About Me:

I am a graduate of home education. I was taught to read at home and subsequently worked through primary and secondary levels of education, graduating with an advanced certificate. This allowed me to successfully apply for an apprenticeship in IT, working for an automotive manufacturer. I studied for a BSc in Computing, and was awarded a first-class honours degree, and won a prize from the British Computer Society for my final year project. I have since continued to work in the IT and home education sectors, and am now home educating my own children.

The Committee invites written submissions addressing any or all of the following points:

• The duties of local authorities with regards to home education, including safeguarding and assuring the quality of home education;
• Local authorities should be aware of how they can support home educators. Far too often the emphasis is on an invasive approach, rather than considering the resources at their disposal to provide facilities that empower and enable home educators to continue providing what often-overlooked research categorically shows is an effective and often superior means of providing solid academic and social grounding to young people.
• In recent times, new guidance provided to local educational authorities have caused them to overstep their legal rights and responsibilities and caused great emotional stress and problems for home educating families. Better training and focus for local authorities, including school nurses, to know how to best provide their services to families who have elected to home educate is a far better approach for all those involved.
• whether a statutory register of home-educated children is required;
• There is simply no need to implement a statutory register of home educated children. Between local authorities, schools, extra-curricular groups, and health authorities, there are more than enough interfaces between home educating families and the wider community. The notion that home educated children are isolated and at risk has no grounding in fact, and is outright offensive and discriminatory towards families who have taken it upon themselves, for a wide variety of reasons, to provide a suitable education for their children at home. The inference of a nationwide register is that home educating parents are doing or have the potential to do harm to those around them, thereby associating law-abiding families with the same potential risks as sex offenders, domestic abusers, and those with other criminal records.
• the benefits children gain from home education, and the potential disadvantages they may face;
• The benefits of home education have been well document by research both here in the UK, and most impressively by quantitative research performed in the United States, where the excellent educational outcomes and societal benefits of home educators is far more recognised. Children benefit from the individualised nature of their academic pathway, opportunities to socialise daily with a wide range of ages, and the comfort, safety, and support of a loving family environment. The historic disadvantages that home educated children often faced from a lack of support available to them locally has been largely eradicated by the increasing number of educational business recognising the opportunity to provide private services to communities of home educators across a wide range of fields including physical education, early development, and preparation for national qualifications.
• the quality and accessibility of support (including financial support) available for home educators and their children, including those with special educational needs, disabilities, mental health issues, or caring responsibilities, and those making the transition to further and higher education;
• While some local authorities have provided support to home educating families including making financial contributions towards their national qualification exams, to the most part it is the experience of home educators and particularly home educating groups that there are more barriers presented to home educators than opportunities. Issues such as exorbitant fees and a lack of availability at community centres or sports halls contribute to extra costs being placed on families that are more often than not shouldering the additional costs of home educating while relying on a single parent’s income. A significant, if not majority of home educating families because of issues they experience in mainstream schooling such as bullying and lack of provision for special educational needs. It is shameful that once out of the system, there is limited financial support available to parents who have decided that they can better provide for their children’s emotional and academic needs within the home environment.
• whether the current regulatory framework is sufficient to ensure that the wellbeing and academic achievement of home educated children is safeguarded, including where they may attend unregistered schools, have been formally excluded from school, or have been subject to ‘off-rolling’;
• The topics of unregistered schooling and off-rolling are specific to other issues within the mainstream education system and should not be used as a means to catch the law-abiding, wider network of home educators who do so out of a heart of love for their children and a desire to provide the very best platform for their future successes.
• the role that inspection should play in future regulation of home education;
• The concept of officers from local authorities invading the privacy of a family’s home for no other reason than that as a result of their legal choice to provide a suitable education for their children at home, and the assumption that as such they are guilty of negligence until proven innocent is utterly abhorrent. Authorities across the board should rather focus on providing facilities and better support to home educating families, and enjoy the cooperative and beneficial outcomes that have been experienced by the few local authorities who have taken this approach.
• In 2008, when homeschooling freedoms were under severe threat in the UK, supporters of home education broke the record for the number of local petitions presented at one time. At the start of the proceedings in the House of Commons, the lead presenter, Graham Stuart MP, made this statement: “If enacted, the government’s proposals will, for the first time in our history, tear away from parents, and give to the state, the responsibility for a child’s education.” His words of warning ring just as true today as they did twelve years ago, and the continued attempts to seize totalitarian control of children’s education are a cause of increasing stress and anxiety to parents and leaders within the home educating community.
• what improvements have been made to support home educators since the 2010-15 Education Committee published their report on ‘Support for Home Education’ in 2012; and
• To the best of my knowledge, there have been no significant improvements to support home educators, and any focus or guidance released in recent times targeting home educating families has led to an increase in aggravating and aggressive tactics from local authorities to invade family privacy and remove freedoms that have long been safely and successfully enjoyed by home educating families from a variety of backgrounds and beliefs.
• 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.’
• The recent restrictions enforced as a result of the pandemic have caused home educating children to miss out on the benefits of groups and extra-curricular activities that they usually enjoy freely. In particular, students who were due to sit exams have been extraordinarily disadvantaged compared to their peers in mainstream education.
• Home educated children have an excellent track record of gaining entry into tertiary education and gainful employment. Colleges, universities, and employees often appreciate and recognise the benefits of home education as they evaluate the well-rounded individuals that result from it. However, education authorities should be providing greater means and methods for home educated children to show proof of their educational outcomes through transcripts and other means of assessment as is the case in many other countries globally.