Sunday 28 February 2010

Letters to Lords and Ladies

We have in the last two days sent 58 emails and 124 letters to the Lords.


Here is the template letter:


The Lord xxxxxx
House of Lords
London
SW1A  0PW


Dear Lord xxxxxx

We are writing to ask you to oppose Sections 26 and 27 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill.  We are a home educating family and this Bill replaces our right to educate ‘otherwise’ with a licensing scheme and in so doing so removes our right to privacy and the presumption of innocence.

The case for opposing these clauses of the Bill is as follows:

1.   The review on which these Sections are based was poorly conducted and as a consequence the (Badman) Report is, in our opinion, the most flawed evidential review of recent times.  Fair and reasonable legislation cannot emerge from such poor quality work. 

There are numerous examples of the shortcomings of the Report, for example, the Church of England complained of their evidence being selectively quoted and home educators using the Freedom of Information Act revealed such fundamental flaws in the statistics used in the Report that the author had to conduct a survey of Local Authorities AFTER the Report had been published when called to appear before the CSF Select Committee.  This further data has also been debunked by home educators. 

2.   The policy delivers very poor value for money as there is no problem to be solved and its recommendations will divert scarce resources from child protection services.

Research by home educators using the Freedom of Information Act has found that abuse in home educating families is very low compared to the rest of the population.  Most abuse happens before the child is of compulsory education age, therefore, this intrusion into the lives of home educators is neither warranted by the degree of abuse nor will it address the real problem.  Social Services are overstretched and in many areas cannot recruit enough staff.  This will divert money away from such services and will harm more children than it could ever help by removing their sense of security in their own home.  There are already measures and laws in place to protect and investigate where there is a suspicion that children are at risk of harm or that insufficient education is taking place.  The Department of Children Schools and Families estimate that this will cost between £10 and £21 million, however, this is likely to be a serious underestimate as the number of home educating families is not known.

3.   If enacted the policy will seriously damage the education of home educated children.

In order to learn effectively some children need the security and confidence boost that only home education can provide.  It is inevitable that to some extent monitoring will change the emphasis from the child’s educational needs to satisfying the local authority officer and this cannot be in the child’s best interests.  Our own child was very averse to anything that looked like school work on being de-registered, yet by choosing her own learning and aided and resourced by us she is reading at exactly the same age as her schooled siblings with none of the trauma or feeling of being inadequate that they suffered.  Many children who are on the autistic spectrum will be very disturbed by a stranger forcing (and that is what it will happen as the majority of people who responded to the consultation were extremely opposed to the recommendations for registration and monitoring) their way into their home and possibly demanding to see them without a parent present.  Many children on and off the spectrum do not like being forced to talk to strangers (especially if they have the power to issue a School Attendance Order) and to insist that they do so without the reassurance and sometimes memory aid that parents can provide will, paradoxically, be abusive.  As already mentioned, if actual abuse is suspected then legal measures already exist to investigate.

4.   The concept of education contained in the Bill is archaic and unworkable. 

It is the experience of parents who home educate that local authority officers often do not really understand the philosophies and approaches used by home educators.  Schedule 1 of the Bill itself shows a remarkable lack of understanding, for instance, autonomous educators cannot by definition provide the yearly plan which it demands.  When you follow the child’s interests as autonomous educators you do not know what your child will be learning from one day to another, so to plan a year in advance is meaningless.  Although it may be difficult to believe, such informal learning has been shown to be astonishingly effective by the work of Alan Thomas of the Institute of Education.

5.   The Bill is a disproportionate response to a perceived problem, which the best available evidence suggests does not exist.

Graham Badman, who conducted the Review, was not able to produce any convincing evidence that the home educating population is any more at risk of abuse than any other section of the population.  In fact, his Review provoked home educators to collate the data for themselves which demonstrated conclusively that home educated children are at significantly LESS risk of abuse.  The measures in the Bill are draconian and have a ‘tilting at windmills’ quality rather addressing a real problem.

6.   It damages the relationship between the local authority and home educating parents and makes the relationship one of distrust and hostility.

