Way back in the mists of time, or so it seems, when the DCSF commissioned review of home education had only just started, panel member and friend of Graham Badman, Stephen Heppel said that the abuse/welfare issue was a red herring. I think we need to revisit that observation.

Much anger is being directed at the recommendations for compulsory home visits and seeing children alone but what if these are also red herrings? Suggestions so outrageous and legally problematic that they act as lightning conductors, deflecting our attention onto policies that the DCSF really has no interest in pursuing anyway?

Look instead at the fundamental issue of conditional licensing. As Paul Atreides says in Dune the movie, “He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing”. Whatever the DCSF say once your LA has the power to grant or deny you permission to home educate they WILL have the power to tell you how to do it. Badman didn’t come right out and say it but Recommendation 2 really does give the game away.

That the DCSF review the current statutory definition of what constitutes a “suitable” and “efficient” education in the light of the Rose review of the primary curriculum, and other changes to curriculum assessment and definition throughout statutory school age. Such a review should take account of the five Every Child Matters outcomes determined by the 2004 Children Act, should not be overly prescriptive but be sufficiently defined to secure a broad, balanced, relevant and differentiated curriculum that would allow children and young people educated at home to have sufficient information to enable them to expand their talents and make choices about likely careers. The outcome of this review should further inform guidance on registration.

This is I believe what they are REALLY after. The current consultation on licensing and the threatened one on the definition of “full-time” are only laying the groundwork for the introduction of a National Curriculum for home educated children and the utter elimination of Autonomous Education.