DOWNLOAD BUTTON APPEARS BOTTOM LEFT
Monday, 26 February 2007
Monday, 19 February 2007
Monday, 12 February 2007
Friday, 9 February 2007
And because it is hard to read:
More than 360,000 children injured in schools each year
450,000 children bullied in school last year
At least 16 children commit suicide each year as a result of school bullying
An estimated 1 million children truant every year
Treasury statistics show more than 1 in 6 children leave school each year unable to read,write or add up
Every Child Matters?
450,000 children bullied in school last year
At least 16 children commit suicide each year as a result of school bullying
An estimated 1 million children truant every year
Treasury statistics show more than 1 in 6 children leave school each year unable to read,write or add up
Every Child Matters?
I'm an anomaly! From AHED
Send Jim Knight a postcard (and anyone else you want too!)
It would be great if he got a sackful for valentines day, but don't worry if you're a bit later, let's just get him to sit up and think about what he's saying! Links to the postcards and posters at the bottom of the email.
Jim Knight MP
House of Commons
Westminster
LondonSW1A 0AA
or at his constituency address
42 Southview Road
Weymouth
DorsetDT4 0JD
or email:jimknightmp@parliament.uk
If you want to write to your mp or local paper to tell them what you're doing and why here's a sample letter you may or may not wish to use.>>
Dear .......
I am writing to you in support of the "I'm an Anomaly" campaign byAction for Home Education (AHEd.org.uk) which aims to prevent the DfES introducing legislation that would damage our children. I enclose a copy of the postcard that home educating families have sent to Mr Jim Knight for Valentine's Day.
DfES continues to respond to serious questions about the validity of the proposed consultation on the statutory framework regarding homeeducation with a stock reply in which we are told we are an "anomaly""at odds with the Every Child Matters agenda". We do not find this acceptable, and would very much appreciate your help in challenging DfES about their woeful treatment of our minority group.
Home Educators are fed up with being patronised when we ask serious questions, we are sick up of being told we are not stakeholders in those consultations which could impact heavily upon us and potentially damage our children, and furthermore we are outraged by the DfES using the Every Child Matters agenda to try to turn Home Education into another version of the spectacularly failing, one size fits all system that is state controlled education."
As James Bartholomew writes in "The Welfare State We're In"
The troubles that arise when the government decides what should betaught (and how) keep on mounting up. The government makes mistakes.There is a kind of totalitarianism about it which is repellent initself. Education and intellectual activity should be open and involve debate and different ideas. Let a thousand flowers bloom. Don't let us have a government deciding what is good education and what is bad.
"Home Education maybe an "anomaly" in the eyes of the DfES, and indeed we agree it is incongruent but it would be a very shortsighted government indeed that chose to bring it "into line" with state and independent schools and we will vehemently resist any such action.
Besides being a perfectly suitable education choice, proven to be efficacious on many levels, sometimes Home Education is the only safety valve families have available to them when school harms orfails their children.There are already perfectly adequate laws in place which can be used if it appears that a child is not being educated according to their age, ability aptitude and special needs, and the government should be spending their time ensuring that LAs act within these laws, instead of attempting to change those laws to accommodate ultra vires practice and prejudiced ambitions.
Yours<<
The poster and 2 variations of the postcards are available on the wiki- links below.
Choose whether you want to send a postcard from yourself or your child or both.
Poster available at:
http://ahed.pbwiki.com/f/anomaly%20poster_2_pdf..pdf
Postcards available at:
http://ahed.pbwiki.com/f/anomaly%20postcardspdf..pdf
Postcards for children available at:
http://ahed.pbwiki.com/f/anomaly%20postcards.pdf
Tuesday, 6 February 2007
Sunday, 4 February 2007
PRESS RELEASE
Education Otherwise, Britain's largest and longest established Home Education Support Charity has just launched a new Campaign Website
here
The purpose of this innovative new website is to inform and empower the home education community who are reeling from the news that the DfES suddenly plans to launch a full consultation about Elective Home Education without any dialogue with Home Education Support Groups or with home educating families themselves.
Education Otherwise has also written to the DfES and to Alan Johnson,Secretary of State for Education to remind them that home educators are stakeholders in any debate about the future of Elective Home Education.
Education Otherwise was established in 1977 by a small group of home educating families. One of these families was Iris Harrison's , whose diary for this critical time in the history of home education in England is now available on the new campaign website.
Over the last 30 years Education Otherwise has helped thousands of families who want to take responsibility for their children's education outside the school system.
To contact the following, please email blog owner :
Fiona Nicholson
Sheffield
Annette Taberner
Sheffield
Carole Rutherford
Sunderland
Friday, 2 February 2007
Thursday, 1 February 2007
MEDIA INFORMATION FROM ACTION FOR HOME EDUCATION (AHEd)
For immediate release, Friday 2nd February 2007
AHEd formal complaint: Government department ignores their own guidance.(Families threatened by DfES ignoring the Code of Practice on Consultations set out by the Cabinet Office.)
