HED0710

Written evidence submitted by Centre for Social Justice

 

 

Education Select Committee inquiry on home education

Submission from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ)

 

Introduction

 

The CSJ is a Westminster-based think tank. Our vision is to help society’s most disadvantaged individuals reach their potential by redressing social injustices. Our Breakthrough Britain reports identified five pathways to entrenched poverty: educational failure, family breakdown, addiction, serious personal debt and worklessness. As part of our ongoing work, we are undertaking a project on school exclusions and alternative provision, which includes analysis and recommendations that fall within your inquiry’s remit. We outline below a summary of these points.

 

Enabling local authorities to fulfil their statutory duties

 

Problem

 

According to the Education Act 1996[1], education is compulsory in England but schooling is not. The responsibility to provide a suitable education lies with parents. This means that parents have the right to educate their child at home. Local authorities have no formal powers or duties to monitor elective home education (EHE)[2], but they do have a duty to “identify children in their area who are not receiving a suitable education”.[3] It is for each local authority to decide how oversight should work.[4]

 

However, it is not possible for local authorities to meet this duty when it comes to children who are in EHE. This is because nobody knows how many people are in EHE, not even at local level. The most reliable national estimate we have was produced by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator; according to its analysis, as of 29 March 2019, at least 60,544 children were known to local authorities as being EHE in England.[5] This equates to at least 0.7% of the school age population.[6] As the DfE has highlighted, this represents a significant minority.[7] But the actual rate could well be higher still, as fewer than one in ten local authorities are confident that they know of all children who are EHE in their area.[8]

 

The main reason why we lack an accurate figure is that local authorities can only garner an understanding of children who are EHE in their area by consulting a voluntary register. Most children in EHE who are known to local authorities were previously in mainstream school – but this does not strictly mean that the majority of these individuals originally held places in mainstream schools, and local authorities have highlighted the difficulties of identifying children who have never been educated in the state-maintained system.[9] In response to a government consultation in 2018 (on whether a register of EHE was necessary; how EHE was monitored; and the support available for EHE parents), a number of local authorities explained that the voluntary registration system undermined their ability to safeguard children who had not registered because they did not know about their existence, and emphasised that the system rendered EHE pupils new to the area invisible.[10]

 

Despite our lack of certainty about who is in EHE, it seems highly likely that the number of pupils in EHE is increasing. A study by the Association of Directors and Children’s Services (ADCS), based on a sample of 128 local authorities, suggests that the number of pupils known to be in EHE has more than doubled in the last four years.[11] Coronavirus also appears to have accentuated this upward trend and some local authorities have reported particularly sharp increases: Lincolnshire reported a 212 per cent rise (from 124 to 387 children) relative to the same point last year, while in Kent figures rose from 210 to 588 over the same period. The government has acknowledged this sharp spike and recently urged parents not to take the decision to remove their child from the school roll “lightly”.[12]

 

Solution

 

Without better information about which children are in EHE, local authorities cannot fully meet their statutory duty to ensure that all children are receiving a suitable education. Currently, we know there are information gaps at local authority level, but we do not know enough about the nature or scale of these gaps in each case.

 

To address this, government should ask local authorities to conduct a one-off census of all parents in their areas. Parents would be asked to confirm the educational status of their child and, where they were in EHE, whether their child was ever on a mainstream roll and details of any providers used to supplement their education.

 

This information would give local authorities a more comprehensive understanding of children in EHE, and their various needs and routes into EHE. It would enable them to target their resources more effectively, and to distinguish between cases of EHE and children missing from education. And it would help them identify and support the pupils they should be safeguarding.

 

In the first instance, this would be a self-contained, one-off exercise. It is plausible that systems of oversight, and therefore the level of understanding of EHE, will vary considerably by local authority area. In this context, it would be sensible only to prescribe a national register if it were clear that we needed one; this exercise would help inform such a decision.

