Monitoring
40. Section 19E sets out the monitoring arrangements. It does not contain any regulation making powers but statutory guidance under section 19I will be issued.
So again MPs are going to be asked to pass a bill which doesn’t contain any of this very important detail and TRUST that the DCSF and Secretary of State will not misuse the massive power they are being handed. If it wasn’t for the danger that they might do just that I would be laughing.
The local authority should make every effort to accommodate parents in carrying out monitoring. The section requires local authorities to make arrangements with a view to ascertaining so far as reasonably practicable :
whether education is suitable
A big can of worms which we will obviously be returning to
whether education accords with their application for registration;
What happened to “We anticipate that all plans will be open to change as new opportunities present themselves, and children develop new interests so we would expect local authorities to consider the plans flexibly in monitoring, recognising that home educators will want to fine tune provision to the opportunities available in their locality and the changing needs of their children.”? Yes, you did say that, in this very document, but apparently that was just more smoke blowing.
what the child’s wishes and feelings about the education are;
In the small number of cases where the child wants to go to school I would have to say, so what? If school children aren’t asked their opinion, and they aren’t, why should home educated children? If the decision of the majority of parents to send their children to school is not open to debate why should our decision not to be?
whether it is harmful for the welfare of the child to continue with home education.
and a monitoring visit will pick that up will it?
41. Suitability is at the heart of what the local authority has to consider in determining whether home education is appropriate. An “efficient” and “suitable” education is not defined in the Education Act 1996. In Harrison and Harrison v Stevenson (1982) the Court of Appeal defined education as ‘the development of mental powers and character and the acquisition of knowledge through the imparting of skills and learning by systematic instruction’ and ‘systematic’ as something that ‘achieves that which it sets out to achieve’. The judgement then made the further stipulation that efficient education must be ‘such as to prepare the children for life in modern civilised society and enable them to achieve their full potential’.
Such a pity that so few school children get such an education. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to go away and resolve that little issue first?
42. “Efficient” has been broadly described slightly later in case law (Mr Justice Woolf in the case of R v Secretary of State for Education and Science, ex parte Talmud Torah Machzikei 1985) as an education that “achieves that which it sets out to achieve”, and a “suitable” education is one that “primarily equips a child for life within the community of which he is a member, rather than the way of life in the country as a whole, as long as it does not foreclose the child’s options in later years to adopt some other form of life if he wishes to do so”.
If only they would just leave it there. We know they’re not going to, they can’t! Home education is like this over-powering itch, the kind where you can’t help scratching no matter how much damage it does.
43. In his report to the Secretary of State following his review of home education, Graham Badman argues that it would be wrong to seek to legislate in pursuit of an all embracing definition of “suitable”. However, he goes on to say that such is the demand and complexity of 21st Century society and employment that further thought should be given to what constitutes an appropriate curriculum within the broad context of home education. Such a curriculum must be sufficiently broad and balanced and relevant to enable young people to make suitable choices about their life and likely future employment.
Can you begin to imagine, oh minion of Ed Balls, just how much I don’t CARE what Graham Badman thinks? The man has been totally discredited! Do not tire me further with his opinions. It would be wrong to legislate on the definition of ’suitable’ not just because it is not your business but also because you couldn’t even do an acceptable job for right now. For the rest of the century? Give me a break! Drunken party, brewery, DCSF inability to organise. “An appropriate curriculum”? Just the use of those words gives you away, a curriculum is prescriptive by definition and whatever its contents it will outlaw autonomous education.
44. In their report of their inquiry into Graham Badman’s review the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee also reflect on the issue of suitability. They are concerned that any monitoring of home education provision should not undermine the flexibility and freedom currently enjoyed by home educating families in relation to their child’s learning and development. On autonomous education they recognised that, when overseen by a parent who is committed to his or her child’s education, this approach might work well for a child. However, they also recognise the difficult balance between protecting autonomous education and ensuring that all children have the prospect of gaining basic literacy and numeracy skills and of gaining an awareness of the full range of fields of knowledge open to them.
