Weekly Update

You may have noticed that I have not numbered this weekly update. 
I also have not weighed myself recently.  

This is not a weightloss update.

After spending some time thinking about things, I have decided that I am going to use these weekly updates as just that - a way to update you guys with what has been happening this week, and not use it as a stick to beat myself that I am not losing weight.  As such, it doesn't matter if this is weekly update no 1 or no 422.  The date is automatically attached to the blog post, and you can search it by month if you are so inclined.

This week, I have spend a lot of time painting DD1's bedroom. Of course, she didn't want just one colour on her walls, but two.  And she didn't want one colour on each wall, but two - in a diagonal (I can only be glad that she didn't want an actually fade between the two colours, lol). And I had to paint her ceiling, by myself, with a brush because we had run out of new roller thingies. And then, we had to replace her carpet with laminate, which took the whole of Sunday, but I am (and more importantly, DD1 is) pleased with the results.

We have just ordered her a new bed (which should arrive before Christmas!) and I'm starting to move her stuff upstairs today.  Once her current room is empty, I can then start painting that for my study - yey!  I'm sooooo looking forward to that.  Well, not the painting, but it does need to be done, but I'm looking forward to having my own space where I can hide away when I need to. 

This week, we have also been following a local Christmas Lights Trail.  When I purchased the pack, I was expecting there to be 15 or 20 houses to visit - not over 80!  We did a few on Sunday night, but it looks like we won't be finishing in time for the competition this Sunday, lol.

I'm also continuing with the home education stuff. Locally, we've just requested a formal co-production process with the LA for updating their policy and training.  We'll see if that makes any headway!
Nationally, I'm still involved with the EHE Alliance, looking to fight the HE register and keep up the pressure during this HE Inquiry by the Education Select Committee.

Weighty Worries

I've been trying to write this post for the past fortnight, and I keep starting and deleting.  I'm going round in circles in my mind and I don't know what to do.

I am not losing weight.  It's easy enough to see why - I'm not limiting my eating enough and/or not exercising enough.  And I don't want to.  There, I said it.  I've known for a while my mind isn't in the right place to lose weight.

I'm ok with how I look.  Whilst ideally I would like to lose some weight, actually, I'm ok with how I am. I do have moments, especially when I'm on zoom calls, where I notice my double chin is looking more like a triple or quadruple chin, and I would like to be thinner so I have more choice of clothing, but I don't care enough to change for those reasons.

I'm trying to lose weight in order to have DIEP reconstruction when I have my double mastectomy.  I haven't spoken to a GP or surgeon yet, because I've heard that in order to have DIEP your BMI has to be below a certain level. My BMI is currently 34.5 and I've heard it should be a maximum of 27, if not 25 (ie top end of Healthy weight). So, I've started to think about having implants instead.  I've got no issue with implants, but it's not what I wanted, and that thought makes me sad. Yet, surely if I cared enough, I would make the effort to lose weight? Surely I wouldn't be stuffing mince pies in my gob at every opportunity?

When I had my hysterectomy, I planned on having mastectomy by the time I'm 40.  I'm 38 now, which means (assuming it takes a year for the process [ignoring coronavirus]), I need to see my GP and request it in less than 6 months time. I lack the self belief, let alone will-power, that I am going to be able to lose weight in that time.

I feel like stopping actively trying to lose weight is quitting.  And that isn't good for my depression.
I feel like continuing with the charade of weekly updates makes me a fraud.  And that isn't good for my depression.

If I could have surgery today and any reconstruction I want, I would choose DIEP, even with the added risks of being overweight and the longer recovery time.  Implants is an option, and I could potentially swap implants for DIEP later in the future.  But I don't want implants.  And I don't like to fail.

Who knows? This could be my depression talking, because it's dark and wintery, I've missed my antidepressants a bit too often recently, and I want an excuse to not have to watch what I'm eating with Christmas coming up.  Or it could be that I'm finally facing up to the truth that I don't have the willpower, energy, or strength of character to lose weight effective.  I'm just too lazy.

Weekly Update Y2w48

 Do you know, it's taken me til nearly the end of the year, before I noticed that I've numbered these weeks wrong?!  According to people in the know, it's actually week 49 this week, and that 2020 has 53 weeks in it.  I'm not going to change it now, but thought it was worth commenting.

I haven't actually weighed myself this morning. Yesterday I was 91.5kg and have been bobbling around there for a while, so still not go below 90kilos.  I don't have any defence, other than the Christmas overeating has already started for me - lebkuchen, iced mince pies, chocolate spread straight from the tub, all the usuals, lol.  If I can get to the other side of Christmas without putting weight on, I'll be happy.  I am trying to eat veggies most still.  My husband and I don't have potatoes or bread often any more with our Sunday dinners, but pile up different types of vegetables, and my tastes are slowly changing.  

I haven't got a graph today either.  I was up all night with my pup (and then DD2 came downstairs in the middle of the night after a nightmare) so between the two of them, I haven't had much sleep), so when I woke up and played on my phone (sorry, the daily challenges of Woodoku, Sudoku and Killer Sudoku won't play themselves, ya know) my phone promptly died, so it's currently charging, disabling me from being able to update my spreadsheet.

The past couple of weeks, most my time has been taken up with HE stuff, which is pretty obvious with what I've been posting recently.  There's still more to do, but I was glad I was able to take a day off and not switch my laptop on at all yesterday.

I've also been busy painting DD1's bedroom! It just needs a second coat of blue, the ceiling painted, and the carpet changed for laminate, then she can move in, and I'll be a step closer to getting my own work room!  I want to paint it before I start working there because I know what I'm like - I'd fill it with all my stuff, then decide it'll be too much of a hassle removing everything to paint it, so it will never get done.

I'm aware I haven't written any book reviews for ages either.  I currently have 1 or 2 that I'm still waiting to write, but haven't yet had the time, but I haven't read as much as usual recently, again because of my time taken up reading through various documents, guidance, and letters from LAs.

