Channel 4 Monday, 04 February 2019 12:10
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"The Children’s Commissioner for England has called for a compulsory home education register and strong measures to tackle ‘off-rolling’." "In a report, Skipping school: invisible children, Anne Longfield also said there should be more support for families who home educate, a greater oversight of home schooled children and decisive action against unregistered schools..." "Some children were completely out of sight of the authorities and ‘off the grid’ – with research by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS)/Dispatches showing 93% of councils say they are not aware of all the children in their area who are home educated. When local authorities offer to visit a home educating family, in 28% of cases the family refuses." http://www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=38016%3Achildrens-commission-calls-for-compulsory-home-education-register&catid=54&Itemid=22 Of course, one of the reasons for an increase in home education is the failure of many mainstream schools to cope with children with additional support needs. [ASN] Here is an example from Scotland: "The presumption to mainstream sees all children taught in mainstream schools unless certain exemptions apply. Currently, more than a quarter of the pupil population in Scotland (28.7 per cent) has ASN, an increase of more than 68 per cent since 2012 (in part due to an increase in awareness and identification). This, however, is against the background of 500 fewer specialist ASN teachers and a reduction in support staff, such as education psychologists and behaviour support staff..." "A lack of classroom support, driven in part by budgetary cuts, means that many of these vulnerable children and young people are not having their educational and social needs met. This is also putting pressure on fellow pupils and teachers, with many of the latter lacking the necessary training to provide the specialist support required."
Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill [HL] 2017-19 "A Bill to make provision for local authorities to monitor the educational, physical and emotional development of children receiving elective home education, and for connected purposes."
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"This week, a seemingly innocuous private member`s bill appeared in the House of Lords, brought by Lord Soley and introduced by Estelle Morris. Innocuous for two reasons – private members’ bills rarely make it onto the statute books and Lord Soley has a previous track record on the subject, not least via Lords of the Blog so this is merely an extension of previously expressed views. But in reality, it is far from innocuous." "In 2014, Diana Johnson introduced a private member’s bill on sex education. As expected, it didn’t go anywhere, but three years later, we saw far-reaching legislation on Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) sneaked into law using the Children and Social Work Bill as a Trojan Horse. The private member’s bill was just part of the normalisation process – raising the issue, provoking debate and testing the water." "And that is exactly what is happening here. The bill won’t go anywhere – Lord Soley knows that. But it is part of the softening process, a piece in the jigsaw which is designed to remove a parent’s right to educate their child as they think best."
"The Government has been urged to set up a register of all children being home-schooled after an eight-year-old boy died of scurvy." "The recommendations have been made in an independent review set up following the death of Dylan Seabridge in Pembrokeshire, Wales. When the child died at his family farmhouse, he had apparently not had any direct contact with doctors, nurses and teachers for 13 months. Education officials had visited his home after concerns had been raised about him, but they were allegedly denied entry and they had not enforceable powers to see him." "Dylan collapsed in December 2011 and his family phoned 999. Emergency services attended but he suffered from cardiac arrest in an ambulance on the way to hospital and could not to be saved." "His parents, Julie and Glynn Seabridge, told authorities that they thought he was suffering from growing pains. An inquest found he had scurvy, which can occur due to severe Vitamin C deficiency." "His parents were charged with child neglect but the case was later dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service." "Following Dylan’s death, the Welsh government set up an independent review of the circumstances. The findings, reported in Wales Online, include: `He was not routinely having access to play, leisure, sporting and cultural activities along with friendships and age appropriate socialisation`." "When he encountered health problems he was not given the right to appropriate health care. His parents had parental responsibility and a duty to provide appropriate care, including the need to seek medical attention for his health needs. This did not happen." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/calls-for-home-schooling-register-as-boy-8-dies-from-scurvy-a7128381.html
"The Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan, has asked officials to review home schooling amid fears that thousands of children are having their minds `filled with poison` by radicalised parents." "Between 20,000 and 50,000 children are thought to be educated at home - but the Government has no idea of the exact number because parents are under no obligation to inform their local council."
Ms Morgan has already announced a crackdown on unregistered schools and `weekend madrassas` after some were found to be promoting extremist ideology. But senior government sources have revealed that home schooling is now `on the radar`." "Under proposals being considered in Whitehall, parents and teachers will be given a specific point of contact at local councils in order to raise concerns about a child. Officials will also try to discover how many children are being taught at home, beyond the reach of inspectors..." "The new Conservative chairman of the Education Select Committee, Neil Carmichael, has endorsed proposals for more safeguards for children educated at home. He told the Tory party conference in October: `I find it absolutely amazing people who are home educated are not registered as being home educated. It`s an absolute scandal that should not be allowed.`" I like what Fiona Nicholson of the Home Education Consultancy had to say:
"`You can disagree with lots of ways parents bring up their children but until a crime has been committed, or there is a substantial child-protection issue, I don`t think it`s anybody`s business. It`s more than a slippery slope, it`s off a precipice really.`"
Sad and shameful, that all families in Scotland have already been thrown off the precipice.
As far as extremist ideology is concerned, who knows what that means? Recall that potential radicalisation also includes domestic extremism and examples include:
"Animal rights, environmentalism, far right politics, far left politics or emerging trends i.e any activity that unduly and illegally influences or threatens the economic and community cohesion of the country." See Channel Duty Guidance
With a definition as wide as that, who`s going to be off the radar?
"An appeal by parents of a "state-napped" Swedish boy who was taken into government custody because he was homeschooled has been rejected by an international court in Europe, which blasted the parents for preventing their son from going to school and keeping him "isolated from children of his own age."
