Fisking the CSF Bill HE Policy Statement Part 7 THE END
Onto the home stretch at last! So many lies, so much spin! Such a bunch of evil manipulative bastards!
Review of Suitable and Efficient Education
62. Parents are already required to ensure that the education they provide for their child at home is suitable to their age, ability and aptitude, and any special educational needs they may have.
Yes we are, and we know that and are comfortable with the responsibility.
63. The Bill does not change that
LIE. Big, fat, honking LIE.
but in the Government’s response to Badman Report we have said that we will review the definition of what constitutes a ‘suitable’ and ‘efficient’ education in the light of recent developments such as the Rose Review, the Every Child Matters outcomes and the current arrangements for assessing and delivering the curriculum throughout the statutory school years.
None of which are even remotely relevant.
In commissioning the review we will give home educators an assurance that they will not be required to follow the National Curriculum, or the Early Years Foundation Stage, nor for their children to take any statutory tests or national qualifications. We already accommodate a wide range of educational approaches and philosophies in independent schools, which respond to the wishes of parents, and we anticipate that we will see even greater variation in the approaches taken by home educators.
Like these assurances mean anything. Of course our children won’t have to follow the same National Curriculum as used in state schools, it wouldn’t be practical, but that’s not the same as saying there won’t be a new HE National Curriculum. The Early Years Foundation stage doesn’t even apply to children of Statutory School Age, why mention it? Were they thinking about enforcing it on under-5s who stay at home? You can see in this paragraph how they intend to pull us into their ’system’ and control us.
64. The review will build on existing case law which refers to preparing children for life primarily within their own community, while not preventing them pursuing a different form of life if that is what they choose as adults. This means that home educated children and their families continue to have a wide discretion to determine the education of their child. The review will be conducted in the context of examining how local authorities can determine that home educators are receiving a suitable education bearing in mind the diversity of approaches that they take. It will involve a wide spectrum of people reflecting the diversity of home educators so as to take account of the full range of approaches to learning at home. It will also be particularly important that those with expertise in the education of children with special educational needs are involved.
All this is of course based on the VERY large assumption that the next government will commission this review. There’s an old saying about unhatched poultry they might like to consider.
65. Guidance made under section 19I will set out any revised interpretation on the issue of suitability of education following on from the review.
So the DCSF is giving itself the power to define a suitable education in whatever way it sees fit after another sham consultation and with no parliamentary oversight.
Appeals
66. Section 19G gives parents the right to appeal against a decision by a local authority to refuse or revoke registration. Regulations will determine the powers of the appeal panel.
Of course they will. Can’t risk having the details work out in advance and in the bill, people might not like them, MPs or Lords might want to debate them, present Amendments to change them. Better to just keep the whole thing under-wrpas until you’ve got the power eh?
Subsections (1) and (2) provide regulation making powers.
There we are.
The framework for the appeal will be set out in regulations and accompanied by guidance to ensure that appeals are informal and impartial along similar lines to school admission appeal panels. The panel will be independent from the authority and will comprise three people, all of whom have been trained in appeal arrangements. Panels should include at least one person who has a professional educational background, at least one person who has experience of home educating and a lay member. Local authorities will be responsible for establishing the panel and for providing administrative support.
Yeah, right. One person who has a feckin clue vs a hostile professional and someone who is most likely to listen to the hostile professional. Can’t imagine how that’ll work out!
67. The panel will consider written and oral evidence provided by the parents and the LA and will be able to seek clarification and information. The child will also be asked to give their views. The powers of the panel will be set out in regulation. It will be completely independent from the original decision maker; it will be able to reconsider the facts and merits in every case; it will be able to establish facts by reference to written and/or oral evidence form all relevant persons. The panel will be able to decide that a decision to revoke or refuse registration should be upheld or not upheld. We envisage that a panel may also be able to, for example, recommend registration but attach conditions – such as the provision by a home educating parent of an address or the arrangement of a meeting between the parent and child and the local authority. Where the decision of the local authority is not upheld, the LA must enter or reinstate the child’s name on the register for the remainder of the registration period. Where the decision is upheld the parents cannot continue to home educate their child or reapply for registration for the period specified by the local authority in accordance with the regulations concerning repeat applications. The appeal panel regulations will set out the timescale within which an appeal should be heard and set out the administrative process for lodging an appeal.
Oh what’s the point, it’s all going to be ’set out in regulation’, it is all a stitch up, another one.
68. We anticipate that local authorities exercising good practice will want to have a review process in place which parents can use initially before having to appeal and we will set out this expectation in guidance. Parents will also have the right to seek judicial review of any panel decision and, if they considered that there was maladministration, could complain to the local government ombudsman.
Is the judicial review in the bill? No it is NOT.
Supply of Information
69. Section 19H enables regulations to be made requiring local authorities, maintained schools and the proprietors of independent schools to supply a local education authority exercising its home education functions with information. It is intended that this will provide for the situation where a local authority receives an application from the parent of a child who has previously been registered elsewhere or who has been withdrawn from school to home educate. The information requested will include any reason for refusing or revoking registration; whether there is a school attendance order in place relating to the child; information about the current educational attainment of the child; and any particular needs he or she might have that should be taken into account as parents and the local authority make plans for supporting home education.
If you look through it the bill is little more than a list of things that the DCSF will be issuing regulations about. There’s virtually no real detail, it’s just power that parliament is being asked to hand over and TRUST that it will be used in a responsible, fair and proportionate manner. This Policy Document is a work of fantasy with all it’s talk of support, for which there is no funding, and ‘envisioned’ outcomes based on regulations that remain secret, it they have been written at all.
I hope they’ve printed it on soft paper!
sally Said on January 24th, 2010 at 1:04 am quote
The funny thing is that the sentence that made me most angry was “This means that home educated children and their families continue to have a wide discretion to determine the education of their child.”
They think this ‘discretion’ is theirs to generously give!
Who’s child is it? Who do they work for? Remind me …. I think they need a big, fat reminder! Totalitarian shit.
Thanks for great fisking. I shall be keeping it handy in my links.
emma Said on January 24th, 2010 at 5:42 pm quote
This document actually gives me tremendous hope. It is SO bad, SO evil that it cannot be hard for HEers to contact their MPs saying “there is no funding. There are no guarantees that the DCSF will use these huge powers wisely”. This has to help us kill the bill.
Plus, if the worst case scenario goes ahead, I would say many HEers are a whisker away from finding alternatives. e.g. simply opting out of statute law, although that requires some serious courage, the ability to remain completely cool under pressure in court, and very careful research about the way one can interact with the giant scam of the statute machine while denying its power over one.
They have created a little subculture of very articulate, very networked dissidents. Our existence makes the totalitarian dream harder to achieve.
Oh, and a post or two back, you are absolutely wrong about Balls. His future lies, not in an inglorious future on labour’s back benches, but in a full-on Portillo moment. I am envisioning this with more energy than his rent-seeker lackeys are envisioning my subjugation. Oh, I’m also envisioning massive budget cuts at the DCSF
admin Said on January 24th, 2010 at 6:53 pm quote
A Portillo moment WOULD be wonderful wouldn’t it, and televised too, OMG wouldn’t that be SWEET?! But no later return to parliament and NO career as a TV presenter! {shudders}