Whilst many home educators may be polite towards local authority officers entering their home, they will be outraged and incensed at what is effectively forced entry and a gross invasion of privacy.  This is no basis on which to build the good relationship the government so often stresses that it wants with home educators. 

Indeed, the Review process has already harmed home educator’s relationships with local authorities.  Launching the Review with the claim – absolutely without evidence – that home education could be used as a cover for abuse, domestic servitude and forced marriage set the tone of this exercise and relationships between home educators and local authorities have been damaged and undermined with many home educators withdrawing from any discourse with their local authority.  Only if the clauses are not enacted is there any realistic chance that relationships between local authorities and home educating parents can be re-built.

7.   The Bill purports to implement a registration scheme, but is not as Schedule 1 means that non-registration is not a viable option.

Although registration is not formally compulsory under the Bill, non-registration is not a feasible course of action as local authorities are required by Schedule 1 to issue a School Attendance Order to any unregistered home educated child without any consideration of the quality of education being provided.  This in no way shows any concern for the well-being of the child, and shows that for home educated children ‘every child matters’ is empty rhetoric. 

8.   The Bill’s proposals are opposed by the majority of home educators.

4497 out of 4833 (93%) respondents to the consultation thought that the proposals did not strike the right balance.  3281 respondents out of 3776 (87%) disagreed with the proposals for registration and monitoring.

9.   Home educated children’s confidence and trust in the state and its institutions will be seriously undermined.

Children’s understanding of the State are shaped not by what it claims to be the case, but by its actions.  If the child experiences the power of the State as unreasonable and disproportionate in intruding into its life with no good reason and with no good arguments to support its actions, then the child will see the State as failing to protect its citizens.  Many home educated children are following the progress of the Review and its recommendations very closely, and it has provided an invaluable learning opportunity, for example, on the work of Parliament and how legislation is enacted, however, it is doing nothing to advance their belief in the fairness of the policymaking process.

If you have any queries about the Review or the Clauses 26 and 27 then please do not hesitate to contact us.  We are looking forward to hearing your views and hopefully confirmation that you will oppose these Clauses of the Bill.

I would also like to draw your attention to the following event hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Home Education where various speakers will explain the problems with Sections 26 and 27 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill:

Lords Briefing Event on Home Education
Committee Room 16, House of Commons
Tuesday, 2nd March, 6-7pm.  (The room will be available until 7.30pm.)

Yours Sincerely


Professor Bruce Stafford
Maire Stafford






We chose to lobby cross bencher Lords and Ladies and created this spreadsheet of them with email details where available and the proper form of address.  We made it easier for ourselves when there was no email address available by creating mail merge files.  This file contains the name of the Lord to go on the envelope and in the address on the letter in the first column and the name  to go after the Dear in the second column, and we used it to personalise the letter.  This file contains the labels for the envelopes.


We will soon update this spreadsheet which contains details of all the Lords and information on their interests, how likely they are to be helpful and which have been contacted by home educators.


Carlotta also has a letter she has sent to the Lords on her blog here.

Thursday 25 February 2010

My Complaint to the BBC

I have posted a complaint about this article on this site.




There is no record of Khyra being de registered from school.  The school alerted the authorities.  The authorities failed the child.  Monitoring of home education would have made no difference whatsoever as the child was not home educated and was well known to be at risk anyway.  Social workers did not persist in seeing the child despite evidence of harm.  The BBC should not be colluding with the government in the slander and harassment of thousands of deeply committed innocent families.  Badman's statistics have been thoroughly discredited.  Not one child in the Serious Case Reviews mentioned re Badman would have been affected by these regulations.  Over 45000 respondents to the consultation on monitoring and regulation of home education were against the proposals, that is over 70%.  The government is trying to ride  roughshod over the civil liberties and entitlement to be considered innocent until proven guilty of English citizens and the BBC is helping them.  This is not going unnoticed and home educators are not an apathetic bunch, we will not take this unfairness lightly or lying down.  In  my eyes you are now one of a list of discredited organisations.  My eyes have been truly opened this year.


