" as partial words, and 58 times "education" is used - again, none are talking about Home Education.


In Summary, the main points of interest for me are:

• The LA has a duty to identify those children who are not receiving a suitable education (which implies that they do NOT have a duty to identify all children).
• And CME seems to keep the distinction between Welfare and Education, where the former should be referred to SS asap.