A new conspiracy theory

The world of British home education is often swept by conspiracy theories, in which the simple and obvious explanations for things are thought to conceal deeper and more sinister motives. I have written of such ideas on here several times. I quite often receive emails from home educators which offer me information or advice; much of it about my personal character and disposition. A number of readers have contacted me, for example, to point out that I am a complete fuckwit. This assessment of my mental abilities, although doubtless meant kindly, is superfluous; my family already remind me regularly of this aspect of my personality. I am nevertheless grateful for all such feedback. On other occasions, people contact me to draw my attention to things that they think I should know about and mention in my blog. Recently, I have had three emails, all suggesting the same thing. Two were from fairly well known names on the home educating scene and so I thought that I would set out the theory they propound and see what others make of it.

I have written before about the strange business of the new guidelines which were being prepared and which were apparently intended to replace the existing 2007 guidelines to local authorities on dealing with home education. Alison Sauer was involved with this project, as were Imran Shah and Tania Berlow. The whole thing was supposedly being done in cooperation with Graham Stuart MP, Chair of the Commons select committee on families and children, who had received the go-ahead from Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister. We were told at the end of last year that a first draft would be ready after Christmas and that we would all be able then to offer our criticism. While this was happening, Alison Sauer and Imran Shah, stopped posting on the various lists and forums, presumably, as it was widely suggested, to avoid answering questions about this business. They then reappeared and nothing was ever said about the new guidelines. That was three months ago and we have heard nothing since. It is assumed that the thing is dead in the water.

A week or so ago, it came to light that the Department for Education intends to implement one of the recommendations of the Badman report, something which was included in Schedule 1 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill; the bit about children's names being retained on the school register for twenty days after their parents have de-registered them.

What my correspondents say is that these two events are linked in some way. The idea seems to be that the story about the new guidelines was a red herring and that while home educating parents were occupied with this, behind the scenes civil servants at the DfE were actually drawing up plans to implement Badman's ideas piecemeal. The hint is being made that either Alison Sauer and her friends knew about this and are hoping for well paid jobs in connection with some new monitoring regime, or that they have been used as fall guys and tricked by Nick Gibb, who all along intended to introduce new monitoring requirements for home education. So in one version of the theory, those working with Graham Stuart are dupes and in the other villains who are selling out other home educators in order to obtain jobs with the DfE. Nick Gibb and Graham Stuart emerge as Machiavellian conspirators, whose plots are of such Byzantine complexity as to bewilder a Borgia.

I can believe that Nick Gibb intends and has always intended to bring in new regulations around home education, but I am not so sure about Graham Stuart, Alison Sauer et al. It would help allay any such suspicions if these people would explain openly what was actually going on last year and what has happened since. In the meantime, I shall keep readers posted of any new developments of which I hear.

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Put not your trust in princes

I feel a little bit sorry for those who were so enthusiastic about the support they thought that they were getting from Graham Stuart MP. In case readers have forgotten, this was the fellow who was very keen to support home educators and swore that he would defend their interests against statist interference by Ed Balls & Co. There is currently a lot of dissatisfaction among some home educating parents at the introduction of one of Graham Badman's recommendations. People have been beetling off to Graham Stuart's Facebook page and urgently soliciting his help. You would have thought this a perfect chance for him to come to the rescue. And yet 'answer came there none'..... There is a very simple explanation for this.

At the end of last year, Graham Stuart had managed to persuade a number of people in the home educating community, Alison Sauer and Tania Berlow spring to mind, that the 2007 guidelines for local authorities needed to be rewritten. He did this in his capacity of 'Friend of the Home Educators' and had spoken to Nick Gibb the Schools Minister about it. We were told in December that these guidelines were almost finished and that they would be published after Christmas so that everybody could offer their views on them. Three months later and there is no sign of these new guidelines. I suspect there never will be. Graham Stuart has found that now his party is no longer in opposition, there is less advantage in embracing fringe causes like this. Michael Gove and Nick Gibb have shown that they are determined to tighten up the situation around home education and Graham Stuart has had to make a choice. Does he (a) continue to hang around with a cranky fringe group who are associated in the public mind with deaths like that of Khyra Ishaq, or does he (b) drop them like hot potatoes and concentrate on sucking up to the ministers in the hope of getting a ministerial post himself in a year or so? It is, as they say, a no-brainer.....

Being in opposition and courting various special interest groups who are angry with the government is one thing. Being in with the chance of rising in the government is quite another and Graham Stuart is now in the latter position. Perhaps angry home educators would do better now to make friends with a few Labour MPs, who will doubtless promise them all sorts of help and support, until they win the next election... You mugs!

