The big thing that has been happening lately is the Badman Review of Home Education which was published in June. Home education is the most important thing in our family. It is our choice. It is the way we live our lives. It is our family. And the government wants to police us for our choice. They want access to our home and our children, not because there is any 'cause for concern' - but because I don't send my kids to school.
Our whole way of life is under threat.
I am talking to my MP, along with other home edders locally, and hoping that Labour is ousted before they do away with more of our civil liberties. I cannot believe how a government that appears so socially liberal, can be so politically facsist.
So here are my problems with the Review, taken from a letter to my MP. You will have to know what the recommendations in order to make sense of the last bit. But you can always read those here - and get as angry as me.
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Statutory Duty and Background
From a legislative point of view, there are currently no monitoring duties placed on local authorities concerning home educators. The law clearly states that it is a parent's duty to ensure that their children are educated. Section 7 of the 1996 Education Act states that;
“The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable—
(a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and (b) to any special educational needs he may have,
either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.”
Section 437(1) of the same act states that LAs have a duty to act “If it appears to a local education authority that a child of compulsory school age in their area is not receiving suitable education, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise,...”
Case law clarifies the situation regarding suitability of education and contact between the authority and parents, including LA enquiries to parents about the provision of education.
There are currently Elective Home Education Guidelines for Local Authorities which explain all of this and set out good practice in dealing with home educators.
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/localauthorities/_documents/content/7373-DCSF-Elective%20Home%20Education.pdf
One of the main problems is that over the past decade there have been more and more responsibilities placed on LAs with regard to safeguarding. LAs are inspected by Ofsted on the monitoring arrangements they make for home educators, in spite of there being no legal duty to monitor. Also, the Education Act 2002 states that “A local education authority shall make arrangements for ensuring that the functions conferred on them in their capacity as a local education authority are exercised with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.” [s.175(1)]. Some LAs take this to mean to that they must have access to our children in order to 'safeguard' them. We as parents, wish to protect our children from them.
Purpose of the Review of Home Education
The purpose of the review was predominantly to discover if there were safeguarding concerns with regard to home educated children. According to http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/ete/homeeducation/
“The Government has commissioned an independent review of home education to assess whether the current system of supporting and monitoring home education is the right one.” As stated above, there is no duty to monitor and a visit to any of a number of LA websites will illustrate that there are no funds available to offer home educators any amount of support. There is no consistency between LAs.
At the time the Review was announced in the press, the focus was on child abuse and forced marriage. The NSPCC was interviewed linking home educators with well publicized cases of abuse, such as that of Eunice Spry, for which they have had to issue an apology.
Although the questionnaires for individuals and LAs were vastly different, the questions asked of parents concerned mostly the 5 outcomes of Every Child Matters and a specific question relating abuse, “6 Some people have expressed concern that home education could be used as a cover for child abuse, forced marriage, domestic servitude or other forms of child neglect. What do you think Government should do to ensure this does not happen?”
Firstly, the 5 outcomes of Every Child Matters are supposed to relate to services provided by statutory bodies. They are not legally binding on parents, as parents are believed to have the welfare of their children in mind, unless proven otherwise. Secondly, the formation of the final question above assumes that action must be taken to ensure something does not happen, when there is no evidence that it happens. If the purpose of the Review was to discover if there is any evidence of abuse, why does the question assume that the answer is yes?
Validity of the Review
There are several reasons I believe the review to be invalid (see below). The overall tone of the document is prejudicial and I do not think that the Review's author, Mr Graham Badman is capable of objectivity.
1) No evidence was found that home education is used as a cover for abuse, forced marriage, or domestic servitude and yet safeguarding concerns are still being used to press for statutory changes. In the review Mr Badman states that 'the number of children known to children’s social care in some local authorities is disproportionately high relative to the size of their home educating population.' (8.12)
Firstly, the review finds that the number of children known to be home educated is roughly 20,000, although there are potentially up to 80,000 currently being educated otherwise than at school but who are not known to their LAs (6.1). How can he make a statement about the proportionality of the home educated population known to social care when he does not know what the home educated population is?
Secondly, there is no conclusion to be made about correlation between home education and children known to social care. Several LAs will consider home education itself a trigger for safeguarding concerns and will report families to SS who will not allow them to interview their children, when there is no evidence of child protection issues. There will be several children known to social care departments because of their special needs, and/or other services they or their family members are using. Unfortunately, in the Review, parents were not able to answer any questions on their experiences of their LA.
2)Mr Badman asks the following questions in section 8.2.
