HED0258

Written evidence submitted by [member of the public]

[Note: This evidence has been redacted by the Committee. Text in square brackets has been inserted where text has been redacted.]

‘the benefits children gain from home education, and the potential disadvantages they may face;’

You get to go to home education meet ups.  You get to learn what you want to at the right stage that you’re ready to.  You get to do different activities that vary greatly, you might be doing a tree activity and then do a moon activity.  You get to learn and play and play and learn.  It really doesn’t matter; it generally gets your learning brain up and working.  In home education, you get to see your family a lot more, even if it is just you, your mum and your dad, you get to see your mum and dad a lot more than you would at school, giving you a better relationship with them. 

A disadvantage is because home education isn’t that popular, people always say, ‘oh, having a day off school or something?’ when really, it’s obvious, we’re home educated.  

‘the impact COVID-19 has had on home educated children, and what additional measures might need to be taken in order to mitigate any negative impacts.’

It has limited the amount of times that we can see friends – this is a big part of home education, in my opinion.  Also, the 2 metre distancing and not hugging, is hard, when you do end up seeing friends. 

‘The duties of local authorities with regards to home education, including safeguarding and assuring the quality of home education;’

If they do that, then it is always going to keep pressure on the trustworthy parent, to keep on keeping things in good shape.  Even though this may seem like a good thing to you, it’s actually not, because it keeps the whole freedom away from home education.

‘whether a statutory register of home-educated children is required;’

No.

‘the role that inspection should play in future regulation of home education;’

Once again, no.  The reason is because there is no reason for inspectors to come round.  They are not going to know much about home education, even the inspectors will get things wrong, because they probably haven’t been home educated and they don’t know anything about it.

November 2020