Tech's complaint here.  Firebird here.  Debs here.  Lou here.  Ciaran here.  Stuart Dunstan here.  Ali here.  Jem here.  Lisa here. Sue here.  Cat here.  Sally here.  Jax here.  And too late for me but good advice on how to complain from Unhallowed Ground.  Merry discusses the case here.


Media watch here.

We predicted it, blogged here.

Ali's Complaint to the BBC

thanks to Ali for letting me blog this.

Here is a link to Birmingham City Council's response to an FOI request asking if Khyra Ishaq was officially de-registered from school to be home educated:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/electively_home_educated#incoming-44186

If you read the comments, you will see that according to court records, the de-registration letter was sent in March 2008. However, the letter was not produced as evidence and there is no proof that it was ever sent or received.
Either way, the fact remains that from 19th December 2007 until early March 2008 Khyra Ishaq was not home educated; she was, officially, truanting, and the local authority had all the powers they needed to take action. There was sufficient legislation. Even if she had been home educated there was.
Teachers at her school and at her foster brother's school had concerns about their welfare while they were still attending, but did nothing. The deputy head of her school expressed her concerns to social services four times on the first day that she failed to attend, but SS did not take them seriously.
Clearly social services were at fault, not the law. And there is nothing in the proposed legislation that would change that.

The Badman Review clearly states that there is no evidence that home education is being used as a cover for abuse; in the handful of cases Badman refers to the families were already known to social services, and in some cases on the at risk register. His claim that electively HE children are twice as likely to be subject to a child protection plan is just plain wrong. The very dubious statistics on which the report was based suggest that HE children may be twice as likely to be known to SS, which is a very different thing; a high proportion of HE children have SENs (and are HE because school has failed to meet their needs) and are known for that reason. Many others are known because of malicious or misguided referrals by people who don't understand or don't approve of home education. Some local authorities automatically refer all families who exercise their legal right to decline home visits and choose instead to submit evidence of their educational provision in other ways.

You quote Mick Brookes:
"We still have very overstretched social services who have a threshold of engagement. It is sometimes too hard for early intervention to take place when schools have identified there are difficulties."
So even children who are seen at school every day are not protected because ss are overstretched. How will stretching them still further by obliging them to invade the homes of thousands of home educators on spurious welfare grounds improve the situation? It will cost many millions of pounds to set up and maintain the infrastructure for this, and for what? There is absolutely no evidence that it is necessary, and it is blatant discrimination against home educators, who would be the only minority group in the country to be subjected to this intrusive surveillance. Many more pre-school children, 120 times more babies, are abused at home than any other age group; there is plenty of evidence that this happens. If the government is so concerned that children should be safeguarded, why not these children?

Your final quote from Mr Badman beggars belief:
"What we cannot do is ascribe rights to parents that deny the rights to the child," he said.
Children have a right to education. Parents have a duty to make sure that they get it. Not the government. Most parents choose to delegate their responsibility to schools, which are, quite rightly, monitored and regulated, because they are working for us. Some parents choose to carry out their duty by taking responsibility for their children's education themselves. In every other case (food, shelter, safety) there is a presumption that parents are acting responsibly and giving their children what they are entitled to, unless there is reason to believe otherwise. Why should home educators be any different?

Ali

Sunday 21 February 2010

Letter to Andy Reed, Problems with the Children, Schools and Families Bill


21st February 2010

Dear Mr Reed, MP

We are writing to ask you to oppose Sections 26 and 27 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill at its Third Reading.  We appreciate that this would involve you voting against the Bill and that this would not be an easy decision for you to take.  However, the inclusion of Clauses 26 and 27 seriously undermine the benefits of the Bill.  The case for opposing these clauses of the Bill is as follows:

1.   The review on which these Sections are based was poorly conducted and as a consequence the (Badman) Report is, in our opinion, the most flawed evidential review of recent times.  Fair and reasonable legislation cannot emerge from such poor quality work. 

There are numerous examples of the shortcomings of the Report, for example, the Church of England complained of their evidence being selectively quoted and home educators using the Freedom of Information Act revealed such fundamental flaws in the statistics used in the Report that the author had to conduct a survey of Local Authorities AFTER the Report had been published when called to appear before the CSF Select Committee.  This further data has also been debunked by home educators. 

