An All Party Parliamentary Group and Details of How to Lobby

News of the inaugural meeting of a new All Party Parliamentary Group on Home Education has reached us via Graham Stuart's Twitter.

We are not sure of all of the names of those on the group, but believe it includes the following:

Conservative

Graham Stuart (Chair)
Michael Gove
Mark Field
Oliver Heald
Andrew Selous
Anne Milton
Graham Brady
Alistair Burt
Stephen Crabb
Robert Goodwill
Julie Kirkbride
Peter Bottomley
Philip Davies
Bill Wiggin
Richard Benyon
Sir Charles Walker
Mark Pritchard
John Randall
Lord Lucas (Deputy Chair)


Labour

Kate Hoey
David Drew (Treasurer)
Lynda Waltho
Kelvin Hopkins
Jim Cunningham
Brian Jenkin
George Howarth
Paddy Tipping
Celia Barlow (?)


Liberal Democrat

Paul Holmes
Tim Farron (Secretary)
John Hemming
Annette Brooke
Mark Hunter
Sandra Gidley



UPDATE:

Information on lobbying - collated from Lord Lucas's blog:

[The]Lords is reactive not proactive, by and large, so the time to lobby is when the bill has been published or, if it starts in the Commons, when it has had its third reading there. We have no staff, so early lobbying tends to get forgotten before the time arrives when we can affect things.

Once the bill has arrived in the Lords we ought to open up all its aspects for discussion, and arrive at a set of amendments (there's no limit to the number).

I suggest we use this blog to begin with, and then have a few tens of people to a half-day meeting if needed.

There are no rules [on which Lord to contact] as Lords have no territory.

My suggestion would be to get a group of you together - there are 760-odd Lords - with varied backgrounds, and then (using the book called Dods Parliamentary Companion which has brief biogs of us all) [or here] divi us up among you in whatever way seems to you to be the best match, and write us a personal letter along the lines of:

May I come and see you?

The XXX Bill threatens - whatever it does threaten

I am - HE, and enough of your background to make Lord think he might enjoy meeting you.

Reason why Lord might be interested to meet a real HE-er and talk about HE (e.g. given your background in ...)

Contact details

Possible dates 2-3 weeks ahead

All on one side of A4

But of course there may be other ways that suit you better.

General points to remember are:

- wait until the Bill is on its way to the Lords, most of us have too much to do to want to deal with next month's problem now.

- make it personal and short. Most of us receive a large pile of mail every day, and have no secretarial support to speak of. Leave the tomes till they're asked for.

- don't be downhearted at refusals; you only need half a dozen of us to decide to spend time on HE. The moral support of all those who are attracted to your cause but have too much else on their plates will suffice.

- keep a good record of who said what to whom. If we need to rally support for an amendment, this will be a great help.

HEYC Press Release

...says it all really.

The Logic (or lack of) in Ofsted's Submission

...to the Select Committee is neatly exposed by Jax here.

One of the Ill-Considered Consequences

...of the proposals to invade home educators' homes to make judgements on their parenting and educational provision, and then to share information about them liberally about the care system is that people who need professional help will not seek it.

Plenty of people are already turning to friends and relatives with relevant skills rather than going to A&E depts where they know they'll be quizzed and possibly found wanting when they either don't know what caused their child's injury, or they know too much about it, or their child is either:

"hyper-vigilant yet unresponsive, regarding all adults with a look of frozen watchfulness (awaiting the next blow). On the other hand, (s)he may act in an indiscriminate or impulsive way with grown ups. The child could be aggressive, unusually eager to please or may want to take care of adults. The child could simply present as being annoying, constantly irritable or apparently taking no pleasure in play."

(Are you completely sure your children won't react in one of these ways?)

This home educator sought help, and ended up being screened for Munchausen's. How long will parents keep asking for the assistance they actually need when they realise the possible consequences of such a high degree of suspicion?

The MSM is Getting the Message

Ridiculous Rules for Home Schools, in the Guardian.

News of ContactPoint

...from the pilot projects, via DCSF press release.

