Children, Schools and Families Bill – Summary of Home Education Provisions and Their Impact

CSF Bill – Summary of Home Education Provisions and Their Impact

(please crosspost)

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Schedule 1 contravenes two of the fundamental principles of the Children's Plan: "Launching Brighter Futures", which was launched by the government in December 2007. These are:

• Government does not bring up children – parents do – so government needs to do more to back parents and families.

• Services need to be shaped by and responsive to children, young people and families, not designed around professional boundaries.

GENERAL FEATURES OF SCHEDULE 1

Under Schedule 1 to the Children, Schools and Families Bill (Schedule 1) local authorities will have a duty to maintain a register of all home educated children within their area. This duty to keep a register will give local authorities the power to refuse parents permission to home educate, and to curtail the practice of home education, without regard to the education being
provided and without regard for the best interests of the child.

Home educating parents will not have an affirmative duty to register their children, but a local authority's first step can be to serve a School Attendance Order on any unregistered home educated child. Local authorities will have many powers to refuse or revoke registration, and then issue a School Attendance Order because of the unregistered status that they have thus created. Parents who do not comply with a School Attendance Order will be guilty of a criminal offence. Parents served with such an order will no longer be able to use the defence that they are providing a suitable education.

Under Section 7 of the Education Act 1996, it is the parents' duty, not the local authority's, to ensure that children receive a suitable education. Parents may choose to provide that education "otherwise" rather than by delegating that duty to a school.Schedule 1 imposes constraints on how parents exercise this duty, should they choose to educate their children at home.

Schedule 1 is inconsistent with the Children's Plan and theChildren Acts, favours administrative protocol over parents' freedom to choose the form of education for their children, and represents a shift in power from families to civil servants.

LOCAL AUTHORITY POWERS EXTENDED

Schedule 1 will give local authorities extensive powers to refuse or revoke registration. They may refuse or revoke registration:

• If a parent does not immediately apply for registration, even though there is no legal requirement for them to do so.
• If a parent does not submit a plan for the next year's education on time, or in sufficient detail, or in the authority's designated format.
• If a parent deviates from the educational plan that they have provided to the local authority, even if by doing so they have improved the education being provided.
• If a family's circumstances change during the year. The local authority might, e.g., decide it is a material change if a child is found to have special needs, or if a family changed their educational approach to one that was more workable or effective.
• If an authority, or any other authority in England has ever in the past denied an application to register a child.
• If parents object to the local authority entering their home on a routine visit.
• If parents object to the local authority questioning their child with no parent or carer present. Schedule 1 gives parents the right to object to their child being questioned alone, but then permits registration to be refused or revoked if they do so.
• If the local authority determines that the parents are demonstrating a "failure to cooperate" with any aspect of the local authority's monitoring process.
• If registration lapses, which happens automatically after one year.
• If a parent applies to register in order to stop the school attendance order process, the process stops. However, the LA can then refuse to enter the child onto the home education register, and serve another School Attendance Order.

In addition, the Secretary of State will be empowered to impose further regulations and technical requirements, without parliamentary debate, and thus will be able to set even more conditions upon parents' freedom to home educate.

SCHEDULE 1 AND THE CHILDREN'S PLAN

Schedule 1 contravenes two of the fundamental principles ofChildren's Plan: Launching Brighter Futures, which was launched by the government in December 2007. These are:

• Government does not bring up children – parents do – so government needs to do
more to back parents and families.

• Services need to be shaped by and responsive to children, young people and
families, not designed around professional boundaries.

However, under the terms of Schedule 1:

• Regulations will be issued providing for a right of appeal. Therefore the appeal process that is created will not be subjected to Parliamentary scrutiny to see if it is fair, impartial and just.
• The local authority will be able to revoke registration if it considers that the education being provided is not suitable. It will also be able to refuse or revoke registration if the parents violate a number of administrative protocols, regardless of whether the education being provided is suitable or not. The net effect will be to make administrative procedures central to a local authority's consideration, not the needs of the child.
• There is no statutory requirement for the local authority to consider whether or not it is acting in the best interests of the child.
• There is no general requirement for the local authority to consider the suitability of the education being provided, although suitability underpins parents' right to choose to educate their children otherwise than at school. Indeed, local authorities are expressly prohibited from considering the actual education in deciding whether to issue a School Attendance Order.
• There is no requirement for the local authority to work in partnership with home educating families to improve the education being provided if there are concerns, as opposed to ordering the children to attend school.
• There is no assertion or recognition that the parents are responsible for the education of their child.
• There is no requirement for local authorities to provide any services or resources for home educating families.