2.   The policy delivers very poor value for money as there is no problem to be solved and its recommendations will divert scarce resources from child protection services.

Research by home educators using the Freedom of Information Act has found that abuse in home educating families is very low compared to the rest of the population.  Most abuse happens before the child is of compulsory education age, therefore, this intrusion into the lives of home educators is neither warranted by the degree of abuse nor will it address the real problem.  Social Services are overstretched and in many areas cannot recruit enough staff.  This will divert money away from such services and will harm more children than it could ever help by removing their sense of security in their own home.  There are already measures and laws in place to protect and investigate where there is a suspicion that children are at risk of harm or that insufficient education is taking place.  The Department of Children Schools and Families estimate that this will cost between £10 to £21 million, however, this is likely to be a serious underestimate as the number of home educating families is not known.

3.   If enacted the policy will seriously damage the education of home educated children.

In order to learn effectively some children need the security and confidence boost that only home education can provide.  It is inevitable that to some extent monitoring will change the emphasis from the child’s educational needs to satisfying the local authority officer and this cannot be in the child’s best interests.  Our own child was very averse to anything that looked like school work on being de-registered, yet by choosing her own learning and aided and resourced by us she is reading at exactly the same age as her schooled siblings with none of the trauma or feeling of being inadequate that they suffered.  Many children who are on the autistic spectrum will be very disturbed by a stranger forcing (and that is what it will happen as the majority of people who responded to the consultation were extremely opposed to the recommendations for registration and monitoring) their way into their home and possibly demanding to see them without a parent present.  Many children on and off the spectrum do not like being forced to talk to strangers (especially if they have the power to issue a School Attendance Order) and to insist that they do so without the reassurance and sometimes memory aid that parents can provide will, paradoxically, be abusive.  As already mentioned, if actual abuse is suspected then legal measures already exist to investigate.

4.   The concept of education contained in the Bill is archaic and unworkable. 

It is the experience of parents who home educate that local authority officers often do not really understand the philosophies and approaches used by home educators.  Schedule 1 of the Bill itself shows a remarkable lack of understanding, for instance, autonomous educators cannot by definition provide the yearly plan which it demands.  When you follow the child’s interests as autonomous educators you do not know what your child will be learning from one day to another, so to plan a year in advance is meaningless.  Although it may be difficult to believe, such informal learning has been shown to be astonishingly effective by the work of Alan Thomas of the Institute of Education.

5.   The Bill is a disproportionate response to a perceived problem, which the best available evidence suggests does not exist.

Graham Badman, who conducted the Review, was not able to produce any convincing evidence that the home educating population is any more at risk of abuse than any other section of the population.  In fact, his Review provoked home educators to collate the data for themselves which demonstrated conclusively that home educated children are at significantly LESS risk of abuse.  The measures in the Bill are draconian and have a ‘tilting at windmills’ quality rather addressing a real problem.

6.   It damages the relationship between the local authority and home educating parents and makes the relationship one of distrust and hostility.

Whilst many home educators may be polite towards local authority officers entering their home, they will be outraged and incensed at what is effectively forced entry and a gross invasion of privacy.  This is no basis on which to build the good relationship the government so often stresses that it wants with home educators. 

Indeed, the Review process has already harmed home educator’s relationships with local authorities.  Launching the Review with the claim – absolutely without evidence – that home education could be used as a cover for abuse, domestic servitude and forced marriage set the tone of this exercise and relationships between home educators and local authorities have been damaged and undermined with many home educators withdrawing from any discourse with their local authority.  Only if the clauses are not enacted is there any realistic chance that relationships between local authorities and home educating parents can be re-built.

7.   The Bill purports to implement a registration scheme, but is not as Schedule 1 means that non-registration is not a viable option.

Although registration is not formally compulsory under the Bill, non-registration is not a feasible course of action as local authorities are required by Schedule 1 to issue a School Attendance Order to any unregistered home educated child without any consideration of the quality of education being provided.  This in no way shows any concern for the well-being of the child, and shows that for home educated children ‘every child matters’ is empty rhetoric. 

