HED0475

Written evidence submitted by Dr Richard Bazlinton

My wife and I are home educators. We have four children with whom we have taken the decision to educate at home. We seek to provide them with a broad education enabling them to be the best learners they can be.

In response to the Committee’s call for evidence regarding the following:

1. Benefits gained from elective home education:

1. Children learn within the context of a loving family unit.
2. Children are exposed to multiple-generations within most contexts, be that their own or their peer’s parents, grandparents as well as friends of differing ages.
3. Excellent ‘tutor’ to child ratios enabling robust, focussed, intentional, holistic learning tailored to each child’s mental, emotional and physical needs;
4. Focus on outdoor play, free play to make room for emotional problem solving
5. Peer to peer learning fosters an excitement in discovery of new facts and experiences
6. Emphasis on nurturing emotional intelligence, social skills, relationship health. Emphasis on academics being the enhancement of a life full of love of learning and blessing the people around you with that enthusiastic love of learning.
7. Fostering skills to analyse and question the world around them, to be innovative ‘free-thinkers’.
8. Access to rich, varied books and experiences to foster a love for learning, not just jumping through hoops. Creating world citizens who care about their community, their environment, their faith and their families

Disadvantages:

Social perception and unhelpful, unfactual representations of home education;

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

9. Communication from underfunded, uninformed departments with no experience or knowledge of home education is worse than unhelpful, it is actively intrusive. The benefits listed above are not qualitative, especially not by departments biased by inaccurate media representations of home education. They are already under a duty to intervene in abusive situations and have substantial powers to do so. Further requirements for inspection and registration would stretch an already-limited resource to breaking point.

3. I strongly rebut the proposal for a statutory register and inspection of home educated children. Current legislation is already sufficient to perform the function of monitoring and protecting children. Introducing further measures will erode parental rights and freedom.

4. 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.’
1. Because of the nature of our secure, warm environment, our children have been adaptable, resilient and reasonable.
2. Because much of our academic learning is home and family based, the impact has not been as jarring as their schooled counterparts
3. However, many educational opportunities have been off limits, namely clubs and extra-curricular activities, so our children have been prevented from accessing essential resources. Primarily, being restricted from socialising with other adults and children is an unacceptable circumstance, due to the wider cultural social education they usually receive.

November 2020