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Possible changes in the way that local authorities behave towards home educators

The day after Graham Badman's report was published last year, a time when many home educating parents were very worked up and angry about the recommendations which it contained, somebody wrote the following opinion on the Badman report for Walsall local authority in the West Midlands;

'Having read the Home Education Review written by Graham Badman and published by the DCSF yesterday it appears that the proposed legislative changes adopted by the DCSF and now in consultation until late October will involve changes in primary legislation. There are two basic changes 1. Compulsory registration and 2. Compulsory home visits, including the right of the authority to speak to the child alone.

The first is expected and except for roughly doubling your workload, it will not change the way the system operates. I expect this change will take 12-24 months to enact'

Thank goodness that at least one person was able to keep her head about this while all those around her were losing theirs! Who was this calm and sensible person who looked forward to the implementation of compulsory registration so phlegmatically? Was it a civil servant? A member of the the legal department at Walsall Council? No, it was none of these people. It was in fact a home educator called Alison Sauer. As soon as the Badman report came out, she saw a business opportunity and began touting her services to local authorities with renewed vigour. Increased regulation meant increased training, which in turn meant more business for the company which she and her husband run.

We are currently all waiting to see the new guidelines for local authorities which Alison Sauer and her chums are producing. It is interesting to note that the White Paper due to published soon might well be encouraging local authorities to adopt a more gung-ho approach towards children outside mainstream education. I was not at all opposed to the provisions of Schedule 1 of the CSF Bill, as readers will no doubt recollect! This is however something else entirely. By giving vague encouragement to local authorities to be 'strong champions' and use their 'wider children's services' with regard to those children outside mainstream education, Michael Gove could actually effect a change in the way that local authorities operate without all the bother of changing primary legislation or allowing a select committee to scrutinise what is proposed. If this were to be combined with new guidelines for local authorities which were vaguer and less clear than the 2007 ones currently in use, there could be a great change in no time at all for home educating families who wish to have no contact with their local authority.

Supporting a public enquiry which was scrutinised by a select committee is one thing. I certainly was part of that process and when it was defeated, I was happy to accept that the democratic system had worked, even if I did not agree with the outcome. I am very dubious about what now seems to be happening, which could prove to be a change in the way things operate being made by the back door.

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More about the new guidelines

Others have noticed that in the last week or so three questions about home education have been asked in Parliament by Tory MPs. Two of the questions were identical;

'To ask the Secretary of State for Education what his policy is on home education; and if he will make a statement'

A third concerned the A levels and GCSEs passed by home educated children. There are two possible explanations for this flurry of interest in home education. One is that individual MPs are taking an interest in the topic of home education because their constituents are expressing concerns about it. The other and more likely explanation is that these questions have been 'planted' by government whips in order to suggest that people are worried about home education. The planted question of this kind is of course a very popular device in Westminster. If this is the case, then it suggests strongly that the Coalition is intending to do something about home education. The questions is, what are they going to do?

This brings us back to the only activity involving home education which we know is connected with Parliament; the famous new guidelines. Before we go any further, I would like to make it clear that I have no reason at all to doubt that all those dealing with Graham Stuart are doing so for the best of motives. I am sure that they genuinely believe that what they are doing will be for the best interests of home educating parents. This does not of course mean that they are right, nor that they are not being used unwittingly as fall guys or patsies. How could this be?

Here is what seems to me a very plausible scenario. Michael Gove, because of cases like Khyra Ishaq and the Riggi children in Edinburgh, wishes to introduce as a bare minimum compulsory registration for home educators. He is strengthened in this view by the fact that every report and almost all education professionals are in favour of such a move. He encourages, via Nick Gibb and Graham Stuart, a dialogue with various prominent home educators. ideas are generated and provisional rules drawn up. Then registration is included in a White Paper on education, with the intention of making it law. Michael Gove can then claim that a number of MPs have expressed anxiety about home education (via the planted questions) and that home educators themselves have been helping with the process of framing new legislation. Any resultant outrage will be largely limited to the Internet lists and so invisible to the general public. It will be all but impossible to ever establish what the members of the secret group did and did not agree to, because of course everything has been done on the quiet. I doubt whether newspapers are going to bother cooperating with another campaign by home educators against regulation as they did last year.

