HED0390

Written evidence submitted by a 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.]

I am a mother of 3 children and I have only started home educating in [dates]. I am only home educating my eldest child, who is [age], due to [personal information].

I was very pleased to be able to home educate my daughter because [personal information].

Since being home educated she has become a lot happier, [personal information]. 

At school she [personal information]. I do feel that since home educating her, her relationships have been better quality and more beneficial to her.

Although I have, to an extent, been forced into home educating our daughter I do not in any way regret or feel sorry that I have to do it. It is obviously the right thing for her at this point in her life and I am thankful that there is the option to be able to do this. I think the majority of parents want what is best for their children and they know their children best so are in the best place to decide what is right for their children. It would have had disastrous consequences for us as a family if she had been forced to continue going to school or if I had felt that home educating was not an option for us. At the end of her time at school [personal information] and we have purchased a curriculum for her to work through and she is doing well with that at the moment.

The LEA have been involved from the start and I have been happy to discuss with them what we are planning to do in terms of our daughter’s education. I felt nervous before they came over because I didn’t know what the expectations would be, but on both visits we have had they have been very reassuring and made us feel supported. It is a difficult decision to go against the usual route of a school education, so support and help have been invaluable to us and made a difficult situation easier. Our situation was difficult enough and I feel if the LEA had been critical or unsupportive it would have made it that much harder. We aren’t due another visit until the new year, but I’m not sure whether or not that will happen in the current pandemic. However, we feel we have found our feet a bit now, so we are not concerned if this doesn’t take place then. We do appreciate them checking in with us to make sure things are going well, but we don’t feel it is absolutely necessary for our benefit at this stage.

The decision to home educate has obviously impacted on us financially as only one of us can work outside of the house and my options to work are very limited. We have managed to get some benefits from the government due to [personal information], but it is not as much as I would get if I was working full time. We have also had the expense of purchasing the curriculum we have chosen. I do feel there should be more financial help available for families who choose to home educate, especially because of health issues. Although we did chose to home educate our daughter, [personal information].

I hope this testimony will be useful in creating any new policies and you will take my views and experiences into account when doing so.

November 2020