Jennifer had another excellent post up, entitled To Trust or Not To Trust. She expanded upon what she describes as:
A fundamental problem with inspection of families doing elective home-based education: whether or not to believe the parents.
The short answer is simple: believe the parents.
Unless compelling evidence of any crime arises then innocence must be assumed and innocent folk must continue to enjoy the privacy to get on with life, bringing up their children and educating them as they so wish.
However. In a country whose government is finding the prospect of requiring people to prove their innocence increasingly appealing, all parents and carers should be feeling the backs of their neck prickling. Because the state and some of its workers have already decided that some parents and carers are not decent or trustworthy.
Parents who have opted for school: Do you desire sensible teacher pupil ratios on school trips? Access to your child's school? Qualified teaching staff for early years? Smaller class sizes?
According to these teachers*, you're a "troublemaking parent", a "nuisance". As one professional puts it:
parents who think they can start ruling the roost need a bit of a reminder of roles / authority / repsonsibilities [sic] etc....
And if you would rather not be a troublemaking nuisance, but instead choose to circumvent the whole rotten system, the NASUWT has this to say in the December 09 issue of their magazine**:
Following a review of home education, the Government is propsing [sic] to introduce arrangements for the registration and monitoring of children who are educated at home. The consultation document 'Home Education: Registration and montoring [sic] proposals' sets out proposals for a registration scheme and arrangements for the monitoring of provision to ensure all children receive the education to which thet [sic] are entitled.
It's alarming to see so many spelling mistakes in a national teaching publication.
The National Union of Teachers was cited in the 'Report to the Secretary of State on the Review of Elective Hme [sic] Education in England' by Graham Badman as an Organisation that supported a school-based system of education for all.
"A school-based education for all"? The NASUWT appears happy to feather its nest at the expense of individual choice.
The Key recommendations within the report were that all children who are educated at home should be:
* Registered with their LA
* visited regularly by an LA representative to ensure their wellbeing; and
* able to have access to facilities within schools
Registration and inspection may be necessary to reassure parents who have delegated responsibility for their children in some manner. Home educated children, whose parents have chosen
not to delegate responsibility, have absolutely no need to be registered and inspected by a local authority. And in any case, how will regular visits "ensure" wellbeing?
The National Union of Teachers' response to the consultation stated that the only way the Government can be sure of meeting its stated aims within the Every Child Matters framework is to make schooling obligatory for all children.
Where to begin? It may well be that "the only way the government can be sure of meeting its stated aims... is to make schooling obligatory". But life does not begin with Every Child Matters. Children are not born with the five outcomes coursing through their veins. ECM is a recent government construct, not some fundamental state of being. It exists to provide a common framework for organisations that have been given or that take on responsibility for children in some way -
if parents aren't doing it themselves in their own way. Not all children and young people even agree with ECM or desire its outcomes for themselves. They would rather make their own choices in life than rely on someone else to get it wrong on their behalf.
The Union was exrememly [sic] concerned with the findings of the report, which stated that there are no reliable estimates of the numbers of children who are educated at home.
Again, this has nothing to do with the union, or the local authority. In fact, in the cases they don't know about, these public
servants have been deliberately circumvented - by the people who pay for them - in favour of alternative provision. Now perhaps they could leave families' private arrangements alone and get on with teaching the children whose parents
do want them to attend school. And consider using a dictionary!
The National Union of Teachers therefore agreed that if the Government was unable to make schooling obligatory, there should be an LA register of children who are educated at home, with a network of support and monitoring to ensure that the education of all children meets a set of nationaly [sic] agreed principles.
A national curriculum from which one cannot escape? In fact -
nationally agreed principles - well, that seems to go somewhat beyond a prescribed education. It sounds dangerously like a prescribed upbringing, just to keep us all in check. Do the people who pay for their children to attend independent schools still get to opt out?
The National Union of Teachers supported the recommendation to allow children who are usually home educated the option to use school facilities but felt that this would need careful monitoring to ensure that it could be managed effectively.
Naturally, the NASUWT is eager to dictate to parents what their children are and are not permitted to do in their own time, but not so happy to share their resources in order to make it happen.
The Union also expressed concerns that there were significant resource implications of the recommendations were agreed in full.
See?
The final report from the DCSF is expected at the end of the year.
*Headdesk*
*H/t Home Ed Forums
** I was unable to find an electronic version of this piece, but by happy coincidence the copy appeared on Sprout and Squidge, whose author (I assume) typed it out long hand. Please visit her for a useful exercise in substitution!