Part5 - Reading Through Children Missing Education Document by ISOS Partnership November 2020

Part 5, and hopefully the last part. I quite concede that it would have been quicker for you to read it through yourself last weekend, but we’re here now.

HERE is the link to the document I am reading through.

HERE is the link to Part 1.

“Chapter 6: Recommendations for National Government

It is vital that, nationally, we have a system of oversight to ensure that all children receive their entitlement to a formal, full-time education.”

A reminder, children are not entitled to a formal, full-time education.

Paragraph 110 from 2009/10 Children, Schools and Families Committee – Second Report:The Review of Elective Home Education - Children, Schools and Families Committee (HERE) states:

“As outlined, under section 7 of the Education Act 1996, parents have a duty to provide their child with a "full-time", "efficient" and "suitable" education. As the Department's home education guidelines state, there is no legal definition of "full-time". They add: "Children normally attend school for between 22 and 25 hours a week for 38 weeks of the year, but this measurement of "contact time" is not relevant to elective home education where there is often almost continuous one-to-one contact and education may take place outside normal "school hours"". The guidelines also cite the following case law descriptions: an "efficient" education described as one that "achieves that which it sets out to achieve"; a "suitable" education described as one that "primarily equips a child for life within the community of which he is a member, rather than the way of life in the country as a whole, as long as it does not foreclose the child's options in later years to adopt some other form of life if he wishes to do so".”

(The case mentioned being Justice Woolf in R v Secetary of State for Education and Science, ex parte Talmud Torah Machzikei Hadass School Trust. 1985.)

Back to this report...

“As an outcome from this research, we would therefore recommend that the Department for Education considers the following actions, that would support local government to discharge their duties in respect of ensuring all children are able to access a formal full-time education more comprehensively:

Raise the profile of children missing formal full-time education

Our research has shown that the current statutory definition of children missing education does not capture many of the children who are missing out on a suitable education. … We would therefore recommend that the Government adopts a broader definition of children who are missing out on formal, fulltime education, collects and publishes data on the numbers of children who meet the definition and tracks the long-term destinations and outcomes for children missing formal full-time education.”

This is ridiculous, it is quite unbelievable that a professional research company has written it.

They have chosen their own definition of CME that goes against guidance, law and case law. Then say that loads of home educators are not providing an education and that nobody knows the outcomes of children educated in that way, and don’t even think to contact any Home Education organisations who may be willing to share such information! As you saw from the response to the email I said, they still don’t think they did anything wrong by not contacting nor collaborating with home educators.

“Resource local authorities adequately to fulfil their responsibilities in relation to ensuring all children receive a suitable education

The evidence gathered through this research suggests that the lack of capacity and resources within local authorities is one of the key barriers to ensuring that all children receive a suitable formal, full-time education. ... In the current financial climate, few local authorities have the resources needed for the true scale of that task.”

So why exactly are you trying to expand the definition of CME to include many more children who are receiving a suitable, efficient and full-time education, thereby stretching resources even further? It’s a crazy suggestion!

“Create a learning environment in which more children can succeed”

This suggestion is aimed at schools.

“Strengthen the legislative framework around electively home educated children

In April 2019 the Government consulted on changes to primary legislation that would strengthen the oversight and mechanisms for reassurance around electively home educated children. It proposed a new duty on local authorities to maintain a register of children of compulsory school age who are not at a state funded or registered independent school and a new duty on parents to provide information if their child is not attending a mainstream school. The purpose of these changes would be to enable better registration and visibility of those educated other than at school. The evidence collected through this research suggests that both changes would be beneficial in strengthening the oversight afforded to vulnerable children within this cohort and we therefore recommend that the necessary legislative changes are made at the first opportunity.”

The evidence collected suggests it would be beneficial only because you have limited your “research” to those who want a register. You did not attempt to contact the people who would be affected by such a change, ie Home Educators and HE organisations, nor ask whether this proposal would actually achieve what it sets out to? (Using the definition of “efficient” previously given, a register would certainly not be efficient.)

“Epilogue”

“It has become apparent very quickly that schools do not only provide education, essential as that is. Schools are also the eyes and ears of a society that cares about the welfare and safety of children. The first essential line of defence for that very small minority of children who are at risk from their families or the communities in which they live. It is also clear that schools provide advice and support within communities and an eco-system of social interactions that bring families who live in a local area together.”

Rose-tinted glasses! (I won’t say what my first though was on reading this.)

“Appendix A”

Children on a school roll but not attending full-time, may include flexischoolers who have permission from their headteacher to only be in school at certain times, and they should not be grouped with truants, school refusers or any other children in this category who may be missing education.

“Elective Home Education: as shown in Part 1, a parent opting to electively home educate their child can be a route into a child missing formal education. This does not mean, however, that all children who are home educated are missing education. What has been striking in recent years is the rapid increase in the numbers of children being electively home educated and, of those, the high proportion who are vulnerable in some way. Therefore, we have used the 2014/15 EHE figure taken at census (23,000)46 as our baseline for ‘children who are EHE and receiving adequate education’. The uplift from the 2014/15 deadline to 2018/19 is 31,656. Given this high growth, we have made the assumption that 75% of that uplift accounts for ‘children who are EHE but not receiving adequate education’. We have assumed the remaining 25% growth might be accounted for by other factors, including population growth. Therefore, we estimate the number of children who are being EHE but are not receiving adequate education to be 24,000.”

So, between 2014/15 and 2018/19 there was an increase in numbers of home educated children of over 30,000. From these numbers only (I haven’t looked at the original source) this could be an increase of 7,500 children per year; which in turn, spread over 150 LAs (I know there are more than this, I am just keeping the maths simple) that mean each LA has had an increase of 50 children home educated per year. Given the number of schooled children and how accessible information about Home Education and the support on offer from peers and HE organisations, this doesn’t actually sound like an excessive number.

