Friday, December 31, 2010

More from Kelly

...this time, on the significance of the struggle to home educate world-wide.

One conclusion:

"It is from a British base, I am convinced, that homelearning freedoms will be won back in Europe."

Thursday, December 30, 2010

2010

Things have been very quiet here but this is not for want of keeping an eye on things. Should there be a need - should the Department of Education suddenly find a spare pot of cash and decide they have nothing better to do with it than to hassle home educators, this place will fire up again.

In the meantime, Kelly has reviewed the most significant bits from 2010.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Harrison & Harrison v. Stevenson on "Suitable Education"

Harrison and Harrison v Stevenson (1982) QB (DC) 729/81

From the Elective Home Education Guidelines 2006: 


"A clearer interpretation of the meaning of some terminology used in the 1944 Education Act (repealed by the 1996 Act), was gained in the case of Harrison & Harrison v Stephenson (appeal to Worcester Crown Court 1981). The term 'suitable education' was defined as one which enabled the children ‘to achieve their full potential’, and was such as ‘to prepare the children for life in modern civilised society’. The term 'efficient' was defined as achieving ‘that which it sets out to achieve’."
From the Badman Review 2009:

Case law offers some insight: 


“...in our judgement “education” demands at least an element of supervision; merely 
to allow a child to follow its own devices in the hope that it will acquire knowledge by imitation, experiment or experience in its own way and in its own good time is neither systematic nor instructive…such a course would not be education but, at best, child-minding.”

See EO Website for further information.

How this is interpreted by LAs.

eg: Leicestershire LA Policy (2017):
Case law (Harrison v. Stevenson) also states that a suitable education – for a child capable of learning such skills – should instil in them the ability to read, write and cope with arithmetical problems. In other words, an education that does not include English and Maths cannot be considered suitable.