 

Empowering parents to make an informed choice about EHE

 

Problem

 

Under current legislation, schools and local authorities are not required to work with parents before parents inform schools about their intention to move their children into EHE.[13] Although some local authorities have well developed support services which allow parents to learn about the process and responsibilities that accompany EHE, this is not standard practice nationally.[14]

 

The fact that parents have insufficient information about EHE is problematic for several reasons. More generally, it can lead to rushed decisions. In their recent review of home education, Ofsted highlighted instances where parents had made the decision to home educate in haste, without the necessary information about what EHE would entail or the support services available to them.[15] A significant proportion of parents appear to change their minds: according to one study, the in-year variation of EHE pupils is around 30 per cent,[16] and in one local authority, nearly 4 in 5 of their unplaced pupils were seeking to return to school from EHE.[17] Reintegration to mainstream schools can be highly challenging[18] and school leaders have expressed concerns about returning pupils’ loss of learning.[19]

 

In other cases, parents are deliberately left uninformed about what the decision to home educate will entail. There is growing evidence, for example, that EHE is being used to off-roll pupils (a number of Ofsted inspections[20] and local authority accounts[21] suggest that some pupils are being coerced into home education following the threat of exclusion). Teachers believe that parents with a limited knowledge of the education system are particularly at risk of being off-rolled,[22] and this is supported by accounts of illiterate parents who have been asked to sign pro-forma letters (to move their children into EHE) that they do not fully understand.[23]

 

Having access to objective, reliable advice about the process of moving into, and implications of, EHE would help to mitigate the problems above. However, this is often not easy to come by. For instance, some school leaders do not provide parents with information about EHE in advance of any decision to move children into EHE, as they do not want this to be perceived as an attempt at off-rolling.[24] There is some Department for Education (DfE) guidance on the roles and responsibilities parents have when taking up EHE,[25] but it is unrealistic to assume that all parents will know that this exists – or that they will know how to navigate this advice (for example, where there are language barriers). Many local authorities place copies of the guidance on their websites (although some local authorities prefer to use their own guidance),[26] but advice that would have been useful for parents to have at critical junctures (such as in exclusion panels) is not always provided in a timely fashion and is sometimes offered after children have been sent home.[27]

 

There are also problems with the breadth of the guidance that is offered. For instance, it does not do enough to support informed decision-making when commissioning alternative provision to supplement EHE. Perhaps most concerningly, there is a lack of detail regarding the safeguarding checks parents should undertake to ensure providers are fit for purpose – the guidance simply states that parents “should ask about matters such as safeguarding and checks on staff.”[28] This is particularly problematic as there is a known link between unregistered providers and EHE – according to the ADCS’s annual survey, one LA reported 60 known unregistered providers that supported EHE pupils (a number they anticipated would rise), and 13 local authorities were aware of unregistered or illegal schools operating in their area.[29] Parents “often assume that private tutors and education centres are regulated and do not check the provision.[30]

 

Some local authorities have intervened to help plug knowledge gaps. In Sandwell, for instance, Ofsted commented that “the local authority knows the risk that parents may use unregulated settings to support their home education and has built closer links with […] groups to explain its concerns to parents to try to minimise these risks.”[31] In other authorities, such as Luton, they have developed an entire strategy to help inform the authority about illegally unregulated schools and settings used by home-educated pupils. However, not all local authorities have these sorts of measures in place.

 

Solution

 

Any decision to move a child to EHE should always be well informed, as it should be for any other form of education. Improving the detail of the official guidance would help, but more needs to be done to empower parents in a timely way – both to make decisions about the relative merits of EHE, and to offer/source good quality education if they decide EHE is the right route for their children.

 

To help achieve this, all local authorities should appoint independent advisors to support parents who are considering EHE. Advisors would be available for parents more generally (for instance, to discuss the process schools should undertake/any undue pressure; the realities of EHE; and what support might be available to them) and could use any spare capacity to help support children in EHE. In addition, a school would be obliged to invite an advisor to any material meeting it held with parents about the prospect of, or final decision to move a child into, EHE. The purpose of an advisor’s presence in such meetings would be:

 

 

In cases where meetings were not feasible, the above information would be shared promptly with parents in the form of an information pack.

 

To cover the cost of these new roles, any residual pupil premium funds associated with pupils’ places should be repatriated to local authorities if they move into EHE.

