Government Responds to Home Education Petitions

Yesterday, I added a page to this blog reporting a letter from Michael Gove stating that the Government had not yet considered what changes to make to the law concerning HE. You can find it here.

Today, I received two emails from Number 10, telling me that the Government had responded to two petition I had signed on their web site. I did this quite a while ago – both petitions closed on 6 June this year. The text of the petitions and the government’s responses to both can be found on this page and on this one.

The first was signed by 5,658 people and the government’s response reads:

Parents have the primary duty to ensure that their child receives a suitable education and home education is a well established alternative to school which allows them to fulfil that duty. Where a parent opts to educate their child at home rather than at school, they must provide their child with an education that is suitable to the child’s age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs they may have.

Guidelines which set out the legislative position and the roles and responsibilities of local authorities and parents in relation to home educated children is available at - http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/publications/elective/.

The Government respects the right of parents to home educate their children and we appreciate the strong views held by both home educators and local authorities. As you will appreciate, we have not yet been able to consider in detail our approach to home education and whether or not any changes to the existing arrangements are required.

The other petition received fewer signatures, 862 in all. The government’s response to this one unsurprisingly echos that to the other:

You have petitioned to uphold the freedom of choice parents enjoy in the UK regarding home schooling by rejecting Graham Badman’s proposed compulsory registration of home educators.

The previous administration put forward proposals to legislate for a registration and monitoring scheme for home educating families. These were removed from the Children, Schools and Families Bill, prior to the General Election.

We are currently considering priorities within the Department for Education, including our approach to home education, and whether or not any changes to the existing arrangements are required.

Of course the important sentence in both are the final ones. No commitment either direction, but as this government have previously said (here) they are aware of strong arguments from both sides!

Whilst Department of Education remains as undecided as it was yesterday, they do not rule out changes, therefore my message remains the same. I believe the HE community must not go to sleep thinking the danger is past. There is still plenty of work for us to do, not least in making sure that the underlying forces behind Badman’s review, will never again have an opportunity to say that the State is the only guarantor of child welfare.

Big Brother is still watching!

Channel 4 may have pulled the plug on their infamous “reality” programme Big Brother, but an army of child protectors are still at large in council offices across the land!

Mark McCullough of Glentham and his seven year-old daughter Isabelle Photo: RAYMONDS (Daiy Telegraph)

Yesterday and today the media have been reporting on the case of Mark McCullough who received a letter from Lincolnshire County Council threatening him for allowing his seven-year-old daughter to walk unaccompanied 20 metres to their home from a bus stop. The letter said that it was a “child protection issue” and that they would take action if the family did not make other arrangements. The matter was brought to their attention by a concerned bus driver.

The BBC reports:

Denise Carr, the county council’s head of transport services group, said: “As a responsible authority, we have expressed our concern that a seven-year-old is standing on a busy road alone each morning, and then crossing the road unaccompanied after school.

“The bus driver should not be expected to leave a bus full of young children alone to escort the pupil safely across the road.

“As the pupil was also left standing by the roadside on a cold morning without warm clothing, we have raised our concerns with the girl’s parents, following discussion with the school.

“Safeguarding is the responsibility of everyone, and where we become aware of anything that compromises the safety of a vulnerable child or adult, we will take steps to address it.”

Home educating families are all too familiar with with the sentiments of that last paragraph; it is the mind-set of Directors of Children’s Services across the land.

Today, the Council has backed off and admitted that its letter may have been heavy handed. Here is a further quote from the BBC:

Debbie Barnes, assistant director of Lincolnshire County Council’s Children’s Services, said: “The safety of children is the responsibility of everyone and where a member of staff brings a situation to our attention where the safety of a child or adult is compromised, we must react.

“NSPCC guidance states that children under eight should not be out alone; in this instance, a seven-year-old girl has been standing unaccompanied on a roadside and left to cross the road by herself.”

She added that “with hindsight we accept the letter could have been phrased better and we have no intention of going down the child protection route or court action” and that the council would like to sit down with Mr McCullough to discuss the issues.

Different attitude, same mind-set: parents cannot be trusted, it needs Big Brother from the Council to keep children safe. It also seems that the NSPCC is now regarded as the defining authority on child safety.

