Seriously.. we’re better off moving
posted on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 by Kevin in [Home Ed]We’re beginning to feel harassed and persecuted and chased by the state; choices we’ve made in our life; choices that in a free and democratic society we are free to make; choices that have little impact on the wellbeing of society as a whole, in fact choices that have been found to be beneficial to those affected.
The state however doesn’t like our choices, and while the law of the land explicitly states that these choices are ours to make, that it’s our responsibility to choose. The state seems intent to stamp out that freedom of choice.
Home education – or education by “regular attendance at school or otherwise” as the Education Act puts it – is seriously under attack (nothing really new in that) in the last 3 years there have been 4 ‘consultations’ or ‘reviews’ into elective home education by what is now the Department of Schools, Children and Families (DSCF).
As each review passed, and more and more evidence piled up that Home Education is a good way to educate a child or indeed an “astonishingly effective” way to learn. The DSCF dug in deeper and tried from another angle.
The latest ‘review’ was targeted at safeguarding issues, basically trying to tug on the public’s heart strings by suggesting home educators where abusing their children. No evidence for this at all, but that doesn’t stop the press briefings to raise the ‘concerns’ – with a nod and a wink.
Then conduct a review where you have a good idea what you want, and if the figures don’t quite add up – well there statistics you can prove anything with statistics, when was the last time you used a Modal average?
Only one problem with that, in this modern information age it’s very easy to mobilise and gather information so the Home educators have gone and blown big holes in the report – it turns out the abuse of home educators that was “twice as likely” is actually a lot less likely more than 4 times less likely.
At this point it’s possible to be a bit upbeat, the Department has put a consultation out, briefed and reported their views, and the backlash has found them out; only two problems 1) that’s doesn’t mean it won’t happen, and 2) if you’re really intent on something you can try other ways.
Education Otherwise (the home education support charity) has learnt that the DCSF in intending to have a review into the definition of full-time education in 2010. (via twitter)
They are basically trying from yet another angle, and that is why I am ranting; It’s looking like another review into Home Education has gone the wrong way – so the next one is in the pipeline; it’s relentless. The DCSF is just going to keep going until they get the result they want, and if that doesn’t work, they’ll are still the government so they can always amend the law the next time the act comes up in parliament.
The truth is, we didn’t choose to home educate so we could fight the government for the next 15 years, we did it to give our children the education we feel they deserve.
The options are few; one however is to move, in the first instance to Scotland which hasn’t yet gone anti home school crazy so it would give us a chance to educate our children without a eye on the door, at least for a while.
13 Responses to “Seriously.. we’re better off moving”
I completely fail to understand it. The number of home educated children in the country is trivial (it’s not known precisely, but it’s certainly a five figure number, out of 11,000,000 children); the evidence suggests that they achieve more educationally, on average, than children in school (that could be what upsets the powers that be, but there really aren’t enough of them for that to matter very much); the carefully compiled statistics suggest that they are much less likely to be victims of abuse or neglect; it’s a perfectly legal option that some people have always chosen; it saves the government £5000 per child in schooling costs; why exactly is the government so utterly determined to find a way of stamping it out, regardless of the cost? WHY DO THEY CARE?
It would seem the Local Authorities have more mither power than one ever would have guessed!
The DCSF under the Tories will be a completely different beast to the one we have under neu liebour. Even if they do not change at all, there is no more money left to control anyone in the UK. If everyone simply says ‘NO’ there is nothing they can do to make anyone obey their nonsense. This is the key to the end of our problems with this totalitarian government.
A well put together article.
Ruth, you ask why they care? They don’t. They don’t care about our children, they don’t care about their educational achievements, they don’t even care about abuse (in fact they are complicit in many abuses).
They DO care about the fact that we are free thinkers and therefore our home educated children will be free thinkers. Free thinking does not fit in with a totalitarian agenda and that is where they are steering us.
BadMan refers to children as “Economic Units”, how can you keep an eye on your little economic units if they are not in school with their “Permanent Record” and their “Targets” and their “Information Sharing Agreements” and their pigeon-holing of the children who stand out from the crowd, the ones who disagree with rules because they are inane.
