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Registering and monitoring home-based education --- Wales 2012 consultation
I am a Home-Educating parent. I live in England.
Q1. Disagree, because I do not think a register should be kept, nor do I think that it should be a requirement for local authorities to register a parent who elects to home educate one or more of their children.
Q2. Disagree, because I do not think that parents should be required to register prior to or during home-educating one or more of their children.
Q3. Disagree, because I do not think the local authority should be required to be assessing the parents' suitability to home-educate one or more of their children.
Q4. Disagree, because I do not think a local authority should be required to undertake a face to face meeting with a parent who is home-educating one or more of their children.
Q5. Disagree, because I do not think a local authority should be required to hold meetings with a parent who is home-educating one or more of their children.
Q6. Disagree, because I do not think a local authority should be required to keep such a register of parents who are home educating one or more of their children.
Q7. Disagree, because I do not think a local authority should be required to give or withhold permission to a parent to home-educate one or more of their children.
Q8.
This consultation appears to be written from the perspective of adults who have no direct experience of home-educating one or more of their children.
The consultation shows no evidence of any prior study of the experience of national and local authorities in other countries around the world.
The consultation does not show evidence of care taken to work out the costings for these proposals.
The consultation does not ask for the views of home-educated children or schooled children.
The consultation ignores the parent's responsibility in law to ensure that the education and care of their children is suitable. It is not the local authority's responsibility. See ... [I missed it out, but then added a chunk of the relevant Act in a follow up email, though I'm