You can find further reading on these pages: BBC 14 Sep., Daily Telegraph 14 Sep., BBC 15th Sep. & This is Lincolnshire 15t Sep.

Now the reason I started this post was not because I had read the story, but because this morning’s edition of Today on BBC Radio 4, followed up its report on this story with a discussion between Anastasia de Waal, from the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, and Julia Margo, of the think-tank Demos, on the responsibilities of parents and the state over children’s welfare. At the moment it is available on iPlayer here.

This discussion should be compulsory listening for every family and especially any home educating families who think that the election put Badman and Balls’ ideas in the grave. It needs listening to more than once because hidden in there is some criticism of the approach of social service departments, but on the whole all those involved in the interview had no problem with the idea that local authorities can be trusted far more than parents. The interviewer gets the ball rolling with the question:

Who should be in charge of children when they are not in school?

Anastasia de Waal is perhaps more cautious than Julia Margo, but for both it is not really about if but how the State should watch over parents. Margo quotes Finland, Norway and Germany as good examples of  State oversight, but this is tempered by criticism of how Social Services in the UK often fail to relate constructively with parents. However, as is said in the discussion, “the bottom line is the welfare of the child”, and it is assumed without question that the State knows best!

Ed Balls may never again be Education Secretary, Graham Badman may never be employed by the present Government, but the ongoing vision of making children safe by enfolding them firmly in the arms of the State is deeply embedded in the mentality of most LA staff and it will not go away without a fight!

It seems that Michael Gove has not yet decided his policy on home education (see here), so there is still a need for the HE community to keep their MPs (and peers in general) aware that we are not child abusers.

Debbie Barnes, assistant director of Lincolnshire County Council’s Children’s Services, said: “The safety of children is the responsibility of everyone and where a member of staff brings a situation to our attention where the safety of a child or adult is compromised, we must react.

“NSPCC guidance states that children under eight should not be out alone; in this instance, a seven-year-old girl has been standing unaccompanied on a roadside and left to cross the road by herself.”

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

It’s only a quiet, little country road – you could sit there all day and maybe see 20 or 30 cars…”

End Quote Natasha Fegan Father’s partner

She added that “with hindsight we accept the letter could have been phrased better and we have no intention of going down the child protection route or court action” and that the council would like to sit down with Mr McCullough to discuss the issues.

The case of mistaken identity?

Yesterday the Serious Case Review into the tragic death of Khyra Ishaq was published. It was politically notable because it was the first SCR to be published in full. The whole document is 180 pages in length and can be downloaded from the Birmingham Safeguarding Children Board’s web site (click here to download the SCR as a PDF). They also provided accompanying press releases from themselves, Birmingham City Council, West Midlands Police and the relevant NHS, PCTs.  [Update Jan. 2012 - these documents have been removed from the BSCB site, so they are now hosted on this one.] The SCR Action Plan can be downloaded separately from the full review here.

At the time of writing I have not had the time to read through the SCR, nor the associated press releases. This post is therefore not a full response to the SCR, but an initial reflection and seeks to provide a note of clarification which is sadly needed to avoid confusion spreading unnecessarily.

The Birmingham Post published three reports yesterday covering the publication of the SCR and one more today. The first was advance notice of publication and can be found here. The most notable comment was in the opening paragraph:

Under-fire social workers in Birmingham were today bracing themselves for more criticism as the long-awaited findings of an inquiry into the death of Khyra Ishaq are revealed.

Once the report was published the headline “Birmingham social services missed chances to save Khyra Ishaq, says report” confirmed what many people were expecting. This extract from the article highlights these failures:

Hilary Thompson, chairwoman of the BSCB, said: “The serious case review concludes that although the scale of the abuse inflicted would have been hard to predict, Khyra’s death was preventable.

“The report identifies missed opportunities, highlighting that better assessment and information-sharing by key organisations could have resulted in a different outcome.”

It said: “There were a number of early missed opportunities for intervention by professionals.

“Three incidents during March 2006 were not progressed, either by failures of paperwork to reach the correct departments, failure to follow safeguarding procedures, or to conduct thorough checks prior to case closure, resulting in any knowledge and intervention remaining purely single agency at that stage.”

