How to attract unfavourable attention from your local authority

Some readers probably feel that they are not yet proper home educators, because they are still on quite amicable terms with their local authority. There is really no need for this, as putting people’s backs up is a fairly straightforward business. It is not hard to draw attention to yourself and make your local authority think that there is something fishy going on. Let’s see the best way to go about this.

Some parents welcome visits from their local authority as a chance to talk over concerns and ask questions about their child’s education. They would ideally like to see their EHE contact more often than once a year. These people are what we call traitors and fifth columnists. Always keep an eye out for such characters on the lists and forums and be sure to denounce them, saying that they are making the lives of genuine home educators a lot harder, by encouraging local authorities to expect visits as a matter of routine. Remember, any professionals who ask questions about the fact that your child is not at school are not really motivated by concern about your child’s welfare or education. Be sure to brush off any questions and remind those asking them of the legal situation. A few friendly words might reassure the person and the matter will end there; that’s not what the true home educator wants at all. Best of all, refuse brusquely to answer any question at a hospital, clinic, GP’s surgery or anywhere else. Become upset and angry if anybody asks the most casual and innocent question about your child’s non-attendance at school.

The fun really begins when having aroused the liveliest suspicions in the minds of concerned professionals about just what is going on with your kid, you then get a letter from the local authority. Typically, this will be couched ina chatty and friendly way, asking if it would be possible for somebody to pop round for a chat. There are Quislings and collaborators who give in to this sort of approach, which is in reality little short of fascism. Do not be one of them. Instead, contact all the Internet lists to which you belong and send an agonised appeal into cyberspace, announcing that you are being hounded and pursued. Explain that your child is so sensitive that he is likely to have a nervous breakdown if any unfamiliar adult enters the home. With luck, you will find other like-minded individuals who will help you to compose a really snotty letter to the local authority. This will achieve the double purpose of both putting their backs up and also leading them to suppose that you have something to hide. The stage is now set for confrontation and you may look forward to an increasingly fraught atmosphere. It would be no bad thing if your child were to pick up on this atmosphere and become distressed himself. Here’s a handy tip. Why not tell him that the bad guys are trying to force him to go to school? If this does not distress him, then why not hint that some people might want to take him away from his mother altogether? His inevitable anxiety will then provide you with yet another grievance. This strategy is particulary effective for children who are on the autistic spectrum.

It is not hard to spend years at daggers drawn with your local authority and the more fighting you manage with them, the more you will know that you are not one of those supine wretches who sell out at the first opportunity to the forces of the state. They may prefer a pleasant relationship with their local authority with a good natured hour once a year to chat things over; you are made of sterner stuff. If you ever have the nagging feeling at the back of your mind that you have turned into a a quarrelsome crackpot who argues for the sake of it, just spend some time on Home Ed Forums or HE-UK. You will soon be reassured that this behaviour is perfectly normal for a good home educator!

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Changing paradigms

Much of science is based upon sets of ideas which are generally accepted and which provide good explanations for how the world works. These theories are not dogma; they change when overwhelming evidence emerges which renders them no long viable. We then move from one paradigm to another, say from a Newtonian view of the universe to one in accordance with Einstein’s ideas. Let us look at a couple of ideas which fit in perfectly with modern paradigms; one in the field of medicine and one in education.

In medicine, we believe that smoking cigarettes tends to shorten lives by bringing about lung cancer, heart disease and various other illnesses. The link is not obvious, because these disorders typically take decades to emerge and so we only found out for sure when a lot of people’s medical histories were checked. This does not mean that every smoker will die young, nor that no non-smoker will die of lung cancer. Somebody who lives to a ripe old age while being a heavy smoker does so in spite of, not because of the habit. In education, there is a definite link between high quality, structured and compulsory teaching from a young age and future academic achievement. There is a similar link between the early acquisition of literacy and later academic history. Again, the link is not at once apparent because these consequences also take years to appear. As with cigarettes and lung cancer; there are exceptions. Some people might end up going to university without having been taught methodically. These people are, like the old man who smokes eighty a day with no apparent ill effects, exceptions. They have achieved academic success not because of, but in spite of, the educational treatment which they have received or failed to receive.

Every so often, somebody comes along with ideas which challenge prevailing paradigms. When this happens, the onus if very much upon those with the new ideas to demonstrate that these ideas provide a better explanation for the world than those currently being used. Some people today claim that HIV is not caused by AIDS. Others believe that smoking does not cause lung cancer. There are also those who believe that structured teaching tends to prevent academic achievement rather than promote it. Beliefs such as these are not rational or scientific. I do not propose to reference this article, this is after all a personal blog rather than an academic journal, but the evidence is overwhelmingly against any of the above ideas. Because there is no proper evidence to support either the belief that smoking does not cause lung cancer or the notion that structured and compulsory teaching does not tend to produce good academic results, those championing such things fall back on anecdotal evidence and deny the very need for properly conducted research. We see this with crank cures for cancer, where belief and faith are more important than objective research into the efficacy of what is being claimed. We see it too in some strands of home education, where anecdotal evidence is all and the necessity for research is similarly denied.