How can they dumb society down when a small group of society refuse to be dumbed down. School with its rules for when to eat, when to drink, when to pee. School with its signs warning that the hot water tap may have hot water in it and what’s more it may burn! That doors trap fingers, so they put gadgets on the doors so it can’t happen. That if you run you may fall over. That when its cold you should put a coat on, that you shouldn’t be allowed to eat chocolate or crisps or have drinks other than water.
God forbid we think for ourselves, God forbid our children think for themselves.
This is nothing to do caring and everything to do with a political agenda!
I think they are doing this precisely because there are negligable numbers of home educators and because they thought the legislation they want to push through – a license to doorstep anybody they want to – would be easiest to obtain by targeting a group of people they thought wouldn’t be backed up by much public sympathy, especially not if they played the ‘abuse’ card.
I agree, though, about the moving instead of fighting while raising your children. It’s exactly for that reason that we moved from Holland to England almost seven years ago (home ed is not a legal option in Holland). Luckily our children have now reached an age where we won’t have to move anymore, not for the benefit of their education anyway. But again I find myself fighting for the cause, because I want future generations to have a similar choice.
And because I really think it is not ‘just’ about home education…
I veer from it’s all about the economy and the need for “Economic Units” to contribute in some form; to It’s Local Authorities pushing the government to close the loopholes that mean there are things they can’t put a figure next too in their league tables and performance indicators.
I’d like to think a change in government will result in a change in policy, but I’m begging to doubt that, I think to much of this is coming from the civil service not the politicians, maybe I’ve just watched yes minister to many times
I think I agree with Kevin. The real protagonists probably aren’t Balls, Delyth & Badman, they’re probably the civil servants behind the last three consultations as well, and who are planning the fifth (what is ‘full time’?) and possibly the sixth (because someone else said they’d heard they were also going to go for a precise, legally enforceable definition of ‘suitable education’). So the chances are we are actually up against prejudiced civil servants who have angry hornets in their bonnets about Home Ed and it won’t stop even once the Tories (or whoever) get in.
Is it just me or does anyone else think that if the definitions of ‘full-time’ and ‘suitable’ become too rigid, that it may come back to bite the authorities in the bum? (think Scotland here and immigration laws) I mean, if they created absolute definitions and screwed them down tightly into the law, and then some school child decided that they weren’t getting a ‘full-time’ or ‘suitable’ education, then they might just sue the local authority for failing them. Anyone think this may be possible?
I suspect any review into ‘full-time’ will probably be carefully worded – “alternative full-time” or “full-time education outside of school system” – because your right – it’s an impossible mess –
When the school bell goes is lining up for class education? is the register education? moving between classes? add all them up and school doesn’t look that full time all of a sudden.
Sadly Kevin, those things are education in the things the givernment think important, fitting in, not causing any trouble, comforming, keeping the rules. Home Ed is much more likely to be truly full time….when “education” isn;t defined by a narrow curriculum.
Our LEA already specifies that *they* mean 25 hours per week of scheduled “lesson” time. Which is probably more than a schooled child of the same age would get sharing two adults between 30 kids. It is patently absurd to apply the same allocation of time to 30 kids with 1 teacher and 1 TA to 1 motivated, happy child facilitated by (mostly) enthusiastic, loving parent who understands what will most help her to learn. We can easily achieve more in an hour than she would have done in a day at school! For comparison I have kept the half-filled scrap book that was her record of work in her 2 terms at school!
Don’t put too much faith in a Tory government. Back in the Eighties, when they were telling us to leave business alone to get on with it, they were proscribing “The National Curriculum” for the schools because our teachers couldn’t be trusted to just get on with it. I suspect the present moves against home education is just an extension of that.
I don’t think we are putting an excessive amount of faith in them, but we are optimistic for them arriving with bigger bees in their bonnets than HE, and an acute awareness of how little money they’ve got to go around.
I suspect you might be aware of this already, but given that it crossed my RSS reading this morning, and is from a local councillor, I thought I’d pass it along – http://paulakeaveney.blogspot.com/2009/10/home-educated-children-legislation.html