SCHEDULE 1 AND THE EDUCATION ACT 1996

Schedule 1 is inconsistent with the spirit and nature of theEducation Act 1996 thus:

• There is no explicit assertion that it is the duty of parents to educate their children either by regular attendance at school or otherwise. Instead there is a diminution of the freedom and powers that parents have to exercise their duty by choosing to home educate.
• Local authorities are not required to consider the suitability of the education being provided whenever they consider refusing or revoking registration, and are instructed not to consider it when they issue a School Attendance Order. They are granted broad powers to refuse permission to home educate based only on whether administrative procedures have been followed.
• The issue of suitability of the education parents provide to their children is removed from judicial consideration. Courts instead are directed to enforce a School Attendance Order against any unregistered home educated child.

SCHEDULE 1 AND THE CHILDREN ACT 1989

Schedule 1 is inconsistent with the spirit and nature of theChildren Act thus:

• There is no requirement for the local authority to consider the needs, welfare and interests of the child as paramount.
• There is no recognition of the importance of family life to the welfare of a child.
• There is no requirement for the local authority to work in partnership with home educating families.
• There is no requirement for the local authority to consider the needs of the child with regards to race, culture, religion, gender, disability, or special needs, or any other factors that may be relevant to the well-being of the child.
• There is no affirmation of the "No Order" principle, that an order should only be sought as a last resort.
• The consideration for the welfare of the child is poorly defined or absent. This is inconsistent with the welfare checklist contained with the 1989 Children Act and with the other acts that shape children's services.

The authority-centred focus of Schedule 1 marks a paradigm shift from the child-centred, family-focused acts and policies that sprang from and were shaped by the Children Act 1989 (Every Child Matters; the Adoption Act; the Children Act 2004; the Leaving Care Act; the Children's Plan).

SUMMARY

The powers enshrined in Schedule 1:

• Curtail the freedom of parents to educate their children otherwise than at school.
• Are inconsistent with the Children Acts.
• Are inconsistent with the Children's Plan.
• Create a conflict between the local authority and parents in who is ultimately responsible for the provision of education, and who is answerable to whom.
• Represent a shift in power from families to civil servants.

Betsy Anderson; Imran Shah. 31 Dec 2009

Useful Home Education Printout

HERE


Note: Law and guidelines current at December 2009

Record breaking parliamentary petition against the Badman Report

Please pass this leaflet on...

There are many home educators who do not use the internet very often, and may not know what the new Children, Schools and Families Bill is proposing. The following leaflet can be downloaded, in pdf form, from HERE

If you can, please print it out and take it to your local groups, or pass it to your local email lists. The Bill is going through parliament NOW and not enough home educators know what it really contains.

The text from the leaflet is below.


“Parents bring up children, not Government”1

If you think this is New Labour policy, think again
Clauses 26 and 27 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill currently in Parliament would lock home educating families into a bureaucratic system that is all about restricting educational freedom and nothing to do with ensuring children are well educated and looked after.

What is the Government proposing?

If the proposals in the Bill become law:

• Every year, parents would have to ask permission from the Local Authority to home educate
The Government is calling this a ‘register’, but a more accurate word would be ‘licence’. Local authorities would have the power to refuse ‘registration’ or to remove children from the ‘register’ if their parents do not cooperate with the system. ‘Registration’ would have to be renewed every year.

• Unregistered home educated children would be ordered to attend school
Local authorities would not be allowed to consider whether the education of unregistered children is suitable for their needs. The only consideration would be whether the child was ‘registered’ or not.

• Parents would be required to supply an advance plan for their children’s education every year in order to remain on the ‘register’
Local authorities would be given the power to decide whether the education provided is suitable, and whether it measures up to the plan. The power to decide what constitutes a suitable education for an individual child would be taken out of the hands of that child’s parents and given to a local council officer, who may have met the child only once.

• Local authorities would have to reassess home educated children and parents every year
If home educated children, or their parents, do not give consent for a child to be interviewed alone, the local authorities would not have the right to insist. But they would have the right to remove that child’s name from the ‘register’ as a punishment for this refusal to cooperate. Loving parents would be forced to override their children’s wishes in order to protect their freedom to be educated outside the school system.