Continuing with their analysis, “we have made the assumption that 75% of that uplift accounts for ‘children who are EHE but not receiving adequate education’”.

Where does this 75% assumption come from? 

I thought it incredible, and looked like it had been plucked out of thin air earlier in this report, but was holding out until Appendix A to find out the rationale behind it. It turns out there is none. They literally pulled it out of thin air, made it up on the spot, and have absolutely zilch to back this figure up. At the very least, I would have hoped there was a slither of analysis – perhaps they contacted LAs and asked them for the number of EHErs and the number of s437 notices issued or SAOs or anything to give a glimmer of a number comparing how many EHE children there are, to how many whose education is unsatisfactory. Or perhaps an indication of the increase in s437s issued in 2014/15 to 2018/19, and applied this number across the 32,000 children who are “newly” home educated? But no, it is totally senseless. Not least because suppose someone took their child out of school in 2015, it seems very odd that you would still consider them “new” in 2019, when a child in Y3 of primary or Y10 of secondary schools, would hardly be considered “new” to school.

So that’s the end of the document and my updates. Sorry it has gone on so long. For a 58 page document, this is page 32 of my rebuttal, and undoubtedly I could have said a lot more.

Part4 - Reading Through Children Missing Education Document by ISOS Partnership November 2020

 

HERE is the link to the document I am reading through.

HERE is the link to Part 1.

I have to admit, I’m getting tired now. In case you didn’t see my update on facebook yesterday, not only am I reading through this and watching the Education Select Committee on Parliament.tv, but I am also trying to help out local HErs, who have been wrongly issued s437s by our LA. They have since come back and said ‘oops, that’s meant to be s436a’ but they still want loads of unlawful information, and for it to be provided by this Friday, and with the threat of an SAO. I am pleased to see that some HErs are fighting back, each in their own way, either complaining by letter or email, or asking for the corrected letters with a new time frame in which to respond, or by seeking legal action to prevent this from happening to others. In other news, I have been asked to join a panel of people who represent HErs, so that is exciting and I’d like to know more about that. And finally (for this rambly intro, anyway), I had a response from ISOS to my email that I mentioned in Part 1. I have to say, I’m not happy with the response, as they seem to want to wash their hands of the damage and have ignored the affects by ridiculously grouping HErs with CME.

My letter:

“Good morning,

I have read through your recent publication on Children Missing Education (Nov 2020) and have noted that you have used the phrase “home education” 30 times, and “home educated” 37 times.  Given that Home Educated children are not Children Missing Education, I am interested in why your document seems to fail to make the distinction between these two separate groups? Similarly, Off-rolling is not the fault of home educators, but that of schools.

Furthermore, in your Bibliography, I cannot see a single Home Education organisation listed has having been used in this research, and there are many within the UK.  Given this document is to influence policy, and many of these recommendations will have a negative impact for home educators, I would like to know why our needs have not been considered?

I hope I am wrong, and I have misread or overlooked a reference within the document itself.  Please can you point me towards which Home Education sites or organisations you have used to complete this document?

Kind Regards,”

Their response:

“Thank you for taking the time to read our report and for getting in touch. In commissioning us to undertake the research the Local Government Association asked us to:

• Develop a national picture of trends in numbers and characteristics of children and young people who are missing a formal full-time education;

• Understand the routes whereby children and young people end up missing education;

• Assess the factors which are contributing to the increasing numbers of children missing education;

• Describe the impact of children and young people missing out on education;

• Identify good practice in how local authorities and their partners can reduce the numbers of children missing education;

Our focus has therefore, throughout, been on those children who are not receiving their entitlement to education, rather than those who are. For the purposes of the research we define ‘formal, full-time education’ as an education that is “well-structured, contains significant taught input, pursues learning goals that are appropriate to a child or young person’s age and ability and which supports them to access their next stage in education, learning or employment”. We define full-time as 18hrs per week. Under our definition, we believe children who are successfully educated at home would be receiving formal full-time education. We do not equate formal full time education with school-based education and we try to state as clearly as we can in the report that in the majority of cases children who are electively home educated are receiving a formal full time education, in the way that we have defined it for the research. We state:

“not all the children who are taken out of school at the instigation of their parents end up missing out on their entitlement to education. Far from it. Indeed, many parents provide an excellent education for their children outside of school. However, the more parents who opt for this route either out of desperation (because they simply do not believe that the education they can access is meeting their child’s needs) or out of fear of or hostility to the actions that schools and government take to safeguard the well-being and development of children, the more children are likely to miss out on their entitlement to education.”

We believe that we have not conflated the two groups of home educated children and children missing education. However, we do believe from the evidence that we have gathered from parents, headteachers and local authorities that there is a subset of children who are electively home educated in name, but in practice are receiving very little education. These may be children

1. whose parents have agreed to home-educate under duress (possibly as a result of an off-rolling action by a school) but are unable or unwilling to actually provide education,

2. whose parents are home educating as a last resort but who do not feel they have the skills or capacity to undertake this duty successfully (often in cases where the school system is unable to meet the special educational needs of a child)

3. whose parents are using home education as a way to avoid legitimate action for non-attendance at school or occasionally even as a means to hinder safeguarding concerns being followed up.

These clearly represent a minority of those children currently electively home educated, but they are a concern. It is also a concern that there is currently no definitive way of telling what percentage of home educated children are not receiving a suitable education.

We do not single out home education as the only possible route whereby children might be missing out on their entitlement to education. For example, we also draw attention to children who are currently on a school roll and missing out on education either because they are attending part-time, or because they are absent for long periods or because they have been subject to multiple exclusions. Similarly, we suggest that a proportion of children in alternative provision may also be missing out on education.

In terms of how we carried out our research, our focus on the children not receiving their entitlement to education guided our choice of organisations to engage. As such, we worked with the LGA and the National Network of Parent Carer Forums to gather feedback from parents who had direct experience of the issues we were exploring through the research.