The review, which began in May 2008, concluded: “Had there been better assessments and effective inter-agency communication over a period of time it (Khyra’s death) could have been prevented.”

A complaint of harassment by Khyra’s mother, Angela Gordon, against a social worker who visited their Handsworth home in February 2008 “generated a reluctance” to complete an assessment, the report found.

It said: “The complaint by the mother… appeared to impact upon the Children’s Social Care manager and practitioner.

“This action appears to have generated a reluctance to follow through on plans with a partner agency to effectively pursue assessment procedures, for fear of wider repercussions within the complaints process.”

The report continued: “Whilst a number of agencies and individuals sought to deliver effective services to the child… there were others who lost sight of the child and focused instead upon the rights of the adults, the adults’ behaviours and the potential impact for themselves as professionals.”

Now these observations did not come by surprise. In March last year Mrs Justice King giving judgement in a care hearing in the High Court (Family Division) Birmingham District in respect to the five surviving children, expressed similar conclusions:

K’s death was caused by and is the responsibility of her mother and the Intervenor, but on the evidence before the court I can only conclude that in all probability had there been an adequate initial assessment and proper adherence by the educational welfare services to its guidance, K would not have died.

(For a fuller review of her judgement see here.)

The Birmingham Post accompanied their report with a list of the Recommendations from the Serious Case Review. Just two of the eighteen recommendations, 13 & 14, refer to home education [HE] and I will comment on these in the future. Today (Wed. 28th Jul.) the Birmingham Post did a follow up article with the headline, “Khyra Ishaq: Council and social workers failed to act on signs of abuse”. Two comments in it are worth noting here:

Teachers and concerned members of the public attempted to alert social services and the city education department to what was happening but their cries went unheard, the inquiry found.

As HE parents who have looked carefully at information which has been in the public arena for some time concerning Khyra’s tragic death have been saying, the failing were not in the laws concerning HE, but in the capability of the local authority’s children’s services. (Many us us also believe that underfunding is a major factor in causing these failures. Sadly I suspect that in a society whose members neither want to take responsibility themselves nor pay taxes to equip others to fully fill the gap so created, and in the face of global financial crisis, such pressures are likely to increase rather than to be resolved no matter which political party holds the reigns nationally or locally.) The BP reporter goes on to confirm that concern raised about  HE by the LA was a red-herring by adding later:

The inquiry’s central conclusion – that education officials were out of their depth when agreeing the emaciated Khyra could be taken out of school and educated at home – flies in the face of the council’s official explanation earlier this year that nothing could have been done to save her.

From Mrs Justice King’s ruling it was clear that key members of Birmingham’s children’s services did not understand the law concerning HE and this included “a man called I H who is [Birmingham CC’s] ‘Educating Otherwise adviser’”, since named in the national press as Irvine Horne.

This lack of understanding concerning the law on HE though is not confined to Birmingham City Council staff. It is found in many local authority offices as well as in the minds of more important civil servants such as the Children’s Commissioner, Maggie Artkinson. When she appeared before the CSF Select Committee in October last year quoted Khyra’s name as all the justification she needed to argue for a change in HE legislation (transcript here – see Q36). She was however doing nothing other than singing from her sponsor’s song sheet. That sponsor was of course Ed Balls, at the time the Secretary of State for CSF, and who also over the months has used every opportunity to use Khyra’s death as justification for his attempt to nationalise the children of England. We are grateful he failed. Others who it appears don’t understand the law concerning HE include OFSTED, who recently published a very poor report on LAs and HE – see here for my comment on it.

One ray of hope in all this is that the present Secretary of State for Education, seems to be better informed. His statement on the publication of the SCR can be found here. Two of the five paragraphs refer directly to the situation concerning HE.

On home education, Michael Gove said:

We respect the right of parents to educate their children at home and most do a very good job, some of them picking up the pieces where children have had problems at school. We strongly encourage local authorities to develop a positive relationship with their home-educating community.

We note the views of the Birmingham LCSB about the law as it applies to home-educated children and we are aware of the very strong views held by local authorities and by home-educating parents on this matter. Clearly lessons need to be learned by the tragic events in this case, and I will consider the letter I expect to receive from Birmingham shortly, to see what changes need to be made to the existing arrangements and reply in due course.