What is wrong with anecdotal evidence? Well, I had an elderly relative with a very heavy tobacco habit who lived to old age with no apparent ill effects. I also know somebody whose daughter was a life-long non-smoker and yet died of lung cancer. These cases are freaks; they do not cause me to doubt that smoking is strongly associated with lung cancer. We similarly hear of cases where children have been denied regular and systematic teaching and have then gone on to university. These people too are freakish exceptions. They have succeeded despite, rather than because of, their childhoods. We have good reason to think that this is so. First, because of the fierce opposition among those who embrace such unorthodox educational methods to any sort of objective examination of what they are doing. We know it secondly because the same few cases are paraded over and over again to prove that this type of education works. It has all the appearance of a crank cure for cancer, where most of the patients die, but the few survivors are paraded endlessly to prove that the treatment is effective. This has more in common with the sale of snake oil in the old-time West than with any modern education theory!

When it is claimed that a prevailing paradigm is faulty, and this applies to celestial mechanics, medicine, education or anything else, the onus is upon those making the claim to provide the evidence which backs up their belief. There would be nothing wrong with my claiming that Einstein was quite wrong about relativity and if I came up with a theory which made predictions which could be tested and checked, then people might even listen to me. Simply asserting that something is so, will not do. Nor will producing a half dozen cases and suggesting that these are good reason to abandon all that we currently believe to be true about medicine or education. The ball is in the court of those who espouse a new paradigm of education and if they wish to be taken seriously, they should make their case. It is this which lies at the heart of demands for monitoring and inspection: that a group of people are operating in a way which runs counter to all that we think we know about education. Most teachers and other professionals in the field think that these methods will cause harm to the development of young children and that is why they wish to intervene.

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Funding college places for home educated children

Graham Stuart and Nick Gibb do a double act and reveal that local authorities can allow home educated children to attend college and then claim the cost back from central government:


http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2011-07-18a.66262.h&s=home+education#g66262.r0

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On the idea of home educators inspecting the educational provision of other home educators

I have written before about the so-called ‘Tasmanian Model’. In that Australian state, home educators work with the government to inspect and monitor home education. It seems to work well enough and I think that it would be a good scheme in this country. There are problems though and the appointment of two home educators in Wigan has underlined that a good deal would need to change before this notion would be universally applauded by other home educators here. For one thing, there is the fact that these people will inherit a framework which is already immensely irritating to many home educating parents. Take this bit from Wigan’s policy on Children Missing from Education:


'The Children Act 2004, places a duty on all agencies to work
together to promote the welfare of children and to share
information. This principle underpins this policy and there is an
expectation that all agencies will work together to ensure children
are safely on school rolls.
1.4 There is now considerable research available which identifies the
reason for children and young people being ‘missing from school’.
The most common reasons include:
· failing to be registered at a school at age 5'

We observe the phrase ‘children are safely on school rolls’. Does that mean that children not on school rolls are automatically in danger? As for the idea that a reason for children missing school is that their parents do not send them to school at five, well this is so but blindingly obvious. Children miss school because they are not sent to school!

When we were stopped by a truancy patrol when my daughter was eight and had never been to school, I was fairly OK with the business. This was because the people asking the questions were what I would regard as professional busybodies. Imagine though that after not having sent my daughter to school at the age of five, there was a knock on the door and a home educator stood there. He tells me that it has been noticed that I am not sending my child to school and wants to know why. I might give a home educator shorter shrift than I would a run of the mill local authority officer. Why? Because he ought to know better.

Now consider the following passage, also from Wigan’s CME policy.


'4.6 If a school learns of a school aged pupil without a school place
(e.g. a sibling or friend of a current pupil etc) the school must
inform the LA of the child / young person. This can be done via
the dedicated e mail address www. cme@wigan.gov.uk, by
telephone or in writing to the EWS Admin Team located at Wigan
Investment Centre, Waterside Drive, Wigan WN3 5BA. Tel:
01942 705405 Fax: 01942 705408'


Some of this home educating parent's work will entail knocking on doors following reports of this sort from teachers who have noticed that one of their pupils has a friend who does not appear to be attending school. Would this not make some home educators feel a little uneasy, to find themselves acting on information of this sort from schools?

I think that this whole thing could work and is definitely an improvement, but will need a sea-change in thinking. If home educators are going to be checking up on other home educators in this way, then all policies will need to be revised accordingly. I find this quite an exciting development and will be interested to see if other local authorities try it out.

