Monday 7 December 2009

5000 Responses Say No Don't Do It, Does the Government Care?

This is a reply sent to a home educator enquiring about when the report on the consultation responses would be published.  This is the reply:

Dear
Thank you for your email of 18 November, in which you asked about the publication of the report on the consultation about registration and monitoring proposals relating to home education and the announcement of the Children, Schools and Families Bill.
The consultation ran from 11 June to 19 October and we received over 5000 replies. We have always said that we would consider the consultation responses carefully before proceeding with legislation because they would help us to make arrangements that support parents to provide quality home education while allowing local authorities (LAs) to take action where arrangements have serious shortcomings.
We introduced proposals for a home education registration scheme as part of the Children, Schools and Families Bill which had its first reading in Parliament on 19 November. The consultation replies were analysed by our Consultation Unit prior to introduction of the Bill and we were able to use the key themes arising from the responses and other correspondence we had received to help us to shape the primary legislation. We will continue to use the replies to help develop any regulations and statutory guidance. For example, we have listened to the views made in respect of LAs interviewing a child alone; and about whether it should be a criminal offence to fail to register a home educated child and we have tailored the content of the Bill accordingly.
We anticipate that the report will be published shortly.

Yours sincerely
Barbara Redican
Public Communications Unit
www.dcsf.gov.uk

When you look at the Clause 26 of the  Children Schools and Families Bill and The Impact Assessment you can see that they have used the views of home educators to draft legislation that makes sure there is no let out whatsoever.

What can you do about it, well you can sign this petition, even though the Ministry has a warning about petitions, and you can write to everyone you can think of.  Time to do that post with newspaper contact details I think.  And if you do not home educate you can wake up and realise this isn't just about some crazy out there minority group, this will effect you in a way you certainly will not like, so help stop it now before it takes you by surprise.

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