The recently launched national home education action group AHEd (1) has sent a formal complaint to the Cabinet Office following complaints by its members that the DfES has failed to consult adequately with relevant stakeholders in consultations and policy proposals relating to home education. (2)
Barbara Stark, Chair of AHEd, commented:
"Home educating families are being effectively marginalised by the DfES in what we believe to be a deliberate attempt to bypass proper public consultation on new policy proposals which will affect our members directly.
We have discovered that the DfES is introducing bias into the process by using skewed research findings, and we are dismayed and disappointed that representations by experienced home educators, whose lives may be crucially affected by this exercise, have been sidelined or completely ignored.
"We have been very patient during two years of exclusion, but enough is enough. We feel directly threatened by the prospect of a state sponsored attack on the fundamental right of parents to choose the type of education most suitable for their children and will vigorously resist attempts to impose a state inspectorate of families to dictate the how and what of educational provision for our children regardless of the individual needs of each child.
"Once again, in the pursuit of the Every Child Matter agenda, the government is forgetting that each child is an individual with individual needs. Home educators are the experts in listening to their own children and meeting their own children's individual needs, and they quite rightly refuse to be marginalised in matters that are of fundamental importance to them. We demand the right to be heard in any consultation which affects our children's lives and trust that the Cabinet Office will give due consideration to our formal complaint."
AHEd contends that current proposals by the DfES are a matter of serious concern for all parents and children and believes that the state must not be allowed to remove flexibility and individual choice in the education of children or further erode the right of parents to make appropriate decisions in the best interests of their children.
AHEd members are angry that the DfES has completely disregarded the Code of Practice on Consultations set out by the Cabinet Office (3) and has conveniently chosen to consult with selected local authorities who have already demonstrated hostility towards elective home education and who are seeking new and invasive powers which home educating families believe will be harmful to their children. Since the current legal framework will not support the new 'big brother' regime that is being demanded by some local authorities, they are pressing for legislative changes, which AHEd has described as "anti-children, anti-democratic and highly likely to be abused".
Ms Stark concluded: "The current consultation exercise is fundamentally flawed due to the failure of the DfES to follow proper procedures and we believe it should be abandoned forthwith. As the primary stakeholders in any discussions relating to home education, we demand that the DfES include our expert voices in any consultation that affects us. Nothing less will do."
ENDS
For further information, contact Barbara Stark on tel: (xxx)
NOTES FOR EDITORS:
(1) See http://www.ahed.org.uk
(2) http://ahed.pbwiki.com/Complaint-to-Cabinet-Office
(3) http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/regulation/consultation/
AHEd formal complaint: Government department ignores their own guidance.(Families threatened by DfES ignoring the Code of Practice on Consultations set out by the Cabinet Office.)
The recently launched national home education action group AHEd (1) has sent a formal complaint to the Cabinet Office following complaints by its members that the DfES has failed to consult adequately with relevant stakeholders in consultations and policy proposals relating to home education. (2)
Barbara Stark, Chair of AHEd, commented:
"Home educating families are being effectively marginalised by the DfES in what we believe to be a deliberate attempt to bypass proper public consultation on new policy proposals which will affect our members directly.
We have discovered that the DfES is introducing bias into the process by using skewed research findings, and we are dismayed and disappointed that representations by experienced home educators, whose lives may be crucially affected by this exercise, have been sidelined or completely ignored.
"We have been very patient during two years of exclusion, but enough is enough. We feel directly threatened by the prospect of a state sponsored attack on the fundamental right of parents to choose the type of education most suitable for their children and will vigorously resist attempts to impose a state inspectorate of families to dictate the how and what of educational provision for our children regardless of the individual needs of each child.
"Once again, in the pursuit of the Every Child Matter agenda, the government is forgetting that each child is an individual with individual needs. Home educators are the experts in listening to their own children and meeting their own children's individual needs, and they quite rightly refuse to be marginalised in matters that are of fundamental importance to them. We demand the right to be heard in any consultation which affects our children's lives and trust that the Cabinet Office will give due consideration to our formal complaint."
AHEd contends that current proposals by the DfES are a matter of serious concern for all parents and children and believes that the state must not be allowed to remove flexibility and individual choice in the education of children or further erode the right of parents to make appropriate decisions in the best interests of their children.
AHEd members are angry that the DfES has completely disregarded the Code of Practice on Consultations set out by the Cabinet Office (3) and has conveniently chosen to consult with selected local authorities who have already demonstrated hostility towards elective home education and who are seeking new and invasive powers which home educating families believe will be harmful to their children. Since the current legal framework will not support the new 'big brother' regime that is being demanded by some local authorities, they are pressing for legislative changes, which AHEd has described as "anti-children, anti-democratic and highly likely to be abused".
Ms Stark concluded: "The current consultation exercise is fundamentally flawed due to the failure of the DfES to follow proper procedures and we believe it should be abandoned forthwith. As the primary stakeholders in any discussions relating to home education, we demand that the DfES include our expert voices in any consultation that affects us. Nothing less will do."
ENDS
For further information, contact Barbara Stark on tel: (xxx)
NOTES FOR EDITORS:
(1) See http://www.ahed.org.uk
(2) http://ahed.pbwiki.com/Complaint-to-Cabinet-Office
(3) http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/regulation/consultation/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)