I hope this helps to shed some further light on our research.

Best wishes

Natalie”

I think this does warrant some follow-up, but I haven’t got my head around what it should be yet.

Back to the report itself…

“Chapter 4: What is the impact on children, families and society of children missing education?”

“Of course, as we have outlined elsewhere in this report, the decision for an individual child to leave a specific school might be the right decision. There were examples in our parents’ survey of where that particular choice has resulted in better outcomes for the child in question. … However, in such cases, the parent has stepped in to provide or commission the education that the child needs.”

And that is exactly what ALL Home Education is – the parent facilitating the learning of the child. It does not have to be structured, it does not have to be formal. It does not have to follow a timetable, a curriculum nor a school day. It does not have to have a set number of hours each week (to be considered full time).

“The detrimental impacts we discuss in the following sections are where the child does not end up receiving formal, full-time education that is suitable for his or her needs.”

I repeat: It does not have to be structured, it does not have to be formal. It does not have to follow a timetable, a curriculum nor a school day. It does not have to have a set number of hours each week (to be considered full time).

EHE is not CME!

The report then goes on to explain the impact/potential impact of a child missing education. I don’t disagree with many of these points, only to say that an electively home educated child is NOT missing education, so should not even be mentioned in reports such as this.

“A child or young person that misses full-time, formal education lacks consistent access to teaching ... In missing out, either intermittent lessons or large periods of a term, a child may miss important work and fall behind peers.”

It explicitly states in the EHE Departmental Guidance, that HErs do NOT have to worry about keeping to the same levels as schooled peers.

“Local authorities emphasised that it was not just missing out on key periods of a school year impacting attainment that was a problem. But that missing out on careers advice and progress meetings with teachers and mentors to plan for the future also contributed to later low employability. This is borne out in the research - the Badman Review…”

Head. Meet. Desk.

Mention his name to any Home Educators in the past 10years or so, and you will be greeted with a collective sigh. Mr Badman doesn’t like home educators so was doing all in his power to stop it.

If you want some more info (because frankly, I don’t have the mental capacity to break it down and simplify it right now, here are some links:

Libertarian Education: https://www.libed.org.uk/index.php/reviews/178-articles/298-the-badman-review
Action for Home Education: http://ahed.pbworks.com/w/page/1553033/LiesDamnedLiesStatistics

Autonomous Education UK: http://www.uncharted-worlds.org/aeuk/2009-aeuk-select-committee-enquiry.html

Ed Yourself: https://edyourself.wordpress.com/2015/03/15/badman-review-of-home-education/

A thorough google search will bring up many, many more.

Humorously, this video of The Badman Song still brings a smile to my face.

“The Office of National Statistics has also quantified the link between low attainment and employability in the general population. … Evidence provided by local authorities, parents, schools and national bodies, as well as existing data and research, therefore, suggests missing out consistently on education affects the educational attainment for children and young people, which in turn has long-term ramifications for employability through into later life.”

And this is one of the problems with having a narrow, school-based view of what education looks like. Home Educators are very aware that there is no timescale for learning, and just because something has not been learned by a specific age, it does not mean that it can never be learned.

“Mental health and wellbeing

Unpacking the relationship between mental health and missing education is complex. As we have set out already in this report, poor mental health or emotional wellbeing, often linked to extreme anxiety, can be one of the factors that leads to a child missing out on formal full-time education. It was certainly a key consideration for many of the parents who responded to our survey.”

If you remove “formal full-time”, then it doesn’t read too bad.

“In a very small number of cases local authorities identified how the unsupported mental health needs of isolated young people who were not in school had tragically resulted in suicide.”

“Not in school” or “Children Missing Education”? They are clearly two very different things. Almost unanimously, the anecdotal evidence for Home Education says that the mental health of the child/whole family improves once the child has deregistered, with many parents wishing they had either made the change earlier, or that their child had never gone to school in the first place.

It would also be interesting to compare this statistic, with the number of schooled children who tragically commit suicide.

“As the NSPCC’s briefing on ‘Home education: learning from serious case reviews’ (March 2014) outlines, children who are home educated become isolated because they have no right to independent access to friends, family but also professional agencies who could provide distinct and specialist support.”

Well, NSPCC is another group that doesn’t like HE due to stereotypes and myth. In reality, Wendy Charles Warner reviewed all SCRs recently (I can’t remember the date off the top of my head, but was in the past couple of years – I’m sure a google would find it; I’ve even mentioned it in previous blog posts) and in NONE of them was HE a contributing factor in the death or serious neglect of the child.

“It must be emphasised that although legally, home educated children have the same rights to access mental health support in the form of CAMHS, by not being in school, a child will have access to fewer trained professionals who can spot warning signs around mental health, such as school nurses, counsellors, external mentors and in-school specialist support.”

Not true at all. Any caring parent will want the best for their child, and home educating parents are no different. If anything, HEing parents often have to fight in order to access various support and professionals! Having a lack of access is not, and should not, be blamed on the parents.

And incidentally, “school nurses” have a responsibility for all children of Compulsory School Age (CSA), whether in school or not.

“Social and emotional development

The lack of social interaction experienced by children missing education and the potential negative impact of this was a key issue highlighted in our regional workshops.”

That is simply because you have not asked people involved with home education; individuals, families nor organisations. Pre-covid (hands-up, things are a bit trickier atm with the constant lockdowns and tiered lockdowns), in my local area, we had a minimum of 5 groups or meets listed for every week day. As a home educator, you couldn’t do everything, but there literally isn’t enough time in the day! Home educators in other parts of the country report similar things. If you live in a particularly rural or isolated area, you may have to make a bit more of an effort, but with technology (proven, thanks in part to covid), there is social interaction even if you so have to stay at home for a period.

“Local authorities expressed concern about children’s low self-esteem and lack of confidence to interact with peers as a result of being removed from or missing full-time education and the possibility of poor emotional development in the longer term.”