Transcript of HEYC's Meeting with Penny Jones of the DCSF

From a paragraph approximately 2/3rds of the way through this transcript, Penny Jones stated:

"the concern of the state, is that, because we’ve got ECHR, the state does have a responsibility to make sure that the child – every child receives a suitable education, that’s inescapeable. And, in theory, it would be possible for a home educated child, at some point in the future, to turn round to the state and say ‘look you didn’t secure my interests, I was getting a terrible education, you were aware I was getting a terrible education, why didn’t you do something about it?’ so it’s rather a different situation than you envisage."

It looks as if the state, through its tortuous interpretation of the ECHR's Protocol 1, Article 2 - whereby a negative right is interpreted as being an automatic responsibility of the state to ensure that a positive right is achieved, is walking itself into a situation whereby it will be repeatedly subjected to litigious action by angry children who did not receive a suitable education. Badman's recommendations make it clear that a suitable education is not just about provision, it is also about attainment. Given that tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of schooled children do not attain a "suitable" education by anyone's standards, local authorities will be bankrupted, pdq.

Fiona Nicholson commented:

"The Badman proposals move the responsibility from the parent to the state. The scenario outlined by Penny will become reality under Badman. The Department needs to take this back to its legal advisors as a matter of urgency."

I think she's right.

Amendment to Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill Withdrawn

Amendment 201 to Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill was withdrawn yesterday, (Thursday 5th).

Well that's a relief, at least for the moment, though we will have to keep an eye on this as it unfolds.

The proposed amendment to the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill (no. 201), was as follows:

201* Insert the following new Clause —

"Arrangements for seeing children separately

After section 16 of the Children Act 2004 (c. 31) (LSBs: supplementary) insert—

"16A Arrangements for seeing children separately

(1) The children's services authority shall secure that, when any child who is the subject of either—
(a) an investigation under section 47 of the Children Act 1989; or
(b) a child protection plan agreed by the Local Safeguarding Children Board,
and who is visited by his or her key worker, the child shall, if practicable and reasonable in the circumstances, be seen separately from his or her parent or care-giver.

(2) The key worker referred to in subsection (1) is—
(a) in the case of subsection (1)(a), the lead social worker appointed by the children's services authority; and
(b) in the case of subsection (1)(b), the key worker appointed by the Local Safeguarding Children Board."

The withdrawal of the above proposal (yesterday, Thursday 5th) is noted at the bottom here. It could well have been significant for HEors after all the recent misinformation about rates of abuse in the HE community, in that HE might, in the minds of some LA officials, be deemed a prime facie reason to think that there is "reasonable cause to suspect that a child who lives, or is found, in their area is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm" .

Select Committee Submissions Available Online

here with commentary from Pete here.

Dr Paula Rothermel's submission makes very interesting reading and Tech's submission is also revelatory.

UPDATE:
We have just had news that not all the submissions from home educators are included in the link above. Some problem with the formatting apparently. As yet, we don't know whether these submissions were even seen by the committee. If your submission is not included in the link above, do let the lists know or post in comments here.

FURTHER UPDATE: Jem has blogged a list of some of the most significant issues raised in the submissions here.

Meanwhile, we will need to chase up the answer to Lord Lucas's question here, since the Baroness's answer is, at first glance, inadequate.

What Daniel Monk said.

Can be read here. 

How to Lobby a Lord

There are 760-odd Lords - with varied backgrounds. We should divide the Lords up amongst us and write us a personal letter along the lines of:

May I come and see you?

Schedule 1 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill, which pertains to the registration and monitoring of home educated children would, if enacted, mean that the state would appropriate responsibility for education entirely to the itself. Parents will no longer be able to freely decide upon the place, form and content of education. Families will be subjected to highly intrusive and subjective judgements without there being any reason to suspect that a suitable education is not being provided and the damage to education of these children will be immense. Money better spent on better targetting interventions will be wasted monitoring and intruding upon perfectly well-functioning families who currently save the state a huge amount by educating many children with special needs out of the schooling system.

