HED0627

Written evidence submitted by Mrs Nichola Whyman

Mrs. Nichola Whyman

Evidence relating to ‘Safeguarding’ and ‘Inspection regimes’ for Home Education

In no specific order, I list all my thoughts in bullet point below to enable easy reading:

• Parents are home educating their children because they believe that’s what’s best for them – it’s the parents that are primarily responsible for how/who they choose to educate their children.
• The current system maintains a balance between family privacy and child protection – Local authorities already have powers to intervene when they have reason to believe that children are not receiving an adequate education or are at risk of abuse. Giving local authorities even more responsibility for safeguarding home-educated children would put them under even more pressure when resources are already stretched. It might even make them more likely to interfere in families where there are no issues, just to protect themselves from criticism. Could this have a detrimental effect for children who really are at risk but might then not receive the attention/focus they need?
• A mandatory register would be another waste of resources – those who are of concern would not bother to register anyway! There’s no evidence to suggest this would be effective.  And why should parents have to seek permission/registration from the government to educate their own children?
• There are definite benefits to home education in some cases also. This could be good thing to avoid bullying, sexual harassment or to tailor the speed, interests or content of the curriculum to the child’s abilities and particular gifts.
• Home schooling can also encourage self-directed study to leave children well equipped for higher education.
• Inspections in home schooling environments are impractical – each situation is different from another and again there is no evidence to support that its effective in protecting at risk children.
• Elective home education is being unfairly linked with unregistered or illegal schools and also with child abuse. All these are separate issues and need to be tackled individually and not all put into the same ‘pot’
• The support for parents should be completely voluntary, with no judgements applied if the parents choose not to follow advice or take up support.
• Could we make the existing support provisions better for those who feel their children’s needs are not properly addressed leading them to home schooling? Children with special needs for example.
• Financial assistance for exam fees or help with exam centres would help for many families.

January 2021