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More about Wigan and their new approach to home education

Here is the job description for the new post of inspecting home education in Wigan. The new people will be starting work in September.


http://www.wigan.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/BD63268F-9E26-44A3-8D59-3EC2EE6FFF4E/0/SLA2April2011.pdf


A certain amount of anger is building over the fact that any home educator should feel able to follow this specification. Some of the points mentioned in passing, about the supposed duties of the local authority, are controversial. Many home educators believe that councils do not possess the duties outlined here. As a result, the home educating parents who have now been appointed to this post are being viewed by some as little better than Quislings.

A number of other local authorities have expressed interest in the whole notion of the 'Tasmanian Model', where home educators themselves carry out inspections and assess the suitability of provision. Personally, I think that this might be a way forward, but judging by initial reactions to the situation in Wigan, it might just create more ill feeling. At any rate, Wigan are blazing a trail and it seems possible that other local authorities will try the same idea out. Here are the minutes of the meeting at which the decision was made to allow home educators to apply for the job of monitoring the educational provision of other parents:


http://www.wigan.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/A4FCD015-BC13-4249-BC1D-206506046652/0/MeetingNotes_Updates.pdf

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Wigan appoints home educating parents to monitor home education

It looks as though Wigan has decided to adopt the so-called 'Tasmanian Model' of monitoring home education. They have appointed two parents who are themselves home educators and who will be inspecting the provision of other parents. This is in sharp contrast to the usual sort of person doing this job, who is typically a former teacher. The fun and recriminations have already begun and we shall have to see how this new scheme actually works in practice.

Here is how Wigan, a town in Greater Manchester, went about finding somebody to do the job for them:


http://www.wigan.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/BD24787B-61A0-4ED8-9F76-59891A4AFCCE/0/SLALetter.pdf

In the interests of lively debate, I thought that readers might care to know that Wigan feels that:

' we have a duty to ask for evidence that a suitable education is being
provided.'

I seem to recollect that some parents do not believe this to be true...

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Associating with other home educators

Something which has been said of me in the past, and the same idea cropped up yesterday, was that I have not had much to do with other home educators and base my opinions mainly on what I read on Internet lists and forums. This notion says little about me and my life, but a great deal about the attitudes of those making the suggestion. I think that what people who make such assertions are really saying is that there is an Education Otherwise group which meets in North London and a strong home educating scene in Colchester. Because I have not been a member of either set; I cannot have met many home educating parents in real life. This shows a very strange and distorted perspective of home education.

It is true that there are quite a number of groups for home educating parents and that thousands of people belong to them. It is also the case that many more home educators simply get on with the business of home educating without joining groups or making any effort to seek out other home educating parents. I am one such person. Nevertheless, one way and another, I have still come across many home educators while teaching my daughter. Some of these were parents with whom I had professional dealings. This sample were not really typical of anything other than dysfunctional families in Inner London and may perhaps be disregarded for our purposes. How else does somebody who avoids groups get to meet home educators? Well, one bumps into them at meetings of the National Association for Gifted Children, to give one example. We used to belong to this and there is no shortage of home educators at some events and activities. One meets other parents with ‘school age’ children out and about locally and soon realises that these children too are home educated. We have got to know people in this way. A couple of our friends were so impressed with what they saw of my daughter’s experience that they tried it for themselves. This did not work out too well, although one persevered for a year before admitting defeat. Belonging to HEAS and Education Otherwise provided lists of individual parents who could be telephoned and arrangements made to meet up. Many of these parents too did not attend meetings. Finally, because my daughter and I have the habit of appearing in newspapers both local and national, some parents approach me in the street and reveal that they have just taken their children out of school and seek my advice.

Without knowing how many home educated children there are in the country and also knowing the number that attend groups intended exclusively for home educated children, one cannot make any confident statements about the matter, but I strongly suspect that the majority of home educators do not belong to groups. I think that most home educating parents simply plough their own furrow, neither seeking out nor avoiding other home educators. In other words, I think that I am pretty typical in this respect. The great thing about home education is that it is a collection of individuals of all sorts, linked only by the practice of home education. There are of course trends and distinct strands, but there is no such thing as a typical home educator. I might have something in common with other church goers or people who read Sartre and Camus. In the same way, I might have something in common with another person who does not send her child to school. However just because I share one interest with a person, church-going or home edcucting, does not mean that this is somebody with whom I will get on. We may well have very little else to connect us. I never thought of home edcuation as being in any way a defining chracteristic of mine. It was simply what I did and there was no reason why it should provide any sort of link to or common ground with others. For some parents though, it was more like a hobby or shred interest, something like birdwatching ot supporting a particular football team. These people joined together into clubs to meet others who shared their enthusiasm for the pursuit. This is fine, but it is not how I ever worked. I suspect that those who accuse me of not having met many home edcuators in real life belong to this group of people.

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