HomeSchooler.org.uk

Dear Ms Gilbert,

We are a national network formed to take action in defence of the freedom of families to choose to educate their children outside the school system. At the time of writing, we have 733 members.

Some of our members have been approached by their local authorities and asked to participate in a research exercise being undertaken by Ofsted. Having read your letter which was supplied in answer to a Parliamentary question on 10th November (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm091110/text...) and having also seen the questionnaires your inspectors are sending to home educators in the sample authorities, we are gravely concerned by the erroneous assumptions which appear to be underlying the process.

Our concerns are:

1. Parents who provide education for their children directly are not subject to inspection by Ofsted, nor by local authorities. We do not understand why Ofsted is undertaking to provide "independent inspection evidence about the quality of provision and outcomes for this group of children and young people". Is this about the quality of education provided by parents, or about the quality of services provided for home educating families by local authorities? Your letter to the minister is not clear on this point.

The letter to parents also does not explain the purpose of the survey. It compares the process to an inspection in a school, and states that the inspectors will not be able to comment about the local authority when meeting with parents. This suggests that the purpose of the exercise is to inspect the local authorities. However, the accompanying questionnaires ask about the content of the children's education in some detail. This is nothing to do with local authority services, and indicates that your survey is an inspection of parents' own educational provision.

From yesterday's House of Commons debate following the first reading of the CSF Bill:

Barry Sheerman: As I understand it, the hon. Gentleman has supported Every Child Matters and the five outcomes for children. Does he really believe, as he implied in response to an earlier intervention, that the five outcomes should apply to 99 per cent. of schoolchildren but not to the home educated? [link]
...

"The meeting HEYC had with the DCSF in August was filmed, but unfortunately we have been prevented from distributing the resulting video by the Department. You may confirm this with them if you wish."

"Seriously, anyone would think we decided to home educate these triplets like we choose pizza for lunch. Shall we have mushroom? Or just cheese and tomato?

I don't know about you, but we went through agony of thinking about the education of our kids, because like you with yours, we love ours. Like you, we didn't take our decisions lightly."

I thought Graham Badman could go no lower in home educators' estimation, but this takes the biscuit.

At our first interview Mr Badman was interested in what I had to say. His opening question was to ask me if home educating mothers suffered from Munchhausen's by Proxy. I thought this to be a curious starting point - that of questioning whether home education is a symptom of mental illness. I am not medically qualified, but I was able to inform Mr Badman that there is no research evidence available that I am aware of, which makes this link.

This actually makes sense of the way the whole review was carried out and written up. If he was starting from that kind of basis of supposition, there was no chance of him ever doing anything good for home educators.

"Local authorities are using proceedings in the family courts as "retaliation" against parents who question doctors' diagnoses of their children or challenge other decisions, according to an MP.
John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley, who coordinates a campaign called Justice for Families, which calls for reform of the family court system, said that the practice was becoming common."...more...

"Anyone who gets a dog has to tell the dog warden when the dog gets to 2 years old,
if the dog will not be attending training sessions at camp;
he will be in contact with you and will want access to your home and garden,
he will ask you questions about your ability to look after a dog, such as do you know how to feed your dog?
he will check if you know how to put a collar on your dog,
he wants to see the dog to see if it's happy,
he will need to keep checking up at least annually as he doubts your ability and knowledge
and thinks you may start abusing your dog at any time.

Now what if,
the dog doesn't like the dog warden and cowers away from him,
the dog is aggressive towards the dog warden as the dog doesn't know him or trust him,
the dog has just rolled in mud and looks a right mess,
the dog didn't eat his breakfast as he has been ill recently,
the dog barks non-stop as he wants attention and is making himself heard,
the dog does 'his business' in the house, which is odd as he never would do that normally,
the dog owner doesn't understand the questions,
the dog owner hasn't read dog training manuals and is going on instinct and learning from those around her,
the dog owner has spent two days tidying and cleaning the house,
the dog owner has been unwell and hasn't tidied or cleaned the house,
the dog owner is frightened that the dog warden will make her give the dog back or
the dog owner is worried that the dog will be forced to do training sessions with strange people and dogs,
as both of the above will make her very nervous or angry towards the dog warden as she wants to protect her dog from harm.

The dog doesn't like this stranger coming to his home and he doesn't like the way his dog owner is stressed before the visit and upset after it. The dog owner would never want her dog to know how stressed or upset she gets, but the dog knows, they have a very close bond you see.

In this voxbox video,"FAQs: Why Personalised Learning", parents and children
share just a few of the reasons why people may chose home education, and
show how personalised learning allows children the freedom to learn in their
own way....see Video here...

"Families are the raw materials from which society is constructed. They constitute the foundations of our civilisation. And it follows that there are few more unnatural actions that the state can undertake than to invade the relationship between parent and child or even to sever it. And while there are occasions when it must interfere, the state has a profound moral duty to ensure that its intervention is both necessary and constructive.

When David Cameron talks of a ‘broken society’, it is of those families who cannot nurture children that he speaks: the mothers who don’t know how to love because they were never loved; the temporary fathers who can barely look after themselves, let alone provide for a family; adults swept into cycles of abuse because they themselves were abused. It was into such an environment that Peter Connelly, Baby P, was born. And it is perhaps to be expected that the adults who surrounded him — and whose faces the public has now seen — attracted the attention of social workers. But while it was right that the authorities intervened, the nature of that involvement, we know now, was tragically wrong."...more...

"Two parents put forward contrasting views on home education plans

In the first of a special series of summer debates on education fault-lines, two home-educating parents put forward contrasting views on government plans for local authorities to monitor them more closely:

Have your say and cast a vote in the poll on the right
Simon Webb is a home-educating parent who fears that some other families are limiting their children’s futures, and says ‘Yes, children deserve better than a scrappy, unbalanced education’

As the father of a 15-year-old girl who has been educated at home since birth, you might expect me to be a firm supporter of home education. But I have grown increasingly sceptical about it. Many of the children being “home-educated” would probably be better off in school."...more...