"But Christer and Annie Johansson are working with a human-rights lawyer, who is bringing a new case in Sweden they hope will reunite them with their son, Domenic, now 12. The boy was taken from a jetliner by police in an armed SWAT-type raid at the age of 7 when the family was moving to India." "The Johannsons have asked that parents from around the globe to step up and lobby the court on their behalf." "According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, the Johanssons haven’t seen their son since November 2010..."
"This family’s battle has been long, hard and painfully disappointing," HSLDA said in its report. "After 7-year-old Domenic was initially seized in June 2009, a Swedish appeals court permanently transferred custody of Domenic to a third-party custodian and terminated Christer and Annie’s parental rights in December 2012." "Since then, the dispute has been going on in courtrooms, where the HSLDA, together with the Alliance Defending Freedom, twice petitioned the European Court of Human Rights."
"The court’s most recent decision, citing a Swedish court ruling, went against the parents..."
"HSLDA said the family’s new case is being handled by noted human rights attorney Rudy Harrold-Claesson of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights." Also on the case is Roger Kiska, senior counsel for ADF Global. "What has happened in the Johansson’s situation is a horrible violation of family rights and every family’s worst nightmare," said Michael Donnelly, HSLDA director of global outreach." "It is far beyond time that the Swedish courts realize they cannot separate a child from his parents simply due to the mistaken assumptions of a social worker.." "The family must be respected as an integral unit of any democratic society," the suggestion includes." "WND reported legal experts argue Swedish officials violated multiple human rights enshrined in international treaties to which the Swedish government is a party: the right of parents to direct the education of their children, family life, due process, travel and more..."
"When one court decision was released in Sweden in favor of the parents, government officials kept the child in custody until they were able to get it reversed." "The frustration at one point prompted Christer to take his son during a brief visit and not return him to social workers, resulting in a prison sentence for the father..."
"As WND has been reporting for years, the Johansson family is hardly alone in battling Swedish authorities for the right to homeschool." Dozens of families have already fled abroad, including Jonas Himmelstrand, the chief of the Swedish Homeschooling Association, ROHUS, who fled to Finland with his wife and children. http://www.wnd.com/2015/04/new-hope-for-state-napped-homeschooler/#!
The current home schooling laws have created a "hidden population" of children which is impossible to monitor officials in Glasgow have warned. Under the current law, parents are not required to register their children for home schooling. They say the current law means it is almost impossible to monitor what standard of education home schooled children are receiving.
I would suggest that it has become almost impossible to monitor children`s progress in Scotland via Curriculum for Excellence. There is little reference to subject matter in the curriculum, textbooks, or report cards that indicate how children are doing; only vague ideas about experiences and outcomes which are supposed to shape values, attitudes and behaviour. None of this seems to bother the officials from Glasgow who wish to monitor parents. But monitoring should go both ways.
There is not a great deal of research into home education but what research there is shows that children do well.
According to the Scottish Government, parents choose to home educate their children for many different reasons. The list is not exhaustive but includes:
The wish to follow a particular educational or ideological philosophy. Religious or cultural beliefs. Dissatisfaction with the system. A child`s reluctance to go to school.A child`s problems when at school, e.g. bullying. Geographical - due to remoteness, or mobility for work or cultural reasons. The wish to deal with a child`s additional support needs in a particular way. As a short term intervention for a particular reason. http://www.gov.scot/resource/doc/207380/0055026.pdf
So there are many good reasons why parents might wish to home educate their children and this is all the better if one values choice and diversity. Since the introduction of Curriculum for Excellence, dissatisfaction with the system itself is bound to become a major factor for discerning parents.
Then we have this from the officials in Glasgow:
Education leaders have also raised concern about the impact of the proposed named person scheme on children who are home schooled.
This is what the present alarm is really about. Home educators are far too independent but no group should be allowed to escape the data mining clutches of the named person scheme.
"Artillery for the Northern Ireland government's takeover of homeschooling, stockpiled by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), is being set to usurp the power of parents and hand it over to children and the state. If the U.N.-based policy is implemented, government assessors will be directed to obtain the "opinion of the child" in order to determine whether homeschool parents are fit to teach their own."
"The proposed policy grants government agents sweeping power over homeschooling in Northern Ireland," says Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) staff attorney Mike Donnelly, who also serves as the organization's director or international relations. "The policy is a frontal attack on the rights of parents and families to be free from unwarranted and unreasonable government interference and shows how U.N. treaties are a threat to educational freedom everywhere."
"Donnelly warns that the U.N.-crafted policy that's routed to take shape in Northern Ireland is something in which nations abroad should be very concerned. "It reflects a dramatic departure from the policy in the rest of the United Kingdom, where parents enjoy the appropriate freedom to decide whether or not their children will be homeschooled without unreasonable state intrusion," he asserts. "The new policy involves prior and subjective approval of homeschooling, a database to register homeschooled children, and gives school officials the power to question homeschooled children and arbitrarily enter a homeschooler's home."
"The HSLDA attorney reminds homeschoolers of a previous battle against overregulation. "In 2009, homeschoolers in England fought against a similar proposal recommended by the 'Badman Report,'" Donnelly notes. "The current policy being proposed in Northern Ireland appears to have been influenced by similar ideas that the state has the authority to intervene and determine how and whether children should be home-educated."
"HSLDA's online petition, "Hands off Home Education," is designed to defend the freedom of homeschoolers in Northern Ireland by providing a way for homeschool advocates worldwide to sign in their support."
A mother has lost her appeal to have her 18 year old disabled son returned to her care because a judge believes that he must no longer be home-schooled by her, despite the mother having done so for ten years and regardless of the fact that at 18 he should be allowed to leave school.
Now the boy must live in a residential care home miles away from his home. This does appear to be an abuse of the Mental Capacity Act and sets a dangerous precedent.
Most comments are sympathetic to the family and as one person put it: "We are now living in a society where we have to do as we`re told, or risk losing our children."