“■■ First, if there is abuse of children within the home education community, is it
disproportionally high, relative to the general population?
■■ Secondly where abuse does exist, would a change of regulation with regard to elective
home education have either prevented or ameliorated such abuse?”
The questions are spurious. The first appears to ask if there is abuse of children within the home educating community, but in fact assumes that there is and leaves you considering whether or not home educators abuse more than the general population. The second assumes that the answer to the first is 'Yes'.
In attempting to address these questions, he later states, “despite the small number of
serious case reviews where home education was a feature, the consideration of these reviews
and the data outlined above, suggests that those engaged in the support and monitoring of home education should be alert to the potential additional risk to children.” (8.12) In other words, he sees home education as an 'additional risk to children.'
With questions and assumptions as prejudicial as this, how can there be any claim that this review is objective?
3) Mr Badman uses statements throughout the review to punctuate his points. Almost all of these are from responses made by organisations all saying that LAs should have access to our children and homes in order that they may satisfy themselves that our children are safe. I believe that these statements are sometimes used out of context in order to further his own beliefs.
For example, the Church of England Education division is quoted in the Review as saying
“that children and young people not in formal education are missing the benefits and
challenges of learning in community with their peers. Children who do not go to school
may not experience the social and cultural diversity encountered there; they will not learn
how to deal with the rough and tumble of everyday life; they may never meet people with
different faith and value systems. All such encounters, even the difficult or painful ones are
enriching. We are concerned not only with the five Every Child Matters outcomes, but also
with the spiritual well-being of all children and young people. Spiritual well-being arises not
only from being cared for in a loving family and/or faith community, but also in encounters
with people of different opinions and backgrounds; in learning to listen to a variety of
opinions; to encounter diversity and the riches and life-enhancement it can bring. Spiritual
well-being depends on living and taking a full part in community life. Children and young
people in schools learn about and from the five major religions. This may be a difficult
part of the curriculum for home educators to provide, yet it is vital for the Government’s
community cohesion agenda that all children learn in a balanced way about the variety
of religious values and practices, and to be encouraged to question their own beliefs and
practices.” (4.8)
This is a selective quote, containing paragraphs 7-9 of the whole of the C of E's response. The final paragraph of their full statement asserts that 'We have seen no evidence to show that the majority of home educated children do not achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes, and are therefore not convinced of the need to change the current system of monitoring the standard of home education. Where there are particular concerns about the children in a home-educating [sic] this should be a matter for Children's Services.'
Furthermore, paragraph 5 of their response also says “Prevention of abuse under the cover of home education seems to be the main reason for this review, and in making it so, has the effect of tarnishing the reputation of the many parents who choose to home educate their children from the best of motives.”
Mr Badman has deceitfully and selectively chosen from the whole of the response in order to further his own argument.
4) The parental questionnaire consisted of 6 questions, almost all of which considered the 5 outcomes, and suggested that home ed could be used as a cover for abuse. There were no questions asking about the relationship that families had with local authorities. There are several LAs which are hostile to elective home education (EHE), refer regularly to Social Services, make statements that they believe children are better off in school, require families to provide evidence in ways that are outside the law, insist on entering the home under threats of referral to SS, and generally bully families.
The questionnaire for LAs consisted of 60 detailed questions. This is more than a slight discrepancy and indeed illustrates the importance of LA responses over parental ones. (Annexes C and D of the review list the questions that were asked of parents and LAs.)
5) Badman has chosen to ignore an increasing amount of research.
He states that “I am not convinced by the existing research studies on the outcomes for home educated children both in this country and elsewhere. Although some (but not all) studies have found that home educated children outperform schooled children on a range of indicators, the results may be attributable to parental characteristics (e.g. better educated parents with higher incomes). Some of the studies were also based on small samples and therefore the ability to generalise is limited. Some were based on self selecting, and therefore biased, samples. The diverse characteristics of home educated children make it difficult to generalise about their academic performance.” (10.2)
This research predominantly shows home educated children to have benefited from their experiences. The research of Alan Thomas and Paula Rothermel is particularly useful but has been discounted here. Considering that this review would not withstand academic peer review, it is laughable that Mr Badman makes that statement about research that has withstood such scrutiny.
6) No evidence was found highlighting safeguarding concerns, and yet Ed Balls and Baroness Morgan issued identical statements on the day the Review was published saying that they accepted the recommendations in full. A consultation was begun on that same day, which suggests that the review process was little more than a step towards fulfilling a predetermined agenda.