Need I remind HE families of what was said by both parties now in the governing coalition before the general election? Whilst they both condemned Labour’s policy, they both said that there would have to be changes in the future! HE families need to keep their eyes on what is happening!

Moving on. Unfortunately confusion also seems to have spread to authors of this SCR and that too is a real cause for concern. The BBC web site carried two reports on the day the SCR was released. One,  “Starved girl Khyra Ishaq’s death ‘was preventable’” was much in line with those from the Birmingham Post. However, the second was seemingly written with the assistance of the Balls & Badman Department of Spin. Titled, “Khyra’s home education ‘helped conceal abuse’” it claims:

The report, released on Tuesday, said the current legislation for the assessment requirement for home education was “weak”.

There is “no mandate to monitor, assess or inspect the quality of home education provision once approval has occurred,” it added.

“This situation is particularly advantageous for parents who may wish to conceal abuse.”

These quotes are taken from the Executive Summary and my comments on them and the rest of the SCR will have to wait until I have read it. The confusion in the article however went further as the reporter jumped to the wrong conclusions about this statement on page 8, which is in the Executive Summary:

Education Otherwise (EO) provides advice, support and assessment to parents who have elected to educate their children at home. The lack of a robust and rigorous process by EO, during February 2008, to assess the capability of adults within this household to provide effective home education, coupled with the absence of any risk assessment process to address safeguarding concerns previously communicated by education welfare, must be viewed as a significant failure.

This was taken up in the BBC article and, when it was first published and the reporter had contacted what everyone in the HE community knows as ‘EO’ (an independent charity) for their comments. Unfortunately, I did not make a copy of the BBC report when it was first published, because on reloading the page today I found very different wording in it. The interviews with EO representatives were gone and instead there was these paragraphs:

One organisation criticised in the report is Education Otherwise (EO), a department within Birmingham City Council, which gave support and advice to parents who opt to teach their children at home.

The report said other agencies were hoping to rely on assessments carried out by the city council’s EO but ignorance of home education legislation around those processes “clouded professional assessment and decision making”.

The phrase highlighted in italics has not been changed (and it shows), but originally it went on to describe the charity Education Otherwise. Alerted to this case of mistaken identity EO did publish a press release yesterday on their web site. It reads:

Tuesday 27 July

Press Release – Confusion in Khyra Ishaq Serious Case Review

Confusion in Khyra Ishaq Serious Case Review over use of “Education Otherwise”

A spokesperson for the leading Home Education charity, Education Otherwise reacted with dismay at the confusion in the Serious Case Review into the death of Khyra Ishaq.

Fiona Nicholson, Trustee of Education Otherwise said, “Like all parents I am horrified at the death of Khyra Ishaq. However, due to the confusion caused by Birmingham City Council I need to make it clear that the charity Education Otherwise has no role in the assessment of home education. Birmingham City Council used the same name for their internal department and this has not been made clear in the serious case review or any publicity.”

Annette Taberner, Trustee of Education Otherwise has written to the Select Committee and to Birmingham Council highlighting a number of errors in the Serious Case Review, which should have been corrected before the final draft was agreed in April.

Ian Matthews, Media Spokesperson said, “Despite the agreement of the courts in March, Birmingham City Council are still persisting in causing confusion in the media by using the name Education Otherwise. Criticism intended for Birmingham council in the Serious Case Review appears instead to be directed at the home education support charity. We will be advised by our lawyers on how to proceed.”

See full press release document for footnote references. [N.B. - this file is now hosted on this site as EO have not moved it to their new web site.]

What a mess! At least Mrs Justice King was accurate enough to refer to Irvine Horne as “the Educating Otherwise adviser” for Birmingham. Perhaps this was because he was at pains to “explained that he is the only adviser to Birmingham City Council with regard to Educating Otherwise”.