And your and evidence for autonomously educated children not achieving basic literacy and numeracy skills etc. is WHAT? You don’t have any do you? Not one case. You haven’t researched AE at all and you are going to destroy it before anyone can.
45. The Committee took the view that without such skills and awareness a child could not hope to thrive, let alone achieve his or her full potential and access a choice of careers. They formed the view that that there should be a more precise definition of what constitutes “suitable” education and that it must enable local authority officers to tackle situations where the child has no prospect of gaining basic literacy and numeracy skills efficiently or where there is no breadth to their education. It must, then, encompass a positive expectation in relation to, at least, the acquisition of basic skills and reasonable breadth.
You know what, much as I might admire certain members of that committee their report was not without fault as it was unavoidably a compromise reached between individuals with very different ideas about how children should be educated. I do not concede their opinions to be more valuable or better informed than my own.
46. Our existing guidelines make it clear that a suitable, full time, efficient education cannot be determined by the same methods that apply in schools. Children normally attend school for between 22 and 25 hours a week for 38 weeks of the year, but this measurement of “contact time” is not relevant to home education where there can be almost continuous one-to-one contact and education may take place outside normal “school hours”.
Ya don’t say?
47. The guidelines go on to state that the type of educational activity undertaken can be varied and flexible. Home educating parents are not required to:
teach the National Curriculum
provide a broad and balanced education
have a timetable
have premises equipped to any particular standard
set hours during which education will take place
have any specific qualifications
make detailed plans in advance
observe school hours, days or terms
give formal lessons
mark work done by their child
formally assess progress or set development objectives
reproduce school type peer group socialisation
match school-based, age-specific standards.
You see, your current guidelines aren’t really too bad. They could do with some tidying up, making it a bit clearer for the more hard-of-thinking local authority employees what they are NOT allowed to do and what duties they do NOT have. Your CME guidelines seem to have confused the poor dears.
48. We will soon commission work to establish whether the current interpretation of ‘suitability’ needs to be updated to provide a definition that takes account of developments in education policy and practice over the years.
Because they’ve turned out SO well! [snort]
We intend to commission work to examine whether we can develop a set of principles describing good quality learning in home education, possibly along the lines of those set out in the Independent Schools Regulations, although less detailed and prescriptive.
So no pre-determined outcomes there, eh?
49. From those principles would flow guidance on factors that local authorities would need to take into account in monitoring home education in different circumstances – for example where children have special educational needs, where they have been bullied or suffered from school phobia, of where they are following an approach such as Montessori/Steiner/autonomous. In this way we would set out the considerations that would apply either to individual children, or to the way education is carried out
You really don’t get it do you. Assessing the suitability of my child’s education is MY job and I don’t need your help.
50. The new guidance will include descriptions of what this means based on the review of suitable and efficient education that we are undertaking (para 62). The guidance will make it clear parents are not required to have any qualifications to teach their children and they are not required to teach a specific curriculum. Parents will also not be required to set tests or put their children forward for examinations. The guidance will give additional information for those parents who wish to access existing curricula or programmes of study and examinations.
51. Guidance will emphasis that, so far as is practicable, monitoring will be carried out informally, with parents and children describing the education that has taken place during the year, their plans for the following year, and discussing with the local authority any support they would like to receive in the short or medium term. Parents and local authorities should agree at the point of registration the extent to which monitoring will be carried out more formally through written reports, provision of work samples etc, or informally through discussion with the parent and the child. We would expect local authorities to be flexible in accommodating the wishes of parents and children which may change over time, particularly when parents start home educating after withdrawing their children from school.
JUST GO AWAY. Alright? GO AWAY AND LEAVE US ALONE. You wouldn’t know a suitable education if it bit you on the arse. Go away and fix your own crumbling, failing excuse for a state education system. You haven’t got a clue and everything you touch turns into CRAP!
