Petition the Home ed. Review

Petition is HERE

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to to remind his
government that parents must remain responsible in law for ensuring
the welfare and education of their children and that the state should
not seek to appropriate these responsibilities.

We ask him to remind ministers that recent DCSF consultations have
concluded that current law, when applied correctly, is sufficient to
the task of protecting home educated children should parents fail in
their duties, and that the law represents a satisfactory balance
between protecting children and the need for privacy and autonomy in
family life.

We also ask him to call a halt to the review of home education, begun
in Jan 2009. Home educators have already taken part in four
consultations in just over three years. New guidelines for LAs
regarding Home Education resulted from one of these consultations as
recently as Nov 2007 and yet we are now faced with yet another review
which appears to seek to erode parental responsibilities. We ask him
to remind ministers that repeated consultations infringe the BRE's
Code of Practice on Consultations, Criterion 5.

We also ask him to alert the DCSF that relations between home
educators and LAs are likely to deteriorate should the state elect to
intrude further upon family life.