Local Action
For those of you who don’t know the history, Surrey County Council does not currently have an OFFICIAL EHE policy, staff have been working to a document inherited 12 odd years ago by the (now retired) team leader and modified by her over time and never once presented for council approval. That’s NOT an official policy. The draft that’s being discussed was drawn up by her last year with specific instructions NOT to allow local home educators sight of it until it HAD been approved. After getting hold of it thanks to a group member doing a FoI request, well, not happy would be a bit of an understatement I think. One petition later the council’s Schools and Learning Select Committee is looking at the policy. If you are Surrey resident or just want to read the policy and associated documents you can pop on over to our SCC page, but here’s the main body of the letter sent out to local HE groups at the end of February:
Dear Colleague,
Schools and Learning Select Committee: Review of Home Education Policy Following a petition presented to the Committee in December 2009, the Schools and Learning Select Committee has asked to scrutinise the Council’s review of its Home Education Policy. The Policy is being reviewed in light of national developments outlined in the Badman report, which may prompt changes in process. The Committee will explore the extent to which the policy is fit for purpose and the implications of any changes. They will also consider whether it meets national requirements.Members are keen to take into account the views of home educators in Surrey. As such, I would like to invite you, as a group or as individual educators, to contribute to the discussions. I would appreciate if you could provide, in a short written summary, your thoughts on the current policy and the national developments. I will then provide these to members for consideration with the officer report. Please note that your submission would become a public document.
It sounds like they’ve been drinking the DCSF Kool-Aid, “national developments outlined in the Badman report”? WTF?!
Despite my frequent rants on this blog I really do want a quiet life. I want SCC to have a decent, fair, respectful policy which doesn’t require me to make anatomically impossible suggestions to its employees. I want council taxes to be used for helpful things, like filling pot-holes and protecting genuinely vulnerable children. SCC failed on child protection last time OFSTED inspected them and I’m sure the last thing in the world they want is to end up doing a Birmingham City Council. They need more social workers to reduce individual caseloads to an acceptable level, not EHE staff running their own little book shop selling crushingly dull workbooks ‘at cost’ [sic].
So, we will explain how Badman’s report has been debunked and the EHE components of the CSF Bill are NOT going to happen. We will point out that this means no new funding and remind them of their own substantial projected budget cuts. We will doubtless have to point out the limits of their legal duties and powers. After all that, the best we can hope for is that on April 14th councillors accept that the draft EHE policy is NOT ‘fit for purpose’ and tell their staff to start again from the beginning and actually CONSULT this time.
bubble Said on March 18th, 2010 at 11:51 am quote
s= that on April 14th councillors accept that the draft EHE policy is NOT ‘fit for purpose’ and tell their staff to start again from the beginning and actually CONSULT this time.
they always rubber stamp what ever is put forward to them! most of those councilors will just agree with it!
Firebird Said on March 18th, 2010 at 1:31 pm quote
In general maybe, but I’m not at all sure that they will on this occasion. They’re looking at some serious budget cuts so passing a policy that will cost more than it has to is not something they’ll be keen on. The county desperately needs to spend MORE on social workers before they find themselves splashed on the front page of the tabloids.
They are Tory/Lib Dem so not ideologically tied to Ed Balls AND to put the icing on the cake, Michael Gove is a Surrey MP. I think we have reason to hope that they will be sensible.
If they’re not, and they rubber stamp this abomination we will set about making them very, very sorry.
bubble Said on March 19th, 2010 at 6:21 pm quote
ttp://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2009/03/000000_europe_today.shtml
The above link should take people to the right place to hear Graham Badman and others.
hat fool badman is on this link
Fiona Nicholson, Education Otherwise Said on March 21st, 2010 at 7:19 am quote
It seems from this link http://www.swsurrey-home-ed.co.uk/scc.php that the council says draft was previously drawn up with home educators but you’re saying nobody saw it? It’s a strange time for them to be reviewing anything in a way, because why would they not just wait to see the outcome of the wash-up and the fate of the Children Schools and Families Bill to see whether they were legally required to plan for changes from April 2011?
Firebird Said on March 21st, 2010 at 4:33 pm quote
We suspect that the EHE team told the committee chairman that they consulted and if challenged will point to the questionnaire they sent out (also linked off that page), because, well what else are they going to do, tell the truth?!
The timing is mainly my fault
having been doorstepped last year I complained and was told that they were following the official policy, which nobody had seen. Another member of the local group immediately fired off a FoI request. Nobody was impressed with what we saw so rather than wasting our time with the EHE team again we decided to start the ball rolling with the appropriate council committee. I presented a petition and now here we are with it on the agenda for next month.
The draft policy was written just after the Badman Report was published when no doubt there were high hopes in LA Land that they would be given all sorts of new powers. It remained in draft form awaiting those powers and probably still would be if we hadn’t found out about it.