 

Providing more comprehensive support for pupils in EHE

 

Problem

 

Once parents decide to remove their children from the school roll, the amount of support available to them drops significantly.[32] For instance, in some instances, schools have refused to provide past workbooks to parents.[33] (Although there are mechanisms that a parent can use to request previous work, such as a Subject Access Request or right to school file[34], these are not mentioned in the DfE guidance to parents.)[35] There also appears to be little financial and practical support for home schooled children who take GCSEs and other qualifications, and once a pupil moves into EHE it is the parent’s duty to finance any examinations.[36]

 

One unhelpful by-product in the latter case is that there is limited official data on the qualifications obtained by pupils who are in EHE – we do not know how many children in EHE are entered for GCSEs, the examination pass rate for this cohort,[37] or the overall cost to parents of examination.[38] Some local authorities provide limited funding for EHE students and access to exam centres, but this is not the norm.[39] One local authority noted that it is becoming increasingly difficult for children in EHE to find schools that accept learners as private candidates for GCSEs.[40]

 

There also appears to be significant confusion about the extent to which schools are required to, or even can, support a pupil in EHE. [41] As far as we can tell, there is no statutory requirement for schools to offer such support, but there is nothing saying they cannot. And yet according to some school leaders, local authority guidance suggests that they should not be in contact with former pupils or their parents at all following a move to EHE; one school leader said that their interpretation was that “you should not be providing [parents] with anything”.[42] 

 

The general lack of support for pupils in EHE to sit examinations is becoming increasingly concerning, as the recent rise in EHE seems to be particularly pronounced for pupils in Key Stage 4.[43] According to a recent survey, only 41 local authorities actually had data on the known number of children in EHE who had/had not sat formal exams. Of these, six said that no children in EHE had been entered for formal exams. The remaining 35 reported that, between them, only 395 pupils sat formal exams last year.[44] To give you a sense of scale here, at least 11,722 children in EHE were known to be learning at Key Stage 4 on census day in the same year.[45]

 

Solution

 

Once the decision to home educate a child has been made, there needs to be a greater sharing of resources, both practical and financial, to support that child’s learning. When children move into EHE, therefore, schools should have a duty to provide parents with a handover pack. This would include all exercise books, evidence of prior attainment, and details of any qualifications they were preparing them for up to the point of departure. If a child is moved off-roll to EHE in Key Stage 4, the money that was allocated to their exam costs in the school budget should be made available to support the costs of official examinations at this level.

 

Giving children who need it a route back to mainstream

 

Problem

 

As we have outlined in this submission, there is very little transparency regarding the process and premise that underpin parents’ decisions to move children to EHE, and once pupils leave the school system it can be difficult to reintegrate.[46]

 

We have also explained in this submission that, in some cases, parents are deliberately left uninformed about what the decision to home educate will entail – for example, a number of Ofsted inspections[47] and local authority accounts[48] suggest that some pupils are being coerced into home education following the threat of exclusion. And as the Timpson review of school exclusions highlighted, there needs to be stronger safeguards in place to prevent coerced moves into elective home education.[49]

 

Solution

 

In the first six weeks after a decision has been made to move a child into EHE, parents should have the right to apply for a return to the original mainstream school from which they left. Both of the challenges we outline above would be tempered by introducing this cooling off period.

 

First, it would allow parents to make more informed decisions about their capacity to support EHE, and whether this form of learning complemented their child’s way of learning – all while minimising disruption to a child’s education if they decided that maintained schooling was in fact the right option.

 

Second, it would temper coercive practices, where they take place – particularly when set alongside our recommendation to introduce an independent advisor (please see ‘Empowering parents to make an informed choice’ above). A right to return would incentivise schools to do everything they could to support a child’s education before suggesting a move off-roll.

 

Some local authorities have already implemented ‘right to return policies in the context of EHE, which provide useful templates from which to shape such a baseline requirement.

 

 

December 2020

7

 


[1] Education Act, 1996.

[2] House of Commons Library, 2019. “Home education in England”

[3] Education Act, 1996.