The SCR was, according to today’s article in the Birmingham Post, “led by a senior NSPCC Inspector”. The NSPCC has sadly over the last two years been at the front of the campaign to invade the lives and homes of HE families. In April 2009 it apologised after one of its staff suggested that home education may be a cover for child abuse cases like that of Victoria Climbié (see here). Whilst I am not going to comment on whether or not another of its staff has been guilty of using this SCR to convey that same message, until I have read the whole review, I am left to wonder why a senior official was unable to distinguish between a national charity, Education Otherwise, and a department within Birmingham CC, labeled Educating Otherwise?

I would like to think that this confusion was caused by incompetence rather than mischief. Then again  if the authors did not have the ability to distinguish between the two very different organisations, it really does not reflect well on them!

It is a pity too that Caroline Gall in rewriting her report on the BBC’s web site, did not have the grace to include a comment and an apology about the error in the original copy she posted. She could have even expanded the story by highlighting the misleading wording of the SCR, and especially its repeated use of EO’s initials! Perhaps if she had done so, this piece would not have been so long!

Finally, I know that in the HE community their are mixed feelings about EO. Some families think it is wonderful, whilst others give it a wide berth. I would hope though that whatever our feelings towards the charity, all HE families would not wish it to be confused with a section of a LA’s underfunded and ill informed children’s services which seemingly did not understand the law concerning HE. I think there is one thing we will all agree about concerning the real EO – its representatives do understand HE legislation!

Hopefully, in my next post I will be able to give an in depth response to the SCR in relation to its comments on HE.

Khyra Ishaq: Council and social workers failed to act on signs of abuse

OFSTED publishes its Home Education Survey

I must start with an apology, I wrongly predicted in my last post here that my next one would follow the publication of the Serious Case Review into the death of Khyra Ishaq. I had forgotten about OFSTED’s outstanding enquiry into HE which was published this week (on Thurs. 17 June).

I commented on their survey in January here, that at the time there was widespread concern in the HE community about the motivation behind it and the quality of the questionnaires sent to HE parents and children. Whilst there is a hope within the HE community that a change of government will see a more sensible approach to HE in Whitehall, there are also fears that educationally blinkered bureaucrats will continue to push for the State to assume authority over parents in regard to the education of their children.

I was made aware of the publication of this report entitled “Local authorities and home education” by a page on the BBC’s web site here and an article in the Independent here. Both carried headlines which HE families would see as negative – “More home education information needed, say inspectors” and “Home school parents ‘must register children’” respectively. When I eventually found the report here and the associated Press Release here on OFSTED’s website I could see why – this is the message they intended to emphasise. For example, the Press Release starts:

Local authorities need more information and understanding about home education to provide effective support for children educated at home, a report published by Ofsted today reveals.

However, before I get into what is wrong with the report, I do want to point out that it is not as bad as it could have been. In fact it has some very positive things to say about HE parents and children. It is also important to note that the stated objective of the report was:

… to evaluate how well the sample of local authorities discharged their statutory duties to ensure the suitability of education for children and young people who were educated at home. (Executive summary – p4)

This was not an inquiry into HE (which OFSTED has no responsibility for), but an enquiry into the ways in which Local Authorities (LAs) relate to HE families. It is unfortunate therefore that OFSTED chose to headline the report in a way which makes it sound like the Son of Badman – but then perhaps that was its non-declared objective.

Returning to the positives, the report does say some nice things about HE parents and children:

What many of the parents surveyed had in common was their passion for their children’s upbringing and their willingness to give up significant amounts of time to be their child’s educators. (A diverse group, s6 – p10)

The children and young people whom inspectors met were enthusiastic about their learning and explained what they thought they had gained by being educated at home. Those who had attended school compared their experiences and conveyed clearly that, for varying reasons, they were happier now that they were being educated at home. (Executive summary – p7)

One young person summed up the views of several who had found school difficult, either academically or socially, when she said: ‘At school, friends can do it all fine, you can’t do it, it’s not nice at all. At home, it’s just your family, you can relax and it’s all fine.’ The following are typical remarks made by young people who had previously attended school who spoke to inspectors during the survey:

‘I really like being educated at home, it’s more social and less stressful.’

‘When I was in school it was really competitive. Now I can work at my own pace and I don’t get distracted – I just get on with it.’

‘When my mum decided to take me out of school I was glad, it was what I had been wanting for ages, I was really relieved.’

