For those who wanted to read it, here’s my response to SCC’s request for comment on their Draft EHE Policy and “national developments”.

Last night (7/4/2010) the EHE elements of the Children, Schools and Families Bill was voted down in the House of Lords. The national situation is that there has been no change in the law and short of a Labour government being returned to power it is unlikely that anything similar will be put forward again. In practical terms this means there is no legal foundation for the monitoring of home education and no central government funding.

Unfortunately the DCSF has been sending out guidance and holding briefings which presupposed that Schedule 1 was going to go through despite a clear public promise by Michael Gove MP (Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families) that it would not be permitted to pass into law. I can only conclude that it was part of a politically motivated policy of ‘muddying the waters’ and further damaging the relationships between home educators and LAs.

The Badman report has been soundly discredited and almost unanimously rejected by the home educating community, even the Labour dominated HoC CS&F Select Committee found it to be “too aggressive” and based on “less than robust” evidence. It is certainly not a good basis for policy!

The SCC draft EHE policy is deeply flawed, even the first sentence is factually incorrect. The parental duty to ensure “children receive education suited to their age ability and aptitude, and to any special educational needs” applies to all children, not just those not registered at school. I will refrain from a point by point criticism of the policy as I am sure that the committee will have neither the time or inclination to discuss it in that kind of detail, but the policy does not “Follow the DSCF [sic] Guidance To Local Authorities On Elective Home Education”. It is drafted almost entirely on the basis that children who are home educated will have been withdrawn from school and it misrepresents education law.

The petition presented to SCC last year specifically asked that a new EHE policy comply with CURRENT law and guidelines, not the wish list of anti-home education elements in government, and that it be developed in consultation with home educators, the main stakeholders.

The EHE team sent out a short satisfaction survey last February but by no stretch of the imagination could it be taken to constitute a consultation on a new EHE policy. The cover letter for that survey dated 11th February 2009 included the following statement “the Local Authority is hoping to form a working group from members of the home educating community and the EHE team to look at ways to support home education”. This never materialised. “The results will be published early in the Summer Term” also never happened.

A Surrey EHE policy not only needs to comply with the law and be acceptable to home educators it also needs to represent value for money to the tax payers of Surrey and not to divert scarce resources from where they are really needed. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the projected budget cuts outlined in the SCC Corporate Business Plan, nor of the unfortunate outcome of the children’s services inspections carried out by Ofsted.

Surrey should seek to be an example of good practice and positive relationships which benefit everyone and the first step towards that is a good official policy.

Last Modified: Thursday, April 8th, 2010 @ 17:40