8.   The Bill’s proposals are opposed by the majority of home educators.

4497 out of 4833 (93%) respondents to the consultation thought that the proposals did not strike the right balance.  3281 respondents out of 3776 (87%) disagreed to the proposals for registration and monitoring.

9.   Home educated children’s confidence and trust in the state and its institutions will be seriously undermined.

Children’s understanding of the State are shaped not by what it claims to be the case, but by its actions.  If the child experiences the power of the State as unreasonable and disproportionate in intruding into its life with no good reason and with no good arguments to support its actions, then the child will see the State as failing to protect its citizens.  Many home educated children are following the progress of the Review and its recommendations very closely, and it has provided an invaluable learning opportunity, for example, on the work of Parliament and how legislation is enacted, however, it is doing nothing to advance their belief in the fairness of the policymaking process.

If you have any queries about the Review or the Clauses 26 and 27 then please do not hesitate to contact us.  We are looking forward to hearing your views and hopefully confirmation that you will oppose these Clauses of the Bill.


Yours Sincerely



Professor Bruce Stafford
Maire Stafford

Friday 12 February 2010

Arrogance and Ignorance with a touch of Sheer Wickedness thrown in!

Isn't it nice to be beyond reproach, to be in such a position that you can spout any old rubbish with complete arrogance and certainty that no harm will come to you because you are so far above the proletariat that you are musing on that they have no comeback.  And you can ignore all their powerful arguments against your  case that show them to be far better educated, informed and capable of clear and logical thinking than you are, and just move on.  This woman lost family members to the Nazis, oh the irony!

That is what the LAs want, they want to be above reasonable and rational criticism they want to be able to say you are wrong because we say so.  No comeback, no tedious laws to understand, no cheeky parents who can argue with them through the courts.  No soft liberal judge who just doesn’t take them at their word.  They want to sweep all these safeguards for parents, children and families away and just have it their way.

And it doesn’t matter that they in many cases know nothing about it having been immersed in school culture and being totally unaware how their ability to think about education in any other way has been truncated.  And their class prejudices, and racial and religious stereotypes, well they are entitled to them aren’t they because they are the important people who have been employed to monitor us.

And what will our children learn from this: they will learn that might while not necessarily right,  will win in the end.  They will learn that those who see themselves as fit to rule us are quite happy to do so via lies and corruption.  They will see that the officials of the state who routinely lie are rewarded by laws that make their lies reality. 
Our ‘superiors’ probably care nothing for this because our kids are part of a small and insignificant minority.

And if they use this young girls death to have a go at us again you will know to just what depths they are prepared to sink! 

Peter Traves

There were also parents who withdrew their children for particular religious views because they wanted those views inculcated in that child. It is not just about the rights of parents, but about the rights of children. It is not necessarily about the state's responsibility to children, but about the community's responsibility to them.


From a statement by Peter Traves when giving evidence to the Select Committee Short Enquiry into Home Education.

Sunday 7 February 2010

What Next?





The third reading of CSF Bill in the Commons will be on 23rd Feb.  (Hansard on the committee stage.)

If the election is to be on 6th May then it will be called on March 29th and parliament will go into recess on April 12th according to this article on Politics.co.uk.

But what about the Easter recess; they had 18 days last year and this year Easter Sunday falls on April 4th.  Will they break up some time before this or on the Friday just before?  At the very least the Easter Break must surely take away another five working days from the time they have left, could it be more?

I have heard that the Lords have no time for a first reading of the bill until 9th March (can’t remember where, one of the lists or another blog) so even if they start on the 10th that gives it just over five weeks to progress though the first two readings followed by the committee stage, the report stage and the third reading.  Assuming here that the process is similar to that in the Commons.  Then there is consideration of the amendments and hopefully the Lords won’t be as ineffectual and as disabled by party bullying as the Commons has disgracefully been, so there will be some amendments.  Then Royal assent, no idea how long that takes.