I am a home educating parent, and enough of your background to make Lord think he might enjoy meeting you.

Reason why Lord might be interested to meet a real HE-er and talk about HE (e.g. given your background in ...)

Contact details.

Possible dates 2-3 weeks ahead

All on one side of A4

But of course there may be other ways that suit you better.

General points to remember are:

- wait until the Bill is on its way to the Lords, most of us have too much to do to want to deal with next month's problem now

- make it personal and short. Most Lords receive a large pile of mail every day, and have no secretarial support to speak of. Leave the tomes till they're asked for.

- don't be downhearted at refusals; you only need half a dozen of us to decide to spend time on HE. The moral support of all those who are attracted to your cause but have too much else on their plates will suffice.

- keep a good record of who said what to whom. If we need to rally support for an amendment, this will be a great help.

Lord Lucas is Putting out a Call

If you do happen to speak to Ofsted in your role as a home educating parent, could you let Lord Lucas know. Details here.

Lord Lucas says of the Ofsted inspections:

"I am not happy though with the secrecy with which Ofsted is surrounding its investigation - which LAs, which parents will be talked to, etc. I have put down some questions to see if I can open them up. Nor am I confident that Ofsted understands home education - but talking to more HE parents and children should help."

Radio 4 Programme on History and Efficacy of Home Education

...from 15.45 hours, Monday 2nd Nov.

Listen Again available here.

Description here:

Mark Steyn on the Nationalisation of Childhood

here.

"I keep getting e-mails saying, "People will reach a tipping point and they'll no longer put up with this stuff." I doubt it. Right now the way to bet is that once free societies will retreat incrementally, one trivial step after another, into a totalitarian hell."

For home educators, we are only one bit of legislation away from Mark's worst nightmare. But what am I complaining about. It is already here anyway for absolutely everyone.

Cumbria's Response to the DCSF Consultation

Q1. Do you agree that these proposals strike the right balance between the rights of the parent to home educate and the rights of the child to receive a suitable education?

A1. NO. The focus of the review is actually about safeguarding children and does not give enough clarification of what a suitable and efficient education is. The review seems to focus on safeguarding not education.

Q2 Do you agree that a register should be kept?

A2. Yes, a register should be kept. However, annual registration seems too onerous. Families should only have to inform the LA when a change occurs. Registration should be possible in person, by post or online.

Q3 Do you agree with the information to be provided for registration?

A3. Yes, the basic information asked for seems to be adequate and what you would expect.

Q4. Do you agree that HEparents should be required to keep this up to date?

A4. Yes, parents should be asked to inform the LA when a change occurs. Annual registration would take a great deal of LA resources seeking parents that have not renewed registration.

Q5. Do you agree that it should be a criminal offence to fail to register or to provide inadequate or false information?

A6. Failing to register should not be a criminal offence; however providing false information in order to mislead should be.

Q6a. Do you agree that HE children should stay on the roll of their former school for 20 days after parents notify that they intend to HE?

A6a. Yes this allows time for mediation where applicable. This is especially in cases where parents feel Home Education is the only avenue open to them.

Q6b. Do you agree that the school should provide the local authority with achievement and future attainment data?

A6b. No, school should primarily provide parents with this information as they will be the next educator and will need to know what level their child is at in order to build on current attainment and progress.

It would be helpful for the LA to receive summative achievement and attainment data at the point of leaving school.

Q7. Do you agree that DCSF should take powers to issue statutory guidence in relation to the registration and monitoring of home education?

A7. Yes.

Q8. Do you agree that children about whom there are substantial safeguarding concerns should not be home educated?

A8. If a child is already known to SS to be at risk, then home education should not take place. The risk would need to be identified on a case by case basis. If a child is already being home educated when a safeguarding issue comes to light this would not automatically exclude home education but would be looked at case by case.

Q9. Do you agree that the local authority should visit the premises where home education is taking place provided 2 weeks notice is given?