Clause 26 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill gives this or any future government the power to issue guidance to local authorities about what they may demand of parents as part of this new ‘registration’, monitoring and inspection regime. MPs are being asked to approve the Bill without having sight of this guidance.

Clause 26 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill has been presented to Parliament before the results of a public consultation on the proposals have been released. Over 5000 people responded to the consultation but their views have been completely ignored in the drafting of the Bill.

There is no need to change the law regarding home education. Home educated children are at no more risk of abuse than any other group of children. Local authorities already have powers to take action if parents are not educating or caring for their children properly.

Please write to your MP now and demand that they vote for the removal of Clauses 26 and 27 from the Bill.
1 http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/childrensplan

Protect the family home! Please sign.

PETITION

Title - Home-ed-families

Category – Education and skills

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to uphold that parents have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of their child, not to undermine parents legitimately fulfilling their fundamental duties, and to assume that the best interests of their child is the basic concern of parents unless there is specific evidence to the contrary.

In particular, the government should ensure :-
• No right of access to the family home without evidence of a crime
• No right to interview a child alone without evidence of risk of serious harm
• No CRB checks or registration for parents to look after their own children, or to informally look after those of their friends, family etc
• No licensing / registration / assessment / monitoring of methods by which parents fulfil their duties without evidence that they are failing to do so, and with specific recognition that education "otherwise" than at school is a perfectly legal option to fulfil their duty regarding education
• No undermining of parents as being in the best position to determine how to meet their child's needs, according to their age, ability, aptitude, and any special needs they may have
• Greater focus on applying existing resources and procedures to cases of children known to be at risk, rather than dilution of these resources by routinely monitoring whole sections of the community
• Compliance with the fundamental presumption of innocence unless there is specific evidence to the contrary

Home Education Youth Council (HEYC) Vows disobedience

Meeting with a civil servant, home educated youths declare non-compliance with proposed ‘immoral’ legislation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-05 NOV 2009.

Email: press@heyc.org.uk
Phone: 07870 104 216

Representatives of the Home Educated Youth Council met with Penny Jones, Deputy Director at the DCSF to discuss proposed legislation to monitor home educators. The legislation will be read out as part of the Improving Schools And Safeguarding Bill in the Queen’s Speech, and will set forth proposals to give local authorities the power to enter the homes of electively home educating families, and to speak alone to home educated children without their consent.

HEYC considers the proposals immoral and discriminatory, but the DCSF have no plans to scrap any of the proposals at present, despite the widespread opposition to them, and doubts as to the veracity of the research upon which they are based. Therefore, at the end of the meeting, they laid down an ultimatum: non-compliance to the proposals if they ever become law.

As children themselves, HEYC is very concerned about the damage that could be done to children who feel they must agree to see an inspector alone or be sent into the school system, and are outraged that an inspector would have the right to interview a child alone even against their wishes, since this directly violates children’s rights. The representatives of HEYC feel that this situation could be very upsetting, especially for small children. At present, there are no limits to the amount of time an inspector could choose to spend with a child, or what questions they would be allowed to ask. “I don’t think such power should be given to authorities who have sometimes demonstrated a deplorable lack of understanding of home education philosophies and current law.” Says Chloe Watson, Chair of HEYC

During the meeting, the representatives of HEYC asked if there had been any assessment of possible harm to children that could come out of these proposals, especially for younger children, who may be frightened at being taken away from their parents by a stranger. Ms. Jones said that no such assessment had been taken, and that there were no plans to do so, despite warnings from the home educated community that the proposals could be detrimental to some children’s well being.

The rest of the proposals include right of access to the “the premises where education is conducted”, even when that is a family home, or the home of a private tutor. There would only be two weeks notice, and inspections could be carried out at any time, so home educating families would not be able to risk going on holiday for more than two weeks for fear of missing an inspection and being deemed inadequate, or worse, risk being suspected of taking their children abroad for nefarious reasons.

“We see the proposals as condoning an invasion of privacy and violation of rights. Since this could quite possibly be harmful to home educating parents and children, we think civil disobedience is a proportionate response.” Says Chloe

END

Select Committee Enquiry into the Badman Report: submission from AEUK

READ IT HERE