Five weeks seems far too long to me so I do think we really all do need to write to the Lords, some people are making sterling efforts already and there is a list of Lords with some information about their interests here.  This can be amended so please add any information you find.

Then lobbying of MPs is in order, anyone who hasn't sent their MP this document might want to do it now and the AHED submission to the Scrutiny Committee is very clear.

There is talk also of the APPG for Home Education hosting an event for home educators to meet Lords and explain the problems with the bill, some speakers have been mentioned, I remember Imran and Betsy, their marvellous submission to the scrutiny committee is here
You can read all the submissions here.  



Timeline

Children Schools and Families Bill
Date
Event
23rd Feb
Third reading: Commons

10th March
Earliest date for first reading in Lords, second reading, committee stage, report stage and third reading to follow.
29th March 
Election called

4th April 
Easter Sunday: Possible recess

12th April 
Parliament dissolved

6th May 
General and Local Elections


Update:  There are now rumours that the Election may be brought forward to April 15th, which would mean that the time for moving the bill through the Lords would be reduced to less than two weeks with Parliament dissolved round about the 22nd March.

Wednesday 3 February 2010

Memorandum submitted by AHEd: Children Schools and Families Bill.



AHEd calls for the withdrawal of sections 26 (Schedule One) and 27 of the
CSF Bill currently under scrutiny.

1. Civil Liberties:

The issues addressed in the Children Schools and Families Bill, sections 26
(Schedule One) and section 27 are serious issues of civil liberty. We urge
all MPs to oppose these sections of the bill The grossly disproportionate
proposals hold serious implications for the civil liberties of all parents,
children and families in this country. They have potentially fatal
implications for all parental responsibility for education as enshrined by
s7 of the 1996 Education Act and, furthermore, violate human rights
instruments:

1.1 Articles 8, Human Rights Act 1998

Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home
and his correspondence.

1.2 Protocol 1. ARTICLE 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights

No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any
functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the
State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and
teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical
convictions.

1.3 Article 16 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

1. No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with
his or her privacy, family, or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on
his or her honour and reputation.

2. The child has the right to the protection of the law against such
interference or attacks.

1.4 The proposals of sections 26 and 27 represent attempts to remove a
fundamental freedom and make it into the provisional gift of government.

1.5 By long tradition and common sense, it is parents and families who
safeguard children, as is their legal and moral duty. In general citizens
have benefited from an assumption of innocence and families are trusted to
care for their children without routine oversight by the state.

2. Regulation:

Rule by regulation represents arbitrary authority and interference that
should not be imposed upon the people.

2.1 Sections 26 and 27 allow for the making of regulations relating to the
registration and monitoring of home education provisions in England and
Wales. These sections ask parliament to agree to a skeleton provision for
the regulation and monitoring of a section of the electorate, the content of
which regulation parliament does not know.

2.2 Parliament is asked to grant power to vary regulation without rigorous
parliamentary scrutiny.

3. Registration:

Registration is permission, since it can be withheld; the recommendations
specifically intend it to be withheld where education proposals do not meet
with prior state approval.

3.1 The proposed registration scheme is about complying with a licensing
scheme in order to gain permission to carry out parental responsibilities.
Education is a parental responsibility. Families who choose to educate their
own children outside the state school system are not required to register
their decision with the local authority as they do not require LA services.
Local authorities are responsible to provide school places for those
children whose parents require a place for them - not to inform themselves
of the education provision of all children

4. Monitoring Education and Welfare:

The proposals are disproportionate and unnecessary. The current system
allows for parental choice and responsibility which is balanced with strong
local authority powers where there is an appearance of failure or risk. This
is proportionate and effective where properly enacted. In cases of dispute,
courts can decide if a suitable and efficient education is in place. These
terms have been defined in case law.

4.1 Some LAs do not believe the current system is strong enough. Mr Badman
told the scrutiny committee that LAs have been frustrated at not being able
to do the job they "think" they should do. The position is that current
legislation IS strong enough but it does NOT provide for the LAs to do the
job their preferences and prejudices cause them to THINK they should do.
Many LAs find it hard to accept that home education is a private issue not a
public issue - unless and until a parental failure to comply with their
duties occurs, which does not require routine monitoring, just as other
private family provision does not.