Any evidence for this? Noting, again, that being removed from education (I’m assuming being expelled) or missing education (I’m assuming truancy) is different and will have different impacts on the child, compared to one who has been removed from school in order to be EHE.

“This is echoed by significant research into the importance of social interaction and the negative impacts (both short and long-term) of a child that is not socialising sufficiently early or consistently. Key impacts of a lack of social interaction include: low confidence and self-esteem, in particular the lack of belief in a child’s ability to manage stressful situations; anxiety; social withdrawal; and a lack of ability to make friends and therefore, form supportive social networks throughout their lives.”

I wonder if any research has been done on the negative impacts (both short and long term) of a child that is being forced to socialise against their will, and consistent negative interactions, such as bullying?

“The impact that social isolation can have on a child’s life are comprehensively examined in ‘Social isolation in childhood and adult inflammation’ (August 2014) by Lacey et al. The study uses data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) which looked at babies born in 1958 and examined them at age intervals until they were 50 years old.”

That report is: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453014003126 and says about its limitations: “There was no formal measure of childhood social isolation available, however our measure comprises a question relating to peer withdrawal (isolation) and a question relating to peer rejection (bullying) which likely represent different aspects of social isolation. When we looked separately at each of these questions, the associations we saw were largely driven by the bullying item although the other item about preferring to be alone was still associated with raised CRP without considering the bullying item (results not shown).”

Given that Home education was less common in 1958, surely it can be assumed that the participants of this study were schooled children, and as such it cannot be assumed to be correct when discussion home educated children?

“Therefore, their definition of social isolation is not identical to the social isolated experienced by children missing education. Nonetheless, it seems reasonable that similar issues might also be experienced by children who are regularly missing out on exposure to peers and a variety of people.”

No, I don’t consider that to be reasonable, at all. (Again, not to mention that EHE kids are rarely socially isolated.)

I do feel like I’m repeating myself a lot, so apologies for that, though I think it does bear repeating.

“Safeguarding

Throughout our research a key message that has come out of the evidence gathered is that schools and educational settings are a “protective factor” in society…”

Instead, I’d wager that schools (and in turn various authorities) consider that schools and educational settings are a protective factor, rather than there being actual evidence to indicate this. In the highly publicised SCRs, EHE has never been a contributing factor, and all the children were already known to the relevant authorities (not limited to the LAs or Social Services).

“Crime and exploitation”

This whole section is mainly linking exclusions to crime.

“On families and society Local authorities that we engaged in our research were keen to express the broader impact children missing education had on families and society as a whole. From our discussions, the following themes emerged:

1. Family breakdown

2. Worklessness and poverty

3. Reinforcing stereotypes”

It would be interesting to see if there has been any research done relating to these themes and home education? Many people report to having grown closer as a family, through home education, because they see their children (and in turn, the children see their siblings) all the time, not just when they are tired and hungry after a long school day, when they return home feeling overwhelmed and all the anguish and frustration gets released in an explosion. As this happens day after day, family relationships do not have the time to repair as for large sections of the day, they are either asleep or separated at school.

“Family breakdown”

“Having a child at home for extended periods of time can put strain on parents who are not necessarily trained in home education. With parents unable to leave a child alone, some mentioned how they had lost friendships and/or opportunities to socialise themselves. For some parents, they stated how high stress and home education had contributed to bouts of anxiety and depression.”

Firstly there is no training required to Home Educate your own children. The EHE Departmental Guidance states that parents are not required to have reached a specific academic level in order to HE. Whilst in recent years, you can now get diplomas in HE, they are actually totally unnecessary. Home Education is all about facilitating the education, not that you have to be highly qualified and have to teach from your own knowledge, what it is the child wants to learn. And regarding the impact of HE on a parent’s mental health, I would counter and say (anecdotally, as I have not done the research on this) that forcing a parent to offer a formal structured education to their children is likely to do more harm, whereas a child who is allowed to follow their own interests and learn autonomously is more likely to have mentally healthy parents. (Please note the emphasis on forcing. I’m a strong believer that they style of home education that suits the child and the family is by its very nature the best for that family, whether that be structured, unstructured, eclectic or anything else.)

“Worklessness and poverty

Both from our parent survey and through discussions with local authority officers, many voiced concerns around the financial implications that a child missing education can have. This was particularly the case if a parent had to quit their job to look after or educate their child at home. But it was also problematic when families had to pay for resources for home education or for specialist treatments, advocates or professional reports if trying to support the child’s special educational needs.”

When a family decides to electively home educate a child, they do take full financial responsibility for the education, whether that be outsourcing specific groups/activities, buying equipment and books, paying for exams etc. It is important that a parent realises this before they decide to HE, and yet another reason why Off-rolling is so bad.

However, it is possible to HE and work at the same time, whether that be part-time or full-time, in the home or outside it. It is even possible to HE as a single parent on benefits. Yes, there may be lifestyle adaptations needed, but just because the family may no longer be bringing in the big bucks, does not mean that HE should be inaccessible or inadvisable.

“Reinforcing stereotypes”

Other than this report reinforcing stereotypes about HE, this paragraph doesn’t apply to us.

“Chapter 5: What Councils and local partners can and are doing

Area 1: Early identification and support

Area 2: Preventative and restorative action”

“...there was not a single right approach to managing managed moves, fair access and the return of pupils who had been electively home educated;” point of information: not all pupils who were HE have been to school before, and additionally, they may not need active extra support for the transition to school.

“One way in which the principles of fairness and collective responsibility have been put into effect in Telford and Wrekin relates to their approach to children who are Electively Home Educated. In Telford and Wrekin, the Council and school leaders have agreed that the fairest approach to elective home education is that where possible any pupil returning from being electively home educated returns to their previous mainstream school. This has been agreed as an important means of ensuring that elective home education is not used as a way of removing a child from a school where it is not in the child’s best interests …”

I can see this being good to prevent off-rolling. However, life isn’t always that straightforward. What about the case where a child is being incredibly bullied and so the parents remove them from the school roll to electively home educate them; after some time (years), the child’s confidence has built back up again, and they want to try school. Will they be forced back into the same school with the bullies?

