England Home Education Review (X-posted in Home Ed)

[anastasia51]

Hi

You may or may not be aware of the recent review into home education in England which was being carried out by Graham Badman.

The government have carried out 4 consultations into home education in the past few years, and finally have got the answers that they appeared to be looking for. After suggesting that home education, with no other factors, was perhaps a welfare concern the future of home education is at risk. Currently the UK has one of the most liberal approaches to education - recognising that parents are responsible for education and the government must only intervene when things are going wrong - innocent until proven guilty. It may not always happen in practice, given the different attitudes of local authorities, but in Law the parents have some protection from officials with different views on education or child development. The outcomes of the review include recommendations that government officials be given the right of access and inspection of private family homes, and there is talk in the second recommendation of defining a suitable education for home educated children. So then not only will childcare and state education in the UK be so strongly regulated - but it's the first step to parents themselves having to meet government imposed standards. Will it be parents staying home with under 5's next, or those who choose not to vaccinate? Please don't think that because you don't home educate this doesn't apply to you - if you have children and live in the UK it's absolutely relevant to you, especially if you're making parenting choices that aren't 'normal' :

PLEASE have a look at this site, which explains it far better than I can
http://www.homeschooler.org.uk/start-here

Thanks for reading
Anna

[puddleduck]

I've been having nightmares about this all week.
Luckily there are some amazing home educating parents who are going to give the government more than they bargained for. Really its all about restricting choice and that makes me soo cross. Read something about homebirth being banned in australia too! what is the world coming too?

[ankh]

It appears that the Government have given the nod to Badman's ideas. I'm still not really sure how I feel about this. We aren't registered, so that's a bummer, but even though we are semi autonomous, I don't feel like I have anything to hide.
The whole interviewing the children alone thing freaks me out. I will assume the best and hope that the inspectors will use their common sense. What really gets me is the amount of control they could potentially have over what we teach them....I don't know...

[anastasia51]

There are a good number of home educators not just sitting back and waiting to see what happens. Why should having anything to hide even come into it. The whole of the UKs legal system is based on the principle that we assume people have nothing to hide unless they give cause to suspect otherwise. Even the police and social services don't have right of access to homes without reasons for suspecting something is wrong.

There's a lot of worrying things in the report - like redefining 'a suitable education', cricitism of autonomous education along with the right of access to the home and children. Why not try and oppose the review now, before any recommendations become law? There's a petition here: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/EHEreview/

Writing to MPs is good - but only if enough people do it. Otherwise it looks like a minority issue and not a vote winner for them. I think they need to get letters from at least 3 people in their area before they have to take up an issue.

A yahoo list specifically set up for co-ordinating a response to the report here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/badmanreviewactiongroup/

Fundraising for PR/lobbying here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref...91&topic=10186 or for legal defense for home educators who need it if it gets that far: http://www.pledgebank.com/No-to-DCSF

I don't see why people should just accept that this is going to happen. If we make enough fuss then the government wont just be able to slip it through without people noticing.

[anastasia51]

I'm just adding some more links for people who want to do something but maybe aren't resident in the UK. Feel free to pass them around to anyone!

If you would like to do something small to support home educators in the UK, please take the time to sign this global petition to show that home educators/schoolers across the world are prepared to stand up for their rights. The second link is to a Swedish petition, they are also facing a similar situation as the government are saying that their schools offer such a comprehensive and inclusive education that there is no need for home educating to be a legal option!

UK Petition: http://www.gopetition.co.uk/online/29197.html
Swedish Petition: http://rohus.nu/?English_information:Petition