"64. We note that the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel plans to carry out some
work on EHE, focussing specifically on children who are vulnerable to safeguarding risks
if they are not at school, and analysing “the extent to which elective home education has
been a factor in the serious harm or death of a child.”103 We hope that this work will serve
to better inform policymakers, and inject some light into a heated debate."
Conveniently forgetting that EHE has NEVER been a contributory factor in any SCR, and not only that, EHE was wrongly quoted in over 10 SCRs when the child had no connection to home education at all! Most worryingly about this, there was no process for getting the SCRs reviewed and corrected!
Don't forget: RESEARCH EXISTS!
"The Local
Government Association told us there was “no mechanism” for a council to insist on
speaking to a home-educated child without a specific safeguarding concern."
And, in the absence of any concern, why should a random from the council insist on speaking with a specific child? Why is the assumption that an adult should have the right to speak to someone just because they want to? And if that is a right that adults should have - please can someone get my David Beckham's address so I can invite myself round and demand to speak to him, even "without a specific safeguarding concern"?
 |
I wanted to include a gratuitous picture here of Mr Beckham topless.
However, I couldn't find one due to copyright, so this is the best I could do -
a photo of a window sticker from pixabay.com |
"On the other hand, HEAS found that the present legal framework provided the “correct balance
beween [sic] the rights of home educators and the duties of the authorities.”"
...which is absolutely right. Powers are already there when they are needed, they do not need to be changed.
"We believe
there should be a mechanism for local authorities to speak with a child receiving EHE in
order to assess whether the duty to provide a suitable education is being met."
Does the LA or the ESC or the DfE meet with every single schooled child? Or do they determine the basis of the education from reports produced by the school? Education and welfare should not be conflated - which is what the current ESC continually does,
"” In Ofsted’s view, local
authorities should have powers to visit the child’s home to make assessments of home
education but that those powers should be limited to ensure that they can only be used
when there are “reasonable concerns” about the suitability of the home education, and not
used “routinely.”"
i.e. even Ofsted says that EHE children shouldn't be before an EHEO as matter of routine; only where there are reasonable concerns - i.e. the current guidance.
Government consultation and guidance
This next section is a lot of bollocks and conjecture. Basically, the ESC seems to think that forcing HErs to jump to the tune of the LA will improve relationships, and that defining a 'suitable education' will be beneficial - clearly they do not understand the nuance within home education.
Tracking SAOs, however, will be a good thing for the DfE to do; especially if they publish the results.
Visibility of EHE in wider guidance
"74. We heard that EHE was invisible in key guidance on keeping children and young
people safe. For example, Working Together to Safeguard Children, the statutory guidance
on inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, does not
mention home education."
Or could it be that it doesn't mention EHE because EHE is not a concern? I've not read it, admittedly, but does the Working Together to Safeguard Children document mention veganism, because some children are vegans, or perhaps it mentions pink clothes, because some children wear pink clothes?
The potential role for inspection
In this section, there was 1 paragraph that summarised "Of the hundreds of written submissions that we received from home educating
families and the organisations that support them, many strongly rejected the inspection of
individual families." Yet, there were 7 following paragraphs detailing why there should be inspection. Given that we no over 75% of the published submissions reject any more interference by LAs, why is there disproportionate amount of space given to the minority within this report?
"88. The Department must assign Ofsted a role in quality assuring the delivery of local
authority support for EHE and adherence to EHE guidance. This will require the creation
of an inspection framework, based on the clarified guidance for local authorities and
EHE families that we also expect the Department to produce."
Will this mean that home educating families can complain to Ofsted when a LA steps out of line?
It says in the 2019 Guidance that LAs should tell home educators when there is an upcoming inspection by Ofsted so that they can have their say. I'm still collating the responses from my FOI requests atm, but the vast majority of LAs have never given evidence from home educators into an Ofsted inspection, and of those that say they have, I think they misunderstood (based on ongoing conversations) and thought I was asking about whether Ofsted has asked to view the EHE department - a totally different thing!
"By
contrast, home educators emphasised to us that the fact of being home-educated did
not constitute a safeguarding risk. However, ..."
Home education is not a safe guarding risk. That is 100% true. However, the ESC likes to ignore facts and rather make up biased opinions in order to grab themselves more power.