‘I’m feeling much healthier and happier now.’

(Children’s experiences, s48 – p21)

Besides recognising that both parents and children are usually happier because of their HE experiences, the report does touch on some other constructive possibilities. These included easier and cheaper access to examinations like GCSEs and encouraging initiatives such as flexi-schooling. Initiatives such as these should be welcomed by HE families provided they are available on request, without strings attached. However, such things also depend on a change of culture in many LAs from one of policing to one of partnership with HE parents.

In spite of such praise, it does have to be pointed out that what parents and children think about their HE experiences is outside of OFSTED’s remit both as an agency and in the terms of reference for this report.

I need now to address the dangers of this report. I was struck as I read it by how often the words ‘registered’ and ‘monitoring’ are repeated throughout. This is a concern because under present legislation there is no HE registration scheme in place, nor is there any provision for the monitoring of HE parents or children. So why are these words used so often in this document? Could it be that educational bureaucrats have a less than average vocabulary? Have they not come across such words as notify and encouragement? Or has their educational experience pushed their minds into a mould which only lets them understand the world from inside a bubble where the State is supreme? I suggest the latter.

Where the report is helpful is in identifying the source of the conflict between such officialdom and those who understand that parents are primarily responsible for the education and welfare of their children, with the State there to step in when parents and their families fail for whatever reasons. This principle is not new; it is what gave birth to the modern system of state-run schools. These days in societies like ours it is generally perceived that ‘children go to school’ but that has not always been the case. In Britain government schools were resisted until the late 1800’s when they came into existence in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Amongst other things this huge sea-change separated parents from children during working hours, leaving children to their own devices or to be employed in factories. Less than 150 years later OFSTED, in common with the the majority of the population, thinks of schools as “traditional” (p13). Family-based education is traditional, state-funded schools were established as cover for parents who were failing!

This revisionist view of education is in part responsible for the confusion which now arises from legislation brought in by the previous government. The report cites section 436A of the Education Act 1996, which was inserted there by the Education and Inspections Act 2006, as ‘chapter and verse’ for what they claim is the LA’s statutory duty to monitor home educated children. It then goes on to bemoan the fact that other legislation fails to provide them the powers to do so. Thankfully Graham Stuart, who became the champion of HE families in the last parliament and has now been elected as the Chair of the Education Select Committee, quickly spoke out to condemn OFSTED’s spin. On the blog of the Conservative Education Society (here) he blasted OFSTED for not knowing the facts:

It is astonishing that the Chief Inspector of Schools should stray onto home education and get it so wrong. In Ofsted’s official press release she says that “it is extremely challenging for local authorities to meet their statutory duty to ensure children have a suitable education”, when they have no such duty. Parents, not the state, have the statutory duty to ensure that their children have a suitable education.

I hope that the new Secretary of Education is in full agreement with him. However, I want Michael Gove to go further. Whilst this ambiguity continues, the door is open for people like the current Children’s Commissioner, Maggie Atkinson, to argue that every child in the country (and their families) all belong to the State. You need only watch the first two and a quarter minutes of this video to see what I mean! (source)

At present the door is open for HE families to engage with their MPs and to press the the new team of Education Ministers to make clear in legislation that English, British and International laws do not give the State ultimate authority over children. Graham Badman in his report (here) and Baroness Deech (here) both argued that the United Nations have given such powers to every state that has signed its Convention on the Rights of the Child! OFSTED’s report, though it may have been commissioned by Ed Balls as a time-bomb for his successors, provides us with an opportunity to appeal that this confusion be removed before the political pendulum swings back in favour of Socialism.

The BBC report mentioned above carries what is probably the most important comment on HE this week:

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “We respect the right of parents to home educate their children.

“The Ofsted report confirms that most parents who educate their children at home do a very good job, some of them picking up the pieces where children have had problems at school.

“We note Ofsted’s findings and recommendations and ministers will shortly be considering if changes need to be made to the existing arrangements, given the strong views expressed by both home educators and local authorities.” (emphasis mine)

That is real ‘Government Speak’, but what can we take away from it? Is it a put-down for OFSTED? Is it a vote of confidence in HE families? The most important sentence is the last one. The Department recognises the gulf between the views of the HE community and those of LA staff and ministers are to consider what changes need to be made to made, if any.

