Just after receiving confirmation that the Welsh Assembly has dropped plans to legislate to bring in compulsory registration of Welsh Home Educators and that any new guidance will be non-statutory, (YIPPEE), we hear that Northern Irish HEors are now in the firing line for new statutory guidance.
Same old, same old. Yup, the same old arguments must be recycled, it seems! When will the ptb realise that
Access to the home without suspicion of wrongdoing
Access to the child
Control over deregistration from schools
Restrictions on how and what children should learn
altogether over-ride the principle of parental responsibility for education, and that should the ptb decide to make our decisions for us, we will come for them when they screw up?
Graham Stuart MP (head of the Education Select Committee) has already tried to explain why it is a bad idea, but all help will be gratefully received.
Please sign the petition here.
6 comments:
governments and civil servants take no notice of petitions
its civil servants and LA officers who are behind this
Something has worked in the past...we have managed to persuade both the English gov't and the Welsh Assembly not to do anything stupid to remove parental responsibility for education.
We have always had petitions in this process. They at least serve to alert a lot of people to the issue which then spills over into more action. It doesn't take long to sign a petition as long as one can mug up on the issues quickly. This might take 5 mins.
ie: petitions are not just about gov'ts and civil servants.
Plus whilst I tend to think you might be right that civil servants may not take much notice of them, I am not convinced that governments don't. If gov'ts sense that there will be widespread resistance to new legislation or policy (which a petition such as this one demonstrates), they do have to think about the implications of a reasonably considerable amount of civil disobedience.
i doubt you get any amount of civil disobedience over policy change to home education
in rare case if you get over 100,000 people sign it than the government would debate it but it does not mean anything would change look at all those people who marched against war in iraq still went ahead! but your right that a peition may make more people aware of the issue
i am certain that it is civil servants who are behind the attacks on home education
as i said i like your blog i often check it out but its civil servants you want to look into from the education department and the links these civil servants have with LA,s
my days of home education are over Peter at college doing A levels only seems like yesterday he was at home and he was painting me a picture
The thing is, you don't need much civil disobedience to cause government to think again. They know local governments are running so close to bankruptcy that any problems that might result in legal proceedings are better avoided from their perspective as much as ours.
In our LA, even one case of SEN is regarded with extreme anxiety and distaste. They just can't afford anything superfluous now. If we all refuse face to face monitoring, even just a few HEing families, they would have to go to the court to insist upon it, and this really would push the children's services departments into the red and all for NO benefit to any children whatsoever.
the link between civil servants who are hostile to home education and LA officers is what needs looking into Penny Jones is one of the civil servants at the education department who is always pushing for more new laws on home education home.these civil servants and LA,s officer hold meeting and share emails with each other over home education.
what is needed is a real meeting with these civil servants face to face to tell them that we need no new laws on home education
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