In order to see whether or not the above scenario is likely, it would help if we had the answers to one or two questions. I know that the people who are actually involved with Graham Stuart are reading this and so they could, if the wished, comment anonymously and reassure those who are worried that this is an undemocratic process likely to have a substantial impact upon home educating parents. The sort of questions that we need to ask are as follows.

Did the initiative for drawing up these guidelines come directly from Graham Stuart or was he encouraged to start this by Michael Gove or Nick Gibb?

Is there any intention, as Tania Berlow has hinted at on the BRAG list, of including anything about home education in a White Paper on education?

Has Graham Stuart given any written assurance that the law on home education will not change as a result of anything currently being done?

Graham Stuart has said that 'leaving things as they are is not an option'. What grounds did he have for saying this? What has he heard about government intentions in the area of home education?

These are four very simple and straightforward questions which could be answered in a dozen words. If the initiative for the guidelines came from Nick Gibb and there is an intention to include something about home education in a White Paper, then the chances are that new legislation is on the cards. Mike Fortune-Wood recently mentioned that he has held training sessions for local authorities and advised them soundly upon the law. They then go off and draw up procedures whish he has advised against and said were not lawful. A similar thing could very easily take place with these present discussions unless they have written minutes of meetings and a clear and unambiguous mandate.

I said in yesterday's post, 'Betsy Anderson, an American lawyer is not directly involved, but gives the odd bit of advice.' This is perfectly true. Without going into any details, Betsy Anderson has suffered something of a disaster which has effectively rendered her homeless. She according has little time to concern herself with these guidelines. She has not had any contact with Alison Sauer for months. Nevertheless, some of those involved with the guidelines have asked her opinion on specific points which are troubling them and she has replied. This is all that I meant and I am happy to clarify this.

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Monitoring and inspection of home education

An awful lot of local authority officers inspecting or supporting home educating parents seem to be ex-teachers. This never used to bother me; nearly all our friends are either teachers or social workers, so one more visiting the house didn't make much difference! Many home educators though have very negative feelings towards schools and conventional education. For them, having a teacher come round to check up on what they are doing is intolerable. I wonder if parents would be more agreeable to the idea of other home educators carrying out such visits, following a protocol agreed between home educators and the local authority?

During the review of elective home education which he carried out on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, Graham Badman briefly floated the idea of the 'Tasmanian Model', asking if people thought that such a scheme might work in this country. He later changed his mind, conceding that this might have been 'a step too far'. But was it really?

Tasmania is a state of Australia with a population of around half a million, half of whom live in the capital city of Hobart. In 1993, the Minister of Education in Tasmania set up the Tasmanian Home Education Advisory Council (THEAC). This body oversees home education on the island, including registration and monitoring. It has no connection with the Ministry of Education, but is directly answerable to the Minister of Education in person. The council has six members, three of whom are home educators and three who have been appointed by the Minister of Education from the wider community. They pay a small staff to register and monitor home education. At the last count, there were around seven hundred home educators in Tasmania, about the same number as in an average English county. The THEAC employs two people to visit them and check on the provision which they are making for their children. The whole process is devised and implemented by home educating parents themselves.

It is hardly surprising that this idea of a Home Education Advisory Council was rejected out of hand by most parents in this country when Badman suggested it. For one thing, most home educators hoped that if they stood fast, then things would just carry on as before. For another, Education Otherwise was mooted as being the natural partner in such an enterprise. This alone was enough to damn it in the eyes of many. We need not go into the politics of the thing, but the fact is that some home educators in this country cannot stand Education Otherwise and would be as reluctant to allow them in their house as they would officers from their local authority.

A few days ago, I put forwards the idea of locally elected councils of home educators composed partly of local authority officers and partly of parents who had been vote onto this council by other home educating parents. I am wondering how people would feel about the idea of such a council being responsible for the registration and monitoring of home education in their local authority area? I am perfectly well aware that many parents are not keen on anybody checking what they are doing with their child's education, but there is going to be pressure for this from some quarters for the foreseeable future. I am kicking around an idea and trying to see how many parents would be satisfied to deal with a parent who is or has been a home educator herself and therefore knows about the whole business from the inside. Would this be any more acceptable than having an ex-teacher from the local authority asking questions? Or, which is entirely possible, are both unacceptable to the majority of home educating parents? What if this plan, of having former home educators as advisors, were combined with access to various facilities such as free examinations and use of school sports and music facilities, that kind of thing?