4.2 It is an attack against families to try to replace the current balance
with intrusive family interventions by attempting to generate a false
dichotomy between "rights" of parents and "rights" of children, saying that
the government must routinely intervene between the two to "balance" these
rights. This is an argument for state intervention, control and division of
the family.

4.3 In exhaustive and repeated consultations over the past five years all
results have favoured supporting existing freedoms unchanged and to ask
local authorities to abide by existing law. DCSF are now attempting to
detract from the overwhelming vote against their proposals, denying many
home educators a voice by labelling them "part of a campaign".

4.4 The underlying issue is that local authorities have failed to understand
their duties. LAs believe that they must ensure the welfare, education, and
"Every Child Matters" (ECM) outcomes of every child in their area; but do
not have the legal powers to do so. They do not have the power because they
do not have these duties. Parents are responsible to ensure the welfare and
education of their own children. ECM outcomes are a guide in the provision
of public services to children. Home Education is not a public service
provided to children.

4.5 Home educated children and their families are subject to the same laws
as every other family. These laws already provide for Local Authority
intervention where there is evidence of concerns for the education or
welfare of a child. Routine checking and monitoring of all home educating
parents and children would undermine fundamental civil liberties, contravene
the Human Rights Act and send the very divisive and dangerous message to
children, that their parents are not to be trusted and that strangers from
the LA over-ride parental authority.

4.6 Routine checking and monitoring of all home educating families would be
unnecessarily costly. This is particularly controversial at a time when
there are limited resources available for Children's Services, which should
be properly directed towards genuine need. Therefore, the government should
trust parents to do a good job and measures for intervention should be on
the basis of reasonable concern only as currently provided for.

4.7 After extensive consultation, the DCSF did produce guidelines to local
authorities on elective home education in 2007. The guidelines have not
satisfied home educators or local authorities because of inconsistencies
where the department has tried to support the assertion that local
authorities are responsible to ensure the educational provision and welfare
of all children in their area. The assertion angers parents, who are
responsible for their own children and should be left alone to do their job
with the confidence of their government. The assertion pressurises local
authority officials to carry out duties for which they do not have any
corresponding legal powers with the intention of carrying out intervention
in families to prescribe, legislate and inspect all educational provision
and ensure its compliance with state requirements regardless of logic, need,
benefit, or resource implications

4.8 Families should not be subjected to a system of routine surveillance to
ascertain their innocence, or to investigate ungrounded fears about families
who simply choose not to receive Local Authority services. Such a policy
would cause vastly more harm that it could ever hope to prevent.

5. Summary:

AHEd members call for the removal of sections 26 (Schedule One) and 27 from
the CSF Bill. Current law as it relates to elective home education already
provides for:

parental responsibility

freedom of conscience

the presumption of innocence

promotes the best interest of the child

requires education suitable for the child

provides for local authority action where there is an appearance of failure

gives access to due process in the case of dispute

Please see our Parents' Declaration:
<http://ahed.pbworks.com/ParentsDeclaration>
http://ahed.pbworks.com/ParentsDeclaration

AHEd statement

We declare that:

We refuse to cooperate with any recommendations made or any actions taken by
any government unless they support our existing freedoms.

Following a history of being sidelined, persecuted and harassed, having had
to resist years of repeated and vexatious consultations designed to
regulate, control or remove our parental options, we will not tolerate any
further persecution or erosion of our freedoms.

There can be no compromise or negotiation between totalitarian intentions
and our agency over our own lives.

We are opposed to registration.

We are opposed to monitoring.

We are opposed to government interventions in how we educate our children in
the home.

We are opposed to compulsory home visits.

We are opposed to compulsory interviews with our children.

We will not co-operate with the oppression of our children.

We demand a presumption of innocence

We want our representatives in parliament to say:

NO to the nationalisation of children

NO to the licensing of parents

NO to any new legislation restricting home education

FEEDJIT Live Traffic Feed