Problems with the Recommendations
Below are a few comments on some of the Recommendations put forth by the Review. Some numbers have been skipped as they relate to others already mentioned or discuss procedural aspects of potential legislative changes.
Recommendation 1
LAs already have a statutory duty to seek out children missing education (CME), which would bring all home educators to their attention. The bullet points in the first recommendation for a national compulsory registration scheme do not allow for the time families need to adjust to their new learning experiences, i.e. having plans in place within 8 weeks. Nor do they allow for the flexibility that is so much a part of education outside of school. The idea of 'planned outcomes' does not take into account the longer term goals of many home educators, i.e. to instil a love of learning and the confidence to achieve whatever one wants to achieve. It shows a complete lack of understanding of the child led learning process which many home educators follow. The suggestion that LA officers know anything about home education is laughable as home educators across the country are continually met with LA representatives who do not have any experience of or training in issues relating to home education. I would like to state here that I do believe that Manchester is taking positive steps towards working with home educating families and while I believe my previous point to be the case in many LAs, Manchester may be one of the exceptions.
Recommendation 2
The Rose Review is largely irrelevant since the National Curriculum is only compulsory for state schools. It does not apply to elective home educators, nor to private schools.
As for defining what constitutes educational provision as 'suitable' and 'efficient', case law (Harrison & Harrison v Stevenson) already states that a ‘suitable education’ as one which was such as:
1. to prepare the children for life in modern civilised society, and
to enable them to achieve their full potential.
Further case law states that “education is ‘suitable’ if it 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.” [R v Secretary of State for Education and Science, ex parte Talmud Torah Machzikei Hadass School Trust (1985)]
Mr Badman suggests that there is a statutory change so that education is 'sufficiently defined to secure a broad, balanced, relevant and differentiated curriculum that would allow children and young people educated at home to have sufficient information to enable them to expand their talents and make choices about likely careers.'
It would seem that he wants a definition of suitability which already exists in case law. It is my opinion that this recommendation is redundant and could potentially lead to a too prescriptive definition of what constitutes education.
Recommendation 3
This is problematic because of the anecdotal evidence to suggest that LAs treat home educators differently based on their reasons for choosing to home ed. They define 'positive' and 'negative' reasons for the choice and treat those who have had problems in school, and withdrawn their child as a last resort, differently to those who have made a philosophical or lifestyle choice to educate otherwise than at school.
Recommendation 4
Several LAs are already doing this. Manchester has begun having meetings with home educators to work towards acceptable and positive policy which will allow us to build workable relationships. I believe that the government has not allowed enough time to pass since the issuance of the DCFS's Elective Home Education Guidelines for LAs previously mentioned to help improve matters.
Recommendation 7
This is the most serious of all of the recommendations and has huge civil liberties implications. LAs want access to our homes and our children, in order “to satisfy themselves that the child is safe and well.” In other words, this is a complete reversal of the concept of innocent until proven guilty. If you choose to educate otherwise than at school, an option which is equal in statute with schooled education, you must prove to the LA that you are not abusing your children.
In what other area of life does anybody have to prove themselves innocent of abusing their children where there exists no evidence or cause for concern? Simply not being admitted to the home is not a cause for concern. Many LAs act from a position of suspicion with regard to home educators.
Current case law has established that "an education authority should not, as a matter of policy, insist on inspection in the homes as the only method of satisfying themselves that children were receiving efficient full time education" {Judge Donaldson (Phillips v Brown, Divisional Court, [20 June 1980, unreported] }
Furthermore, "the Act of 1944 (replaced by the 1996 Education Act) does not provide for or contemplate an intrusion of a parent’s privacy by inspectors coming into the home and that it is quite wrong for a Local Authority to insist on such inspection." [Lord Parker of Waddington (REGINA v. SURREY QUARTER SESSIONS APPEALS COMMITTEE, ex parte TWEEDIE QUEENS BENCH DIVISION 61LGR 464 Lord Parker of Waddington C J, Widgery J, and John Stephenson J)]
A family's right to privacy cannot be cancelled, especially when the reason for such a cancellation is because they have made a perfectly legal choice regarding the education of their children.
Recommendation 8
This assumes right of access to the home.
Recommendation 9
Suitable training in issues relating to home education should be mandatory and many home educators have been asking for this for years. Manchester has recently undergone training offered by the Sauer Consultancy and is taking positive steps towards developing a working relationship with the home educating community.