I am very interested in knowing how strongly parents here are against any sort of involvement at all with anybody and how far they might compromise if they got something from it. This is not, by the way, an attempt at what is being called 'rent seeking'! I have no interest in the matter other than in debating ideas. So nobody need bother to start describing me as 'a rent-seeking vulture queen' or anything of the sort, as I have seen one well known home educator described on a forum recently! Don't you just hate gendered insults of this sort? I have an idea that a new set of guidelines for elective home education in England is likely to emerge soon from the discussions between Alison Sauer, Imran Shah and a few others. It is less a question of whether change is happening, than what that change will be. For my part, I would like to see democratically elected representatives of home educated parents at the heart of policy making, both at the Department for Education and local authorities. This is not possible at the moment and so people have volunteered to step in and help. This is beginning to cause the most terrible divisions among home educators and the only way that I can see this stopping is if those working on behalf of parents can acquire some sort of legitimacy.

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A rift in the lute

Home educators reserve a special kind of loathing and detestation for those home educating parents whom they see as betraying them by playing footsy with our legislators; some of whom wish to introduce new restrictions on home education. The present writer knows this to his cost!

The fact that Alison Sauer, who is a member of all the main HE lists, has not come forward to deny the rumours circulating about her involvement with Graham Stuart and his new guidelines, makes it a racing certainty that she is, as she has told her friends, tasked with writing them. She has not been doing so unaided. Fiona Nicholson's name has also been mentioned and it is true that she was the first person whom I thought of in this connection. I find it unlikely now. I had quite an amicable relationship with one home educating mother, exchanging emails regularly, until I was unwise enough to crack a light hearted joke about Fiona on this blog. Whereupon my pen-pal was furious, because she was a good friend of Fiona's. This same person has now been asking questions on Graham Stuart's facebook wall. She would hardly be asking about these new guidelines if Fiona Nicholson were mixed up in them. I have been assured by an anonymous person here that Education Otherwise deny having anything to do with this business. This may be so, but if it is then it is odd that they have not issued a public denial, especially in view of the feverish interest in this matter. I can't somehow see EO being sidelined in this way.

There are two points of view about this whole question. The first is a feeling that after the Badman review and the collapse of Schedule 1 of the CSF Bill due to the calling of the election, the government has no appetite for a fight with home educators. They have been warned off by the great opposition which was witnessed and are happy to leave things as they are, at least for the next few years. The other point of view, expressed by Graham Stuart, is that civil servants in the Department for Education are still intriguing for a change in the legal situation. He claims that in order to fight this, he is producing a set of guidelines which will prevent any new moves regarding registration, monitoring and so on. This line does not really add up. The ink on the 2007 guidelines wasn't dry before the agitation started for new legislation. There was barely eighteen months between the publication of the guidelines and the launching of the Badman review. How can Graham Stuart assure anybody that this will not happen with his new, improved guidelines?

This affair is opening up cracks in the home educating community already, before these guidelines have even been seen. Mike Fortune-Wood, whose own Internet list receives only half a dozen comments a day now, is irritated that the Badman Review Action Group list is becoming popular. He has suggested that it is time for this to close down, presumably so that everybody will hang out on HE-UK instead. Some people though are agitating to make the BRAG list the focal point for anything happening about Alison Sauer's guidelines. And as I said above, Education Otherwise has still to say anything at all about this, which is very strange. If, as is claimed, they are nothing to do with it, have they no opinion on the matter?

I suspect that when we see them, these guidelines are likely to prove shocking to some people. I say this for the following reason. The 2007 guidelines are perfectly clear and easy to understand. Home educating parents were very happy with them and they made the legal situation very plain. Since the law has not changed, what is the need for a new set of guidelines? There is only one answer. Under the pretext of averting an even worse outcome, these guidelines will move in the direction of more local authority involvement with home educators. if this were not the case, then there would be no need to draw up new guidelines in the first place; the 2007 ones are perfectly adequate. I am surprised that so many home educators went off into the woods with Graham Stuart. My own feeling is that anybody who would place their trust in this fellow must really bear the consequences. I cannot resist ending with a famous old limerick;

There was an old woman of Niger
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger.
They came back from the ride
With the woman inside
And the smile on the face of the tiger.

I feel that those who have gone off for a ride with Graham Stuart in this way might very well find that the smile is on his face when they return!

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Update on the proposed new guidelines

It seems that the person who has been writing the new guidelines in collaboration with Graham Stuart is in fact Alison Sauer, who provides training on the subject of home education for local authorities. I cannot help wonder who is paying for all this; if the taxpayer then there does not appear to have been much transparency! I am sure that now we know one of the people involved, everything will become a little clearer.

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