“As in many areas the rising numbers of children being electively home educated has been a concern in Warwickshire.”

Why? That is a deeply biased and discriminatory response by Warwickshire council.

“The Children Missing education team have agreed with schools and parents that they will implement a two week ‘cooling off period’ for every new request for elective home education during which they will work with the school and the family to explore the issues and try and find a resolution.”

It depends what this ‘cooling off period’ is specifically for. When a parent decides to EHE and deregisters their child, the school must remove that child’s name immediately. There are no ifs, buts nor exceptions to this that I am aware of. However, if the school comes to an agreement with the LA to not fill that child’s place immediately, but wait two weeks, that does not seem as harmful to HE to me. Yes, there is a risk of scope creep, but there is with all this stuff.

“Area 3: Re-engaging pupils who have been out of education

Area 4: Monitoring and tracking”

This is the area most of concern to HErs, not lease because in the EHE Departmental Guidance it states the LA has no duty to monitor the education.

“Lastly, local authorities underscored the importance of having well-established processes for tracking children who are not in formal, full-time education or at risk of missing out.”

Tracking children who are missing education is a priority. EHE is not CME.

“It also requires that the system has the capacity to follow-up cases where it is not known whether a child is in formal, full-time education, or the reasons why a child is not attending school full-time are not known, or in some cases to confirm that a child is actually receiving education where they are reported to be being educated.”

And informal enquiries are absolutely fine. Immediately issuing a s347 notice to new HErs or long-term HErs who have been told their report is satisfactory, is not fine. <cough>Swindon<cough>

“In response to rising numbers of children being electively home educated, and a greater proportion of these children having a history of exclusions, child protection concern or historic non-attendance, Portsmouth and its schools have developed the most recent collective protocol. Now all headteachers have agreed that they will not take a child off a school roll until there has been a meeting between the school, the local authority and the parent or carer. Schools have also agreed that any child who has been electively home educated for less than six months will automatically return to the original school roll if returning to mainstream education. In the interests of openness and transparency the local authority has also committed to reflecting numbers of electively home educated children back to schools. In the year that the new protocol has been in operation numbers of electively home educated children have begun to fall, whereas previously they were rising rapidly.”

It was my understanding that schools must remove a child’s name immediately, and similarly (except for special schools and specific circumstances) the LA do not have to agree to the child being EHE. Any meeting requested by the school or LA at this stage is optional (are the parents told that?) and the parents do not have to attend. I have also heard that some schools are automatically reporting parents who want to deregister their child directly to Social Services. These heavy handed tactics, and people’s general fear of SS, is more likely to have an effect.

I will continue my, hopefully final, part 5 on Friday, if I can’t squeeze it in tomorrow evening.

For now, my brain is fried!

Link to Part 5: HERE

Part3 - Reading Through Children Missing Education Document by ISOS Partnership November 2020

HERE is the link to the document I am reading through.

HERE is the link to Part 1.

“Destinations of children missing out on a formal full-time education

From the evidence provided by local authorities we have been able to identify eight main ‘destinations’ where children missing out on formal, full-time education might be found.”

I am only going to quote the ones directly linked to home education, rather than going through all the nuances of each of the statements.

“*Receiving long-term tuition at home, either through an internet-based provider or through in-person tuition, when that tuition does not constitute formal full-time education in either duration or content.

*Elective home education where the parent is not able or not willing to provide education that would constitute formal full-time education in either duration or content;

*Unknown to children’s services where the child or family is not previously known in any way by the local authority responsible for providing an education place.”

Again with the ‘formal’. <eyeroll>

Why is a child being unknown to children’s services an automatic red flag? If a family decide to home educate their children from the start, there is no need to inform the LA (and there are many reasons why it’s not a good idea), so why would a family want to?

I am not entirely sure that these eight ‘destinations’ are the only possible destinations, and I’m certainly not convinced they are all bad.

Next comes another diagram supposedly linking the causes and destinations. Elective Home Education is listed amongst all the other negative things.

“What this diagram makes clear is that understanding the full extent of children missing out on their entitlement to a formal full-time education is not a straightforward task.”

No shit. It’s especially ‘not straightforward’ when you don’t understand the terms you are using, misrepresent them, and generally seem to purposely confuse everything.

“Chapter 2: What are the numbers and trends in children missing formal education?

The Children’s Commissioner referred to children missing out on their education as ‘invisible’. This is a powerful descriptor.”

It is indeed a powerful descriptor. It is, also, unnecessarily emotive and designed to give a negative emotion. Not least is it untrue for elective home educators – as Graham Stuart MP said, we’re “peculiarly visible”.

“Available trends from published data

Although there is limited national published data about this cohort of children as a whole, there have been several insightful publications which demonstrate the rising trend in numbers of children being electively home educated and numbers of children leaving schools at times other than normal points of transition.”

All children who are removed from the school roll for home education should be known to the LA. This is the responsibility of schools to pass the information on, and there is no reason whatsoever why these children should become missing.

“The Associated Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) annual survey on home education provides the most comprehensive estimate of the number of children and young people currently being electively home educated in England.4 The survey, which is completed by local authorities every year, suggests that 55,000 children and young people were electively home educated on census day in 2018/19.”

ADCS ‘About Us’ section says (https://adcs.org.uk/general/about-us): “ADCS is a membership organisation. Our members hold leadership roles in children’s services departments in local authorities in England. They specialise in developing, commissioning and leading the delivery of services to children, young people and their families, including education, health, youth, early years and social care services. Working in partnership with other agencies our members work to achieve tailored and joined-up services for children, whatever their identified needs.”

