HED0862

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.]

Local Authorities Duties

There are countless examples of local authority (LA) over reach.  It is clear that LAs do not understand the law regarding home education (HE), or they have no shame in misleading parents with their own interpretation of what the law is.

LAs often have no understanding of HE, their knowledge is usually very limited to the curriculum and how a child learns in a class room setting.

For these reasons, and the bullying, families often feel from LAs, I strongly feel that giving LAs any more powers would be very damaging.

Measures are already in place to protect against safeguarding.  Further, there is no evidence suggesting that HE children are at more risk from harm, conversely, most children that are being harmed, are actually in schools, and are often well known to social services, yet the harm continues.  I would suggest that it would be logical to fix the issue of safeguarding for school children, before using resources on HE children whose risk is extremely low.

It takes huge dedication, time, care and love to HE a child, these are families who are least likely to do harm to children.  Anyone can stick a child into school, it is the easy option.

Quality of Home Education

You really need to start questioning why families choose to HE.  There are many reasons, but over riding most of them is that school does not work for, or has failed their child.  If a child is not happy at school, they are not getting any quality of education.  It is only when any individual (adult or child) feels comfortable, that they will be able to learn effectively. 

Parents naturally have the best interests for their children, and HE families will often go way beyond schools with learning and encouraging passions.  They have more chance to learn one to one, and they will have lessons tailored to learning styles or specific interests, a teacher with a class of 20 or 30 can not do that.

A learning day for a HE child, could involve a trip to a museum, writing poetry in a forest, shadowing a mechanic at the local garage as he fixes a car, baking a cake.  The possibilities are endless and can involve multiple different ‘teachers’ of differing specialisms.  LA staff have no clue how to assess the quality of this type of learning, that is so different to school class room learning.

Statutory Register

Education is the legal responsibility of the parent, therefore no register is required.

Having a register suggests that parents are doing something wrong by home educating their children.  There is no evidence to make such a suggestion.

The parents of a child who is in danger at home, are not going to care enough to comply with a register, so it would be pointless, and could make the situation worse by encouraging the family to hide.

Benefits of Home Education

A HE child is learning in a safe, comfortable environment.

They have the freedom to go to a museum, forest, beach, work place environment where they can shadow someone, whenever they want to.

They can meet and learn from a number of different individuals, all with their own perspectives and specialist knowledge.

They can learn at their own pace, according to their own learning style.

A lesson can be paused or diverted at any point, when a child has a question, rather than a school teacher dismissing the question, as they are pushed for time.

The child can be heavily involved in their own education, helping to choose subject areas and projects, and be involved in research.  This kind of learning produces much more rounded, enthusiastic, self-confident, self-motivated, individuals, that can think outside the box.  It produces those characteristics that most employers look for and are struggling to find in school children.  This kind of approach to project learning has been reported in Finland, as massively successful.

The child does not have the pressure of constant testing.  SATS serve no advantage to the child, but instead there is strong evidence that it puts an enormous strain on their mental health and affects their motivation to learn.  Teachers also spend a large amount of time teaching solely for these tests, rather than offering a broader education.

Children with SEN often learn better at home, as they have a trusted adult, who truly understands them and their needs.

Disadvantages of Home Education

HE families are great at organising and networking, as such we are always busy and my children are always occupied.  However, during these times of COVID restrictions, I feel that HE families have been disadvantaged.  Schools are currently open, but many of the activities we would have gone to, despite educational activities being permitted, have been too difficult to keep running, perhaps they were informal, or in people’s homes.  People are rightly fearful of the heavy-handed approach that the police are taking to who they suspect as ‘rule breakers’.

The other disadvantage is the lack of financial support, however, there are many families who say that the associated costs of sending children to school is more expensive.  With HE you are in control of your budget, so you can spend as little or as much money as you wish.

Support for Home Education

There is no support that I am aware of.  People would want support, HE families even pay for the cost of exams, it seems unfair that as the have paid the taxes for education, and saved the tax payer the cost of a school funded place, they are entitled to nothing for their children, HOWEVER, most HE families would happily just pay the financial costs themselves if it meant no interference.  There is a large, and not unfounded worry, that any support offered would come with caveats and regulation creep into our lives.

Current Regulations

Laws are already in place for unregistered schools, off-rolling and for child welfare, these laws are sufficient.

There is no evidence that suggests HE children are at risk.

Off-rolling is an issue with schools/Ofsted and league tables, not HE.

In my experience of HE I have never heard of anything coming close to an unregistered school.  I feel like these are very rare, and perhaps are only in certain communities.  They are not HE.

Inspection

LAs already overreach their remit, often misleading or even lying to parents about their rights.  It would be of great concern if the LA remit was increased to allow inspection.

People outside of the HE community often have little understanding of education other than their experience of school classrooms.  Many fail to grasp that children can achieve great things without the burden of a curriculum or a PGCE qualified adult.  An inspector would want to see consistency across all HE families, and age groups, and that would be difficult as all HE families have different tailored approaches, which is often a reason why their children are not in school.

The government needs to focus on the reasons that children are not in school, and for many it has been because the school is inadequate and has failed their child.  A much better use of resources would be towards the schools, rather than paying for inspectors and registers.

Support for Home Education Report

This predates my time as a HE parent, so I don’t know what the situation was like before, but I can say that recent guidelines have caused massive confusion.  Many HE families have had rather intimidating letters sent to them by their LAs, with threats and ‘facts’ presented in them, that are not backed up in law.  This is wrong and a gross misuse of power, and of course leads to parents not wanting to engage with their LA.

I do feel like this is just an endless stream of consultations and reports.  It does not seem like 5 minutes ago that I was last completing a consultation regarding HE.   How many more consultations are needed?  How much of taxpayers money are you wasting on this?  Efforts would be better focused on improving the schools.

COVID

HE families are great at organising and networking, as such we are always busy and my children are always occupied.  However, during these times of COVID restrictions, I feel that HE families have been disadvantaged.  Schools are currently open, but many of the activities we would have gone to, despite educational activities being permitted, have been too difficult to keep running, perhaps they were informal, or in people’s homes.  People are rightly fearful of the heavy-handed approach that the police are taking to suspected ‘rule breakers’.

COVID regulations should clearly mention that HE families are permitted to meet for the purposes of educating AND socialising their children.  One of the repeated, unfounded, sneering comments HE families get is that their children are not social.  This is actually very much the opposite of reality.  Part of an LAs questions to an HE family is also likely to be about how the child socialises, so it is clearly important to their education and welfare, yet it would take some arguing with a police officer to convince them that the social meet at the park was for educational purposes.

Even if you allowed HE families to meet just one other family, perhaps in their home, so they could do something at a desk, or in a park, that would be hugely beneficial.

HE children ready for their exams this summer, were severely disadvantaged compared to school children.

I am also aware that HE numbers have risen recently, but again you have to look at the reasons, rather than attacking HE.  This is not an HE issue.

Families maybe fearful of the virus, it is not surprising when we have all been bombarded with death figures.  This is not an HE issue.

Families maybe living in households where a family member is vulnerable to the virus.  This is not an HE issue.

Families may disapprove of the ‘covid safe’ measures put in place in the schools, believing them to be inappropriate for children and damaging to their mental health.  This is not an HE issue.

There are also families whose child was never happy at school, or was receiving a low quality of education at school.  The closure of schools in Spring, saw many children happier at home.  Families had the opportunity to try HE for themselves and saw the benefit of it.  This is an issue highlighting a problem with schools, not HE, in fact it shows how HE is massively beneficial.

November 2020

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