Recommendation 10 and 11
Access to resources and exam centres would benefit home educators, but the access must not be conditional. It is worth noting that this would be the one thing that many home educators would like to see go forward, and that Ed Balls already seems to be distancing himself from this recommendation by stating in his response to Graham Badman that “this is a difficult and sensitive area” and there are “uncertainties over the number of home educated children and the demand for services.” In other words, they don't have the money to offer us anything beneficial to ourselves, only to impinge upon our rights.
Recommendation 12
Where I do not fully understand what is being offered here, it is worth questioning the involvement of BECTA as Graham Badman was announced its interim chair in Jan 2009, and has just been confirmed in this role by Jim Knight.
Recommendation 15
I accept that there has been anecdotal evidence of schools suggesting home education to parents as a way of getting rid of problem pupils. However, the information about the option of home education should be made available to all parents. It should also be recognized that there are parents whose children have severe problems within the school setting, which are addressed by a change of provision to elective home education.
Recommendations 18 and 19
That the choice to home educate be a trigger to conduct a review is prejudicial. As previously stated, current legislation states that “The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable—
to his age, ability and aptitude, and
to any special educational needs he may have,
Statements of SEN relate to provision by an institution and it should not be implied that the statement will be relevant to elective home education. The parents of children with SEN should not be subjected to any procedures which go beyond having to provide an education in accordance with section 7 as outlined above.
Recommendation 21
The problem with this is that there are several LAs which consider the choice to home educate to be a cause for concern. Since this annual report is being suggested in order to avoid the “current speculation with regard to the prevalence of child protection concerns amongst home educated children which may well be exaggerated”, it would seem to make sense that something like this occurred BEFORE any legislative changes based on safeguarding were undertaken. However, I would quantify that these reports be subject to academic review, as there is the potential for them to be based on spurious allegations by hostile LAs.
Recommendation 22
LA staff should be trained in issues relating to home education as a whole, not just safeguarding issues.
Recommendation 23 and 24
This is severely problematic as it would effectively remove a parent's responsibility to ensure that their children are educated. This would also be considered a human rights issue as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children" (Article 26, para 3). To deny this right to some parents would be prejudicial.
Recommendation 25
The discussion of targets is confusing. It sounds as if they have to identify a certain number of home educated children about whom there are safeguarding concerns. It is unclear and can certainly not be instigated without there being any academic research to suggest what proportion of the home educating community is affected by protection issues.
Recommendation 26
This undermines a parents' responsibilities. There is a growing tendency for any statutory duty placed on LAs regarding their services for children to be placed on parents as well. Parents are not service providers – they are parents.
Recommendation 28
Providing LAs with the resources to act on any new duties given to them is a substantial undertaking. Another local home educating parent has postulated the following;
Assuming;
there are 80,000 home educated children, as is stated in the review as the high end estimate;
it takes approximately 2 hours per child for assessment (interviews, travelling, communications, writing of reports, etc.;)
then 160,000 working hours would need to be covered. In order to do this, it would take 4571 working weeks, if we assume a 35 hour working week. If the average LA case worker works
47 weeks a year (4 weeks holiday plus a week's sick/training days) this would take approximately 97 extra case workers across the country. If each of these case workers cost the LAs about £30,000 this would cost approximately £2,910,000. Is nearly £3 million an acceptable cost for changing legislation when there is no evidence that it is needed or that it would improve children's safety?
47 weeks a year (4 weeks holiday plus a week's sick/training days) this would take approximately 97 extra case workers across the country. If each of these case workers cost the LAs about £30,000 this would cost approximately £2,910,000. Is nearly £3 million an acceptable cost for changing legislation when there is no evidence that it is needed or that it would improve children's safety?
Conclusion
Throughout the Review there is reference to balancing the rights of children with the rights of parents. It appears that LAs want to interview our children to find out if they like being home educated. Funnily enough, no mention is made of interviewing schooled children to ascertain their wishes regarding their education and compelling the parents of those children to act accordingly. Many parents do believe that home education is a childrens' rights issue. They wish to take the wishes of their children into account when providing an education. However, until all children have the right to choose their educational setting, those children whose parents choose to educate otherwise than at school should not be subjected to additional scrutiny.
If you wish for any further information, the following may be of interest.
The Review in full, plus Ministerial statements can be accessed from this page.
This is the text of a speech given in the House of Commons by the Rt Hon Mark Fields (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con) regarding home education.
Manchester's response to a FOI request stating that there are no cases for concern relating to home educated children.
The full response of the Church of England to the Review, as truncated by Mr Badman."
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