The ADCS have recently published their EHE Survey 2020 (https://adcs.org.uk/assets/documentation/ADCS_EHE_Survey_2020_FINALweb.pdf) stating “we estimate that a total of 75,668 children and young people were being electively home educated on the first school census day, 1 October 2020.”

Maybe when I have more time, I’ll get to go through this document too (or if someone else has done the work, let me know and I’ll put the link here).

“The Associated Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) annual survey on home education provides the most comprehensive estimate of the number of children and young people currently being electively home educated in England.4 The survey, which is completed by local authorities every year, suggests that 55,000 children and young people were electively home educated on census day in 2018/19. This has grown from 37,500 in 2015/16. As shown in the chart below, the numbers climbed dramatically between 2016/17 and 2017/18 and have since plateaued. The ADCS survey also shows that 79,000 children were home educated at any point during 2018/19. This in-year variation suggests that a relatively high number of children and young people may be moving in and out of home education within an academic year. It is worth noting that this data is based on voluntary local authority returns. As parents are not currently required to notify their local authority of a decision to home educate it may be an underestimate. Other sources, including the Schools Adjudicator (December 2018) and the Call for Evidence (July 2019) suggest that between 53,000 and 58,000 children are home educated. 5 6 Although there is some variation on exact numbers, they all point to sharp increases, with the Call for Evidence (2019) suggesting a rise of 40% since 2014/15.

The ADCS survey also sheds some light on the reasons why parents are deciding to home educate their children. While ‘philosophical or lifestyle choice’ remains the most commonly cited factor, the chart below also shows that health or emotional reasons are one of the fastest growing factors for parents choosing to home educate their children. This reflects some of the issues and concerns voiced by parents in our survey and by the school leaders who engaged with this research.”

All these children are known to their LA as being EHE, therefore by definition they are not CME.

“Where the ADCS survey charts the growth in the number of children in home education (one of the eight destinations we identified for children missing education), the Education Policy Institute (EPI) provides some compelling analysis on the number of children leaving their current school for an unknown destination.”

The Education Policy Institute (https://epi.org.uk/) states: “About us: The aim of the Education Policy Institute is to raise standards in education through rigorous data analysis, research and the exchange of information and knowledge to help inform the public and hold government and decision-makers to account.”

“The report ‘Unexplained Pupil Exits from Schools’ (October 2019) estimates the number and prevalence of young people who experienced an ‘unexplained exit’ from secondary school, particularly through off-rolling or managed moves. 9 EPI defines the term ‘unexplained exits’ as any pupil move between terms when the destination of the pupil is not known, for example, they do not show up on another school roll. The data, compiled and analysed by EPI, shows that unexplained exits grew by 8% over the three years between 2014 and 2017 from 55,686 to 61,123.”

Here is a link to that report: https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/unexplained-pupil-exits-data-multi-academy-trust-local-authority/

“The scale of the issue is similar to those becoming electively home educated and is likely to capture many of the same children.”

No! Children who are removed from schools to be home educated are known by their LAs. If this is not the case, and schools are not fulfilling their legal duty to inform the LA when a child is removed from the school roll, this is bad behaviour by the schools, and electively home educated families should not be made to suffer for this.

“The FFT Education Datalab, in a blog series since 2015 called ‘Who’s Left’, have demonstrated similar trends for children and young people disappearing from school rolls. … They estimate that out of an expected GCSE cohort, the number of young people who left state education during secondary school rose from 20,000 in 2015 to 24,600 in 2019. Though FFT Datalab emphasise that not all those leaving state education are of concern, there is a high number in this cohort that are either not recorded as having sat GCSES or equivalent qualifications or, if they did, whose results did not count towards any establishment.”

The FFT Education Datalab (https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/) says “We produce independent, cutting-edge research that can be used by policymakers to inform education policy, and by schools to improve practice.

We are expert analysts of education data and use these skills to produce impactful reports, visualisations and policy recommendations.”

Let me repeat a bit of the preceding paragraph: “Though FFT Datalab emphasise that not all those leaving state education are of concern, there is a high number in this cohort that are either not recorded as having sat GCSES or equivalent qualifications or, if they did, whose results did not count towards any establishment.”

i.e. There is a strong implication that if a student leaves the state education and sits exams as a private candidate (so their results do not count towards any establishment), then there is cause for concern.

Home Educators are well aware that when they start home educating, they also take on full responsibility for the costs associated with that education, including sitting exams. Sitting exams as a private candidate will mean that those results do not count towards any establishment, and why should they? Why should the hard work that that pupil and their family have put into studying for exams, go towards giving some establishment that has done nothing for them?

“National estimate of ‘children missing education’

Without a clear sense of how many children in England might be missing out on their entitlement to a formal full time education it is very difficult to be precise about the scale or nature of intervention that might be needed either locally or nationally to address the issue. We have therefore used this research as an opportunity to use existing data published nationally, and complementary data held locally, to develop an estimate for the number of children who may be missing out on a formal fulltime education.”

“Our sample is of 17 local authorities, with varying rates of response per question. For reference, when scaling up the responses for our question on the number of electively home educated children, we reach an estimate of 75,000. which maps well to the ADCS’ figure of 79,000 for children who are electively home educated at any point in the year.”

There is then a diagram which states that 24,000, ie nearly 33% of home educated children, are actually CME. They say that this number comes from Appendix A, so I’ll go through that when I get there.

“Elective Home Education

Not all children who are home educated are missing education. For the purposes of this analysis we have assumed that 75% of the additional children being electively home educated, from a baseline of 2014-15 are those who will be missing out on a formal full-time education. It is these additional children who are more likely to be those whose parents have chosen to home-educate reluctantly due to shortcomings in the education on offer for their child or those who are home-educating as a result of pressure having been applied by the school. In calculating the additional children in home education, above the 2014-15 baseline, we have used the number in elective home education on census day because there is a more secure comparative timeline for this figure. Based on these assumptions we arrive at 24,000 for the number of children educated at home and not receiving formal full-time education.”