A9. It is appropiate, in our view, to find a mutually convenient time and date as home education should be about a partnership. We would not wish to detrimentally affect the partnerships we have developed.

Q10. Do you agree that the local authority should have the power to interview the child alone if this is judged appropiate, or if not in the presence of a trusted person who is not the parent/carer?

A10. A child should not be interviewed alone by a LA officer. Joint visits as standard would be prohibitively expensive. Any child causing safeguarding concerns should be dealt with according to current practice.

Q11. Do you agree that the local authority should visit the premises and interview the child within 4 weeks of HE starting, after 6 months, at the anniversary and after that on an annual basis.

A11. This is to onerous for the LA. Our current practise of initial support visit within the first 8 weeks is a more realistic time frame. This enables us to answer questions that are arising and to give information to support parents. We then visit at the anniversary of home educating or just prior to. Where we have concerns, families have more frequent visits and a referral when provision is deemed unsuitable.

Grit's Home Eduaction Blog Gets a Mention

here.

The Badman Review's Responses - An Overview

Just how responsive are these consultation processes? Well, actually we never had any doubt about the ridiculousness of the process, but it seems worth pointing this out all over again.

In reply to this Freedom of Information request, we received this. (Downloadable version available here.)

Right, so despite the fact that 80% of respondees, including some LAs, think that the system for safeguarding home educated children is adequate, and despite the fact that 95% believe that home educated children are able to stay safe and 64% said there should be no changes to the system of monitoring home educated families, we still get the DCSF ploughing on regardless.

News From the House

The Early Day Motion now has 61 signatories which is a substantial increase in recent weeks. People might want to check to see if their MP has signed and if they haven't, contact them and ask them to do so.

We need to apply pressure to raise this issue in the House because at Business questions on 29th October, Graham Stuart asked Harriet Harman, at 36 mins into this recording, for a debate in the House over the issue of the weaknesses in the Badman report. Harriet Harman said that this could usefully be debated in Westminster Hall or upon the adjournment.

Transcript here, - see annotations below.*

Of course, a debate in Westminster Hall is a way of sidelining the issue. A debate in the House of Commons would be subject to a vote, ministers are more likely to attend and there is more chance of the issue being taken seriously. Westminister Hall Debates are less likely to embarrass the government into actually listening to its populace.

"In December 1999, a new meeting place was opened up for debates - Westminster Hall.

Westminster Hall sits alongside the main Chamber, and is aimed at fostering a new style of debate. Sessions are open to all MPs, who sit in a horseshoe arrangement which is meant to encourage constructive rather than confrontational debate

The meetings are presided over by a Deputy Speaker and there are no votes."

The first reading of the draft legislation "Improving Skills and Safeguarding Children" in which changes to the registration and monitoring of home educators will be after the Queen's Speech on November 18th. There will be a second reading a week or two later. Then the bill will be debated and voted upon in the House and then go through to the Lords.

For more on how bills progress, go here.

Of course, we must also keep an eye on the Apprenticeships, Skills, Learning and Children's Bill, which is due for debate on the Lords Amendments on Wednesday 11th November.

Update: From Comments to the They Work for You Site:

"The issue Graham Stuart raises merits much more than a debate in Westminster Hall since the proposed legislation (the Safeguarding Bill) that springs from Graham Badman's report into Elective Home Education has huge constitutional implications for all families in this country, for it will, in all likelihood determine that the duty to ensure that all children receive a suitable education will rest unequivocally with the state.

We envisage that in years to come, when it is clear that the state has failed to ensure that a large number of children have not received a suitable education,(of course almost universally in their schooling system), that the government of the day will live to regret this legislative appropriation of parental duties.

This appropriation of parental responsibilities is but one of the huge issues that is at stake here. There are sadly many others. If we progress further down the route of state intervention into home education, it won't just have implications for home educators. It would impact upon education law for every family in England.

The full consequences of Mr Badman's proposals haven't been touched upon before the House, and deserve a full debate in the widest possible arena."