"91. The Department must clarify and strengthen the expectation in its 2019 guidance
that local authorities make contact with parents on at least an annual basis, so that local
authorities have the ability to see a child in person (at a venue of the family’s choosing)
in situations where this is necessary to establish the suitability of the education they are
receiving. The Department must make any necessary statutory changes to enable this,
and make clear that:
• annual contact with an EHE family is a minimum expectation;
• local authorities should be asking to see examples of children’s work and
parents should not reasonably refuse this;
• local authorities should be assessing children’s progress from one year to the
next, especially in areas such as literacy and numeracy which are essential to
access future educational opportunities and employment. By the time children
are at the age when they would leave compulsory schooling, they should be able
to demonstrate the same baseline numeracy and literacy skills that we expect
from their schooled peers. While children with SEND may follow different
paths, it is vital that they too have the right support provided so that they can
flourish.
92. The Department should provide local authorities with a set of clear criteria against
which suitability of education can be assessed, taking into account the full range
of pedagogical approaches taken in EHE, as well as the age, ability and aptitude of
individual children, including where they may have SEND."
This is quite frankly horrifying.
Annual Contact - only if it is contact (like a report of a phone call [or visit for those who want them]) rather than specifying it must be a visit.
Examples of children's work - how does this work for children who do not produce written work? Maybe the child reads a lot and has great discussions and in depth conversations? How wil this work for unschoolers who often do not produce formal written work?
And what about the rights of the child? What if they don't want to share their work? What if they are a perfectionist and don't want others to see their mistakes? Or what if they had a bad experience at school, and whilst they are happy to produce written work, they do not want it shared?
Assessing progress annually - again, this doesn't make sense and does not take account of all the differing types of home education. My eldest, DD1, taught herself to read aged 3. Once she had mastered that skill (solving the puzzle of shapes on a page), she decided she didn't like reading. She could read, but chose not to. Now she is in secondary school (her choosing) and can read and write with the best of them. Would it be deemed that she hadn't progressed, because I couldn't produce a list of books that she had read each year? When in fact, she could read. On the other side of the HE coin, I know children who couldn't read until they were 10+. They had no need nor any desire to, but learnt plenty in other ways - visually, audibly, orally, hands-on etc etc. Once they had internalised the need and motivation to learn to read, they got on with it. Without the stigma of not being able to ready by XX age, the child had nothing to hold them back. In these cases, it isn't uncommon for the child to develop a love of reading, and reading various 'hard' literary texts.
Similarly in numeracy, children do not learn in straight lines. They do not learn this one year, that the next, but learning is messy, flows from one topic to another and sometimes covers old ground, sometimes learns things anew. Expecting children to progress by following some arbitrary standards defined by age (which though they haven't said it, is what will be up ahead if we're not careful) is not realistic of how people learn.
More consistent support from local authorities, including for children with SEND
Most of this section is good in that it emphasises that there is no consistency across LAs. Unfortunately, my concern is that the ESC will bring all LAs down to the lowest standard <cough>Portsmouth<cough> rather than getting all LAs to behave like their better counterparts.
"The Association of Elective Home Education
Professionals told us in their submission that from Autumn 2021 Birkbeck College
would be offering essential training for local authority EHE professionals."
Who are the AEHEP? Read my previous blog post to find out what we don't know about them. Despite them talking to the DfE lots, having input with the HE Inquiry, and setting up meetings for various EHEOs, the AEHEP is not a professional association. Again, I am in the middle of collating responses from FOIs I have done regarding the AEHEP, and despite repeatedly being told the AEHEP has incurred "no costs except staff time" the number of man-hours x£25/hr means there is in fact a big cost associated with this club.
"99. Given the rise in EHE numbers and lack of consistent support from local authorities,
the Department should commission and roll out a national training package for all
local authority officers with responsibility for EHE—developed with a wide range of
stakeholders—so that those officers have a thorough and consistent understanding of
the duties of and guidance for local authorities. That package should explain the various
EHE approaches—possibly in the form of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). All
local authority officers with responsibility for EHE must be expected to complete that
training as part of their job."
This training
MUST be produced with collaboration with national Home Education organisations. The fact that they are suggesting Mr. Monk's training to be "essential" is dangerous and erodes the little faith that home educators have with the ESC and local LAs.
So, that's the end of Part 4.
Part 5 will be looking at outcomes and assessment for EHE kids.