Repeating for emphasis: “For the purposes of this analysis we have assumed that 75% of the additional children being electively home educated, from a baseline of 2014-15 are those who will be missing out on a formal full-time education.”

So, after finding out that nearly 74k children are being home educated, they decide to assume that three quarters of the difference between 2015 and 2019 are being failed?? What an outrageous assumption, with seemingly no basis! I hope that Appendix A expands on this reasoning.

“However, it is important to recognise that this is an estimate based on a set of assumptions. By substituting a slightly different set of assumptions we can explore the likely range in children missing formal full-time education.”

So basically, you’re admitting that you can change the assumptions and numbers in order to skew the ‘research’ however you like, in order to get the response you want.

There is then a table, which claims that the number of home educated children who are not receiving a full time education, lies in the range 16k-32k, which is astounding and not at all based on my experience as a home educator in a local group, nor as part of Educational Freedom, nor from any anecdotes I’ve heard. And to repeat myself again, all these children that have been removed from the school roll are, by default, known to the LA, and if there are indeed this many children not receiving an education (which in my mind is patently false), the LAs are not doing their jobs properly.

Having said that, this kind of accusation could be exactly what has caused my local LA to start ignoring due process, and they are issuing s437s to many home educators as a matter of course, even if the EHEOs were satisfied with their educational provision as recently as last month!

“We cannot be certain of the overall scale of this problem. … However, depending on how ‘full-time’ and ‘formal’ are defined it could be as high as 1,140,000. It is unlikely to be lower than 210,000.”

There is no legal definition of ‘Full Time’ and there is no requirement for the education to be ‘formal’.

“The ADCS survey into home education explores this issue in-depth, indicating that in 2019/20, 38 of the 129 responding local authorities estimated that 6-10% of those in elective home education had Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) compared with 3.1% in the general population.”

This is no surprise given that children with SEN, indeed I’d go so far to say all children, work best when the education is tailored to their needs, and home education facilitates this much more easily than education in any establishment or institution.

I reiterate that because a child is home educated, whether they have SEN or not, does not mean the child is missing education.

“Chapter 3: Why are growing numbers missing out on formal, fulltime education?

Factor 1: The changing nature of children’s needs and experiences

Factor 2: Pressures and incentives on schools’ capacity to meet those needs”

“In setting out these pressures, our aim is not to make generalisations about schools’ practice …”

Interestingly, they seem to have not kept to that aim with regards to home education.

“The first issue influencing how schools could respond to changing pupil needs was the curriculum. School leaders and local authority officers argued that changes to the curriculum, with a focus on a narrower range of academic subjects and assessment through end-of-course examinations meant schools were not in a position to offer the breadth of subjects that might provide alternative pathways for children disengaged from academic study or in need of a more personalised curriculum.”

So if school leaders and LAs both admit that schools are not offering a broad and engaging education, why would anyone want their children to go there?

“Equally, however, while not all schools are engaging in these practices, all local authority officers that we engaged agreed that they had come across examples where a minority of schools in their local area had engaged in these practices. The practices described by local authority officers, and in part also recognised by school leaders, included –

• practices designed to manage admissions to the school in the first place – these included practices of changing pupil admission numbers, admitting pupils above that number so reductions through pupil exits would appear less conspicuous, and practices of subtly discouraging parents from sending their child to the school (including by indicating that the school did not support children with additional needs);

• and practices designed to manage children out of the school, including inappropriate use of attendance codes, part-time timetables, informal exclusions, off-rolling, and inappropriate use of permanent exclusion.”

So when schools are engaging in off-rolling and other illegal/dubious activities, there should be suitable sanctions. Home educators nor flexischoolers should be punished for their actions.

“Factor 3: The capacity of the system to ensure appropriate oversight of decisions taken regarding children’s entry to and exit from schools

Where a child is missing from formal, full-time education, in the large majority of cases this will not be the result of a decision that the child has made, but rather the result of decisions about the child’s education made by adults.”

Equally, when a child is enrolled in formal, full-time education at school, in the large majority of cases this will not be the result of a decision that the child has made, but rather the result of decisions about the child’s education made by adults.

“Aside from the instances of illegal removing of children from a school roll, in many of these instances there will be important nuances to unpick in order to understand how decisions about a child leaving school and potentially missing formal, full-time education have been reached.”

Again, there is nothing in law that says the education must be ‘formal’.

“They noted that the statutory framework set out a clear duty for local authorities to ensure that school-age children are receiving a suitable education. The issue was not a lack of clarity within the statutory framework, but rather a lack of capacity within LAs to carry out the sort of detailed checking that is necessary to ensure that where a child is not in school due to illness or has been taken out of school to be home-educated these decisions have been taken appropriately and the child is safe and continuing to receive a suitable education.”

Given that many EHEOs are not adequately trained in home education, are unaware of both the law and the EHE Departmental Guidance for LAs, I fail to see how LAs will be of any benefit to determine whether the decisions were ‘appropriate’ or not.

“Local authority officers argued that this issue had been compounded by two sets of factors. First, they noted that there were some barriers to collecting the right information to enable effective tracking of all children missing out on formal, full-time education. These included the discretion afforded to parents in whether they inform local authorities of elective home education arrangements and the different definitions of children missing education.”

What barriers? Children are removed from school roll. School informs LA. Simples.

Parents don’t have to inform the LA of EHE, because that is the school’s job.

EHE is not CME.

“The fact that there is not an agreed definition of children missing out on formal, full-time education, and an accompanying national dataset collection, helps to perpetuate what the Children’s Commissioner for England has called the invisibility of this cohort of children.”

That could be because EHE is not CME and the Children’s Commissioner is entirely wrong about calling EHE children invisible.

“Put simply, wider societal factors have meant that children are arriving in schools with a combination of needs, often linked to disruption in their family lives…”

So it’s the family’s fault their children have SEN? No.

Next time I’ll start on Chapter 4: HERE