To those who would say “None!”, I respond with the warning that if the ambiguity is not dispelled then with the next change of government we could easily see a return to Badman or worse. However, if we lobby now for changes which reinforce the current law and remove the over-application of Labour’s “Every Child Matters” agenda, then the future for HE in England and Wales could be a lot more peaceful than it was last year.

Finally, you may be wondering if the OFSTED report tell us anything about how LAs respond to HE families. Yes it did, but only in passing. 15 LAs were consulted. 2 of them (13%) operated a policy that pressurised parents to put their children back in school (Local authorities’ actions: Guidance for families, s16 – p12). When it comes to good practice, the report mentions in several places that 5, and sometimes 6, LAs tried to work with HE parents. That at best is 40% of LAs engaged ‘constructively’ with the He community.

Upon their own evidence, OFSTED could have headlined their press release with the point that at least 60% of LAs are not doing enough to support those HE families who request their help. If they had taken that approach, they could have continued by adding that all LAs should also abandon the mind-set that believes ‘school is best’. Now that would have been refreshing as well as surprising – from the organisation which thinks HE parents should be CRB checked before being licensed to look after their own children 24/7! (Section 3.2.3, bullet point 3, Memorandum to CSF Select Committee – available here.)

It looks like we may have a quiet time for a while

The dust is beginning to settle on a British General election which had held the attention of many English home educating families. Having seen off the misguided attempt by Ed Balls to establish the State’s authority over the nation’s children as supreme in his Children, Schools & Families Bill 2010, we held our breath as we waited to see what the outcome of the election would be.

As I am sure every reader will know the final decision on who would govern was delayed because the British electorate had give no single party an independent mandate. At a time when financial concerns were dominating the minds of politicians, party leaders were presented with a result which would only stack up in just one way. (Whilst I think both Cameron and Clegg had to be brave to commit to working together, I have a concern for the long term changes in society their coalition may have been motivated by.) As the dust settles on this ‘new politics’ what might be the implications for HE in England and Wales?

Both the parties, Conservative and Liberal Democrats, had been our heroes in the closing months of the previous Parliament. They had come together in opposition to the Balls-Badman pincer movement, triumphing finally in the wash-up. However, now alert to the existence of large numbers of HE families spokesmen for both had said whilst they were against Labour’s proposals “things would have to change” in the future in regard to HE. Now that both parties have their hands are on the national helm, where will they take legislation in regard to HE? What will they propose?

It is still early days, but yesterday (20 May) saw the publication of their official agreement on what they hope to achieve in the next five years. Called “The Coalition: our programme for government” it can be download as a PDF from here. Two sections in it, 14. Families and Children, and 26. Schools, could contain proposals for HE, but the good news is that they don’t! I hope this means that HE families will not be pestered for a while, but I am making no promises as the socialist staff in local government offices across the country are still committed to the ideology that all children are in the care of the State.

What I do think will be disastrous therefore is if HE families now retreat under the covers. The last year and half witnessed some excellent work by normal families, parents and children,  in educating MP’s about HE. Now though there are over a third of MPs who are new to Parliament and potentially know nothing about HE. I would like to think that not only would families keep in touch with those MPs who are still there but those with a rookie MP would, once they have settled in, get to know them and tell them about the benefits and blessings, as well as the hard work, of teaching your own children. Of course you will need wisdom, we don’t want to stir up a hornets nest, but we certainly don’t want to loose the ground we gained through a lot of hard work.

I am hopeful that the time to stop posting to this blog is getting close. I have recently uploaded what I hope will prove to be our last appearance in the local paper in connection with Balls & Badman – you can find it here. However, I am not going to fall into the trap of saying that this is the end. On the horizon there is still the publication of the Serious Case Review in connection with the death of Khyra Ishaq in Birmingham. Given the way Ed Balls sought to use it for political gain and how his comments were at variance with those of Mrs Justice King (see here), I suspect that I will want to comment when the summary of the SCR comes into the public domain. Once I have I hope it will mean that the course of this blog will be run!