HomeSchooler.org.uk

The government obsession with collecting data has now extended to five-year-olds, as local Community Health Services get ready to arm-twist parents into revealing the most intimate details of their own and their child’s personal, behavioural and eating habits.

"Just before the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee met for the Badman Inquiry on 12th October 09, they interviewed Dr. Maggie Atkinson about her proposed appointment as Children's Commissioner. Below is the transcript of a part of that interview where they touch on the subject of monitoring Elective Home Educators:"

Survey asking home educators to indicate who they saw in a week.

Imagine this:

Two women from the same company give birth at similar times. When their children reach one year old both women wish to return to work on a part time basis. They decide to job share and undertake reciprocal childcare in order to minimise their outgoings and enable themselves to return to work. The children are very good friends and have grown up together as sisters and the two women are very good friends and trust each other to look after their child.

However, after a visit from Ofsted they have now been stopped from doing this. The reason? Apparently due to the law concerning childcare, this is illegal due to the fact that they get a reward for looking after the child (i.e. reward = childcare when they go to work!)

They have now been forced to put their children into childcare meaning they can't work as they wished due to the elevated costs. In a day and age when the Government want women to return to work, why is it made so difficult for people?

We are asking the Prime Minister to review the meaning of reward in the Children's Act to money and gifts so reciprocal childcare would be allowed.

If you agree, please sign the petition to show your support.

this is urgent. This is your last chance to comment on the Improving Skills
and Safeguarding Children Bill which contains the clause: Improving Monitoring
Arrangements for Children Educated at Home

Responses due in by tomorrow 21st Sept.

More on this with links to the relevant bill here

http://daretoknowblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/very-last-chance-to-comment.html

smaller url

http://tinyurl.com/mofkmo

"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...

"Last week, I asked "Is the summer bad for your child's brain?" Peter Darby (seen here with his family), founder member of online home education group, Action for Home Education explains how summer wasn't the problem....

"It wasn't the summer that worried us. It was the rest of the year.

It was the summer between my son's reception year and year one at primary that set us on the path to Home Education. It was seeing my son's devouring of anything that fired his curiosity during that break that cemented our decision.

My son fought against school. He told us he liked his teacher and his friends at school, but just couldn't express why he resisted. "Resistance" consisted of, at the very least, daily arguments about getting ready, which could lead to screaming matches, which could induce asthma attacks or vomiting. Which over a year of weekdays led to all of us dreading Monday morning.

Reports back from the teachers, however, told us that our son was bright, not remarkably so. Quiet in lessons. Cheerful enough, easily distracted.

At home he was voracious. Any opportunity to learn something new was taken. Granted, we were deliberately taking time to engage him with what we would now call “learning opportunities”, like going out, or looking at books together, or watching TV while talking about it. This is something that a teacher can't do, admittedly, but surely, we thought, they are trained experts. They'll have techniques that make up for that?"...more...

In this short Voxbox film, three home educated young people answer the
frequently asked question "what about qualifications" and share their very
different stories. Their experiences help to show how qualifications - or
the lack of them - does not have to be a barrier tor a home educated young
person going onto to college or university.

Not only Home Educators who are under pressure...

"Pupils and their families will be required to agree to the deal - setting out minimum standards of behaviour and attendance - before the start of term. Contracts, known as Home School Agreements, will also establish parents' responsibilities for the first time.
They face court action and possible fines of up to £1,000 for repeatedly breaking rules."...