Register for Home Education

I think it would be good to have a register and suspect the media just looked for ones who objected. My niece homeschooled her 4 and was part of a larger organisation of home schoolers. In her case it was extremely successful.

I was horrified that this didn’t exist already. I have no objection at all to home schooling and the support organisations I believe are excellent but the children need some external checks. At very least it’s a safeguarding issue not just an educational one

My daughter home schools all her children. They all have varying degrees of autism, and cannot cope in mainstream education, yet none of them are considered to have severe enough problems to be eligible for special school education.
She has a yearly visit from the LEA to assess her teaching, and the children's knowledge. They go through all the work books and all her curriculum material. They asked where she sourced her teaching material, and how much it cost, if it wasn't a free resource.
At the last visit the lady from the LEA wrote down some of the websites my daughter had found for teaching geography and maths, so that she could pass them on to other parents struggling to find good teaching material.
In all the lady stayed for over four hours. Her inspection was very thorough.. My daughter was given a glowing report and told to keep up the good work.
My grandchildren do all sorts of other activities outside the home too. Kayaking, art group, folk group, and regular home school meet ups. The children have lots of friends, and none of them want to go back to school.
If the LEA found that the children's education was lacking, they can insist upon them going to school.

Long overdue.
The quality of the education provided needs to be monitored properly as well.
The two children I encountered professionally who were home educated were withdrawn because of incidents involving knives at their homes, and the parents were fearful of official investigations when the children talked about it at school.
Both children returned years later, way behind in their education, and emotionally damaged.

Mini that’s very heartening - this should be the national standard and it isn’t. Also a national register should be able to track children if they move areas as that is one way that problems can be hidden and children fall out of sight

I can see no reason why children being home educated should not be registered and known to the local authority.

Most parents, who are home educating their children, and I was nearly one, provide their children with, possible an unconventional, but more than adequate educatio.

However, there have been a number of cases where children have been malnourished, neglected and abused, and in one case a child died, in the care of parents who had withdrawn them from not just from school, but from society, to pursue misguided religious or philosophical beliefs that have affected the childs physical and mental welfare and, on rare occasions, social services do need to step in to protect the children. This hasn't always happened in the past because those responsible for protecting children were unaware of their existence.

I think it is absolutely essential.
At very least it’s a safeguarding issue not just an educational one

We do hear of cases of child neglect/abuse which sadly slip through the net despite the suspicions of schools, but if a child is home schooled and there are no regulations at all in place then this would be so much more difficult, if not impossible, to discover.

I'm sure that most parents who home school are extremely conscientious like MiniMoon's DD, but there will always be the exceptions and better regulations may well discover problems that arise both in education and in the child's well-being.

My DD was inspected in Glasgow, and her details were passed to the relevant LEA when they moved here. Why is this not being done, I wonder? Are parents trying to hide from the LEA?

Well in some rare cases yes because they have something to hide.

I thought this already happened and that they were inspected as above. I know that the inspection rate is low and not very efficient in some areas - but in theory it exists.

Home schooling can be very successful with intelligent well-motivated parents; and I am hugely in favour of it. I think that the environment of pressure in many schools is not a place that I would want a child of mine to be.

However there is indeed a safeguarding issue and the authorities should be making more frequent visits to those home schoolers about whom the have doubts - but is there the man/woman power to do this?

DD took my grandchildren to visit Souter Lighthouse as youngest grandson is interested in all things lighthouse related. When they reached the light, the lady volunteer guide asked them if they had any questions. She was amazed by the things they wanted to know, and asked which school they attended. DGD told her they were home educated. She then said that school parties barely ask any questions, and it was refreshing to talk to such interesting, intelligent children.

Lucky, the lady from the LEA who visited my daughter has a huge area to cover. After visiting my daughter she had to phone her next family to cancel her visit until another day.

Classrooms now are full to capacity. More and more children suffer from mental/physical problems, i.e. ( behavioural ) how the dickens can any teacher be made to cope with such a volume of unruly children as well as trying to teach them ? They may as well stay at home !

Discipline has well gone !! Result-----feral children.

Well EV not having to sack teaching assistants, not having to increase class size, not cutting in real terms the money given to CAMHS , not closing Sure Start Centres , improving housing, higher pay - all this would be a start if we really cared about our children but there is not one example I can think of as evidence that this government cares about ‘our’ children because these children are not their children and anyway, keeping public expenditure and taxes down is all that matters.

I think there should be a register, but the idea is to identify those children who are missing out on education, attending illegal schools or being educated on a religious basis. Some parents or guardians are unlikely to conform to a registration scheme so I can't see how it could be implemented to ensure that no child slips through the net. I think the scheme would need to start with birth certificates and correlate those with a place of education when the child reaches school age.

Yes I agree Antonia not everyone who keeps their children away from school are acting from the best motives. The cases are rare but exist, there needs to be joined up care supporting children.

This thread has got me wondering how children are in fact tracked through the various systems - if at all. For example being registered with a doctor. I know a baby is in the system after being born as records etc are sent to the GP but how do leas know who should be going to school in their area once a child reaches the age for education? Does anyone know?

A register and more inspection and assessment would be great, but who on earth is going to pay for it. Certainly not this government who have cut spending per head to schools. You can find out about your GCs school here schoolcuts.org.uk/?link_id=0&can_id=9829bb41bfffd3f4f3af96114a8cf8e2&source=email-bad-news-its-worse-than-we-predicted&email_referrer=email_518798___subject_669656&email_subject=bad-news-its-worse-than-we-predicted

Lovely to hear such a success story minimoon !

maryeliza54 I don't know how children are tracked through the system as they grow up. In rare cases some children may not even be registered with a GP (those who are most at risk probably) which is why I think the tracking should start with a birth certificate as I believe that all children are registered at birth. On second thoughts though, there are the children who are brought into the country later on, and I don't know what the solution would be there. Some form of registration would be a start, as I think it is highly unlikely that all the parents who choose to home educate can do it to as high a standard as a school. For one thing it takes a huge amount of time and expense to home educate. I am not saying that all home schooling is inadequate as I am sure it isn't in a lot of cases, but there will always be children who miss out on a quality education at a state school......no, wait.

There are no fines in the school where I work

I knew a couple who tried to home educate their son. The mum had learning difficulties and the dad was of below average intelligence. Needless to say the result was disastrous. When the child went back to school he was very behind.

We educated my middle daughter at home for a year (due to bullying that wasn’t dealt with by the school) We had someone from the LEA come out to look at her work, and check we were doing it properly.
In her case I taught her some subjects English, Geography and Law (my degree) , my husband History, ((his degree subject) my eldest daughter taught her psychology and sociology (social work degree).We paid a friend who had a doctorate in physics to teach her maths and physics, and a lady (who was recommended) taught her French.
This all tided her over until she was able to get into the local further education college to sit her GCSE’s, a year early.
It worked out fine. She was still seeing friends from school, and doing her previous extra curricular activities. Plus we were able to take her out to museums and NT places on days off. We all had to juggle this around other things. I worked 4 days a week and elder daughter was at uni, but her father was medically retired and we managed to make it work well.
I would have had no issues with additional scrutinising by the LEA but I can understand why some home educators might.

Long overdue. And these illegal schools I’ve heard about on the news need closing down.