Balls is Irritating Virtually Everyone

We repeatedly read of groups other than home educators who suffer terrible frustrations with policies emanating from Mr Balls and the DCSF. Usually it is parents who are not allowed to parent any more. From this story we hear that Claude Knights, the founder of children's charity Kidscape, said that the council were:

"using a sledgehammer to crack nuts. They are encouraging a climate where parents and children are rendered suspicious without any proof of wrong doing or guilt. Caring parents should not be viewed as a threat and if you are a bona fide parent or carer you are in a better position to look after your children than council staff."

You could say exactly the same about the government's proposals for home educating families.

On this occasion however, it is the Tory party who sound exactly like the home education community. They too (along with home educators) have had their FOI requests blocked for spurious reasons.

Michael Gove said with regard to a government-commissioned report on education budgets (concealed on spurious grounds but leaked to the Beeb) that the researcher had said that the DCSF "has little clue about financial efficiency and that millions of pounds are being wasted on poor spending decisions."

Yep, that's right. Amongst other sources of embarrassment, such as spending £35,000 on a photocopier worth just £1,000, millions of pounds would, if the Badman recommendations go ahead, also be wasted interfering with otherwise perfectly well-functioning home educators. Ed Balls SHOULD be embarrassed.

Not Even Getting a Debate in Westminster Hall

The unconfirmed news via the home educating grapevine is that MPs have so far failed to secure a debate on the problems with the Badman Review and the resulting proposals, even in only Westminster Hall. This is clearly ridiculous. The proposals have huge constitutional implications for every family in the country. We don't just need to secure a debate in Westminster Hall. We need one in the House where the issue would be scrutinized by a larger number of ministers and properly subjected to the democratic process.

Put your arguments for a debate here.

From comments there:

"The issue Graham Stuart raises merits much more than a debate in Westminster Hall since the proposed legislation (the Safeguarding Bill) that springs from Graham Badman's report into Elective Home Education has huge constitutional implications for all families in this country, for it will, in all likelihood determine that the duty to ensure that all children receive a suitable education will rest unequivocally with the state.

We envisage that in years to come, when it is clear that the state has failed to ensure that a large number of children have not received a suitable education,(of course almost universally in their schooling system), that the government of the day will live to regret this legislative appropriation of parental duties.

This appropriation of parental responsibilities is but one of the huge issues that is at stake here. There are sadly many others. If we progress further down the route of state intervention into home education, it won't just have implications for home educators. It would impact upon education law for every family in England.

The full consequences of Mr Badman's proposals haven't been touched upon before the House, and deserve a full debate in the widest possible arena."

--------------------------------

"Other problems with the proposals emanating from the Badman report into Home Education include the issue of the damaging nature of the actions proposed, eg: the fact that familial privacy and autonomy to determine the nature of a suitable education will be severely compromised.

There is also the issue that in purporting to defend children's rights, the state by implementing these proposals, would actually be obliterating children's rights, (rights to privacy, freedom of association, rights to have their voice heard), since the fact is that the large majority of HE children have said "no" to this intrusive control of their lives.

We will have to consider the high likelihood that in defending their children's rights to have their voice respected, a previously hugely responsible section of society will become alienated, and resistant to state ministrations.

There are also resource implications, since there would doubtless be a load of false positives generated by sending insufficiently trained staff in to see children. Back-covering would overload already overstretched social work departments who could do with all that money that is being wasted by inspecting tens of thousands of perfectly well-functioning families.

Further, if legislation is written so as to hold parents responsible for failing to provide a suitable education, the state would then also have to hold schooling parents responsible too, otherwise s7 of the 1996 Education Act would otherwise be inconsistently applied. Of course, consistent application of law is a hall-mark of good legislation.

We must also consider that the state in determining the nature of a suitable education would thereby undermine its legitimacy as a democratic institution, since the democratic process requires that there be a free-thinking, freely educated and critical populace who are capable of holding its elected rulers to account.

All in all, despite it appearing to impact only upon a small section of the community, this issue has far wider implications, deserves to be debated in the widest possible arena, and be fully subjected to the voting process."