[4] House of Commons Library, 2019. “Home education in England”

[5] Office of the Schools Adjudicator, 2020. “Office of the Schools Adjudicator Annual Report: September 2018 to August 2019”

[6] This figure is derived by using the projected population of 5-16 year olds in England: ONS, 2020. “Estimates of the population for the UK, England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland”

[7] Department for Education, 2019. “Elective Home Education: Call for Evidence 2018. Government consultation response”

[8] Children’s Commissioner, 2019. “Skipping school: invisible children”

[9] ADCS, 2019. “Elective Home Education Survey 2019”

[10] Department for Education, 2019. “Elective Home Education: Call for Evidence 2018 Government consultation response”

[11] ADCS, 2019. “Elective Home Education Survey 2019”

[12] Schools Week, 2020. “Minister intervenes as home education soars”

[13] Ofsted, 2019. “Exploring moving to home education in secondary schools”

[14] CSJ review of Ofsted Children’s Services Inspections.

[15] Ofsted, 2019. “Exploring moving to home education in secondary schools”

[16] ADCS, 2019. “Elective Home Education Survey 2019”

[17] Office of the Schools Adjudicator, 2018. “Office of the Schools Adjudicator Annual Report: September 2017 to August 2018”

[18] Office of the Schools Adjudicator, 2018. “Office of the Schools Adjudicator Annual Report: September 2017 to August 2018”

[19] Ofsted, 2019. “Exploring moving to home education in secondary schools”

[20] Ofsted, 2019. “Exploring moving to home education in secondary schools”

[21] Office of the Schools Adjudicator, 2020. “Office of the Schools Adjudicator Annual Report: September 2018 to August 2019”

[22] YouGov, 2019. “Exploring the issue of off-rolling” (On the behalf of Ofsted)

[23] Tes, 2019. “Illiterate parent was asked to sign off-rolling letter”

[24] Ofsted, 2019. “Exploring moving to home education in secondary schools”

[25] Department for Education, 2019. “Elective Home Education: Departmental guidance for parents”

[26] Plymouth Online Directory, 2020. “Educating your child at home”

[27] For instance, in Norfolk County Council, the procedure is that only once the council has been made aware by the parent that they are being home education that they will send a welcome pack, including form. Norfolk County Council, Services to home educators. (Norfolk County Council, 2020. “Services to home educators”)

[28] Department for Education, 2019. “Elective Home Education: Departmental guidance for parents”

[29] ADCS, 2019. “Elective Home Education Survey 2019”

[30] ADCS, 2018. “Elective Home Education Survey 2018”

[31] Ofsted, 2017. “Sandwell local authority Children’s Services inspection”

[32] Ofsted, 2019. “Exploring moving to home education in secondary schools”

[33] Ofsted, 2019. “Exploring moving to home education in secondary schools”

[34] Just for Kids Law, 2020. “Quick-Guide: students and information rights”

[35] Department for Education, 2019. “Elective Home Education: Departmental guidance for parents”

[36] Department for Education, 2019. “Elective Home Education: Departmental guidance for parents”

[37] Hansard, 2018. “Question for Department for Education- Frank Field: Home Education”

[38] Hansard, 2017. “Question for Department for Education- Kate Green: Home Education: GCSE

[39] CSJ analysis of local authority websites.

[40] ADCS, 2019. “Elective Home Education Survey 2019”

[41] Ofsted, 2019. “Exploring moving to home education in secondary schools”

[42] Ofsted, 2019. “Exploring moving to home education in secondary schools”

[43] ADCS, 2018. “Elective Home Education Survey 2018”

[44] ADCS, 2019. “Elective Home Education Survey 2019”

[45] ADCS, 2018. “Elective Home Education Survey 2018”

[46] Centre for Social Justice, 2018. “Providing the Alternative”

[47] Ofsted, 2019. “Exploring moving to home education in secondary schools”

[48] Office of the Schools Adjudicator, 2020. “Office of the Schools Adjudicator Annual Report: September 2018 to August 2019”

[49] Timpson, 2019. “The Timpson Review of School Exclusion”