Day: March 3, 2018 - Watchman Research Media

In order to highlight the unprecedented number of attacks on home education in the press over the last few weeks, most of the articles in this week’s Update relate to the issue.

The parents of a child actress who played Matilda in the musical are in dispute with Westminster council over her home schooling. Edward Hardy and Eileen Tracy have been sent a school attendance order. They told The Guardian that they had sent evidence of her progress, including samples of her work and explanation about her studies, to the local authority, but the council said this was not enough. Read more

The Liberal Democrats have published ‘Every Child Empowered: Education for a changing world’ in preparation for their conference in March. Section 9 outlines their plans for home education (which is conflated with unregistered schools). It reveals that the LibDems will require twice yearly visits to every child not registered in school, together with a compulsory teaching of the National Curriculum for all home educators. Read more

Ofsted has ordered its staff to look at high rates of fixed-period exclusions in the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber. Inspectors will also ‘look very carefully’ at whether schools are improving their results by ridding themselves of ‘troublesome’ pupils. The region is home to six of the 10 worst-offending areas in terms of the proportion of secondary school pupils who faced suspension in 2016-17. Read more

‘It is essential to ensure that a family perspective is consistently applied to policy making’ – so said Lord Farmer as he began the Second Reading debate of his Family Relationships (Impact Assessment and Targets) Bill in the House of Lords. Lord Farmer’s excellent Bill – which was well-received by Peers – would ensure that all policy is subject to a statutory family impact assessment. Read more

The parents of a child actress who starred as Matilda in the award-winning musical have warned they are prepared to go to jail in an escalating row over her home schooling. Edward Hardy and his wife Eileen Tracy have been ordered by their local council to send their 12-year-old daughter Lilian to school by March 7 – or else face prosecution. Read more

The world knows their names and pixelated photos of their faces were splashed on front pages all over the world. The four teenage girls who left Britain to join Isis three years ago, seduced by the idea of becoming a jihadist bride in Syria are all now feared to have died in the war zone. Less well-known is a fifth girl, B – it later emerged in a family court hearing held to decide her future, that she had been home-schooled. Read more

The education secretary, Damian Hinds, is to crack down on illegal schools amid growing concern that children are at risk of being radicalised, trafficked, abused — or simply growing up ignorant. Insiders at the Department for Education said Hinds was determined to take a tougher line on illegal schools and out-of-hours tuition centres than his predecessor, Justine Greening. Read more

Concerns have been raised about child safety in unregistered schools, after a BBC investigation filmed a teacher appearing to strike a pupil’s head. The BBC filmed a suspected unregistered ultra-orthodox Jewish school in Essex, and photos from two other such schools showed dirty and unhygienic conditions. Ofsted said it has identified more than 350 suspected unregistered schools, but lacked sufficient powers to close them. Read more

School inspectors have warned that there are hundreds of unregistered schools but that they have few powers to investigate or shut them down. More than 350 sites have been investigated in England by education watchdog Ofsted since a specialist taskforce was set up two years ago. Ofsted inspectors say they don’t have proper powers to inspect or close them. Read more

Local councils, health services and police forces will have to involve schools in their safeguarding work from now on, the government has announced. Updated statutory guidance on ‘Working together to safeguard children’ will include an expectation that all schools be ‘given a voice’ in the work of those who set local safeguarding policy. Read more

Home education has dominated the education press for the last couple of weeks. That in itself is unusual, as home educators are not normally the focus of much attention. But the maelstrom swirling around parents who just want to be left alone to educate their children as they wish is of epic proportions. It’s indicative of the raging war in government departments.

The arguments started with Lord Soley’s Private Member’s Bill, which has gone from ‘doesn’t stand a chance of making it onto the statute books’ to the noble Lord expressing every confidence that it will become law. That’s when the gloves came off.

Then came the safeguarding bandwagon, but that didn’t do the trick either, because Lord Agnew, Under-Secretary of State for Education, responded to the pressure by saying that there would be no new primary legislation, and anyway, local councils had all the powers they need, they should just use them properly. That’s when the war broke out.

Local councils started to get aggressive – Westminster council has issued a school attendance order for Lilian Hardy, the child star of the West End musical show Matilda. Apparently, learning lines, acting and having the confidence to perform don’t count for much in Westminster, which has its own rules (with questionable legality) and a mission to ensure that every resident child complies with its definition of ‘suitable education’ – again, with dubious legality under Human Rights legislation. Lilian’s parents will not comply with the order, and are prepared to go to prison to defend their right to educate their daughter as they, not the state, see fit.

And although school attendance orders have, in the past, been rare, some local authorities have suddenly started issuing them en masse – 21 in East Anglia alone. Why the sudden surge in activity from local councils? Probably to prove that they are using their powers in order to nullify Lord Agnew’s repeated assertions that they won’t be getting any new ones.

The Times embarked on a scare campaign, talking about ‘legions of missing children’ which are only ‘the tip of the iceberg’. Damian Hinds, the Education Secretary is ‘getting tough’, according to an inside source in his department, in an article in which his own department briefed against him. Hinds might do well to take note of Abraham Lincoln’s observation (itself taken from the Gospel of Mark) that a house divided against itself cannot stand.

The BBC aired an interview with Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, whose desire to control every child in the country has been well documented. She was calling for – yes – more powers for Ofsted to deal with unregistered schools, which are allegedly being used to hide home educated children. The public was treated to pictures of filthy, squalid and dangerous rooms, together with footage of a child apparently being hit around the head.

All of these situations are deplorable, if true. But the fact remains, as the Department for Education repeatedly states, all necessary powers are in place. The Department also took the unprecedented step of issuing a press release in which it reflected that it was a pity the BBC didn’t take the evidence to them, instead of airing it on TV. To prove that the system works, police started an investigation the following day.

But still the articles keep coming – more concerns about unregistered schools; an interview with Louise Casey, government tsar, taking her customary pot shot at religion, and ‘Time to take home schooling out of the shadows’ – a scurrilous mix of misinformation, false assumption, and patronising arrogance from Ms Spielman, who sneeringly refers to home educating parents as ‘doing their slightly homespun thing’.

Perhaps she should stop indulging in blame shifting and sort out the problems in the state sector which are prompting growing numbers of parents to home educate – bullying; inadequate SEND provision; lack of school places, and the questionable practice of off-rolling. Her organisation should set its own house in order.

So, why this relentless barrage of articles? Lord Agnew is suspiciously quiet in all of this furore and his much-vaunted consultation on home education is not forthcoming. The Department for Education simply keeps repeating its position – that no new powers are needed. It’s therefore a reasonable assumption that the DfE and Lord Agnew are at war with Ofsted and Lord Soley and the latter group is attempting to lobby Lord Agnew into allowing them the power after which they lust.

And home education parents? Well, they face Badman Two, the sequel. But this time it’s being acted out on a much more dangerous stage, because the Soley-Ofsted unholy alliance is playing the extremism card for all it’s worth. It‘s whipping up public opinion against anything other than state control of every child’s education on the grounds that home education is simply a smokescreen for extremist and radical child abuse.

Take note, Lord Soley, of the law. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights states: ‘Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their child’. Article 29 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says: ‘State Parties agree that the education of the child shall be directed to … the development of the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential’. You meddle with these rights at your peril.

The Unprecedented Number of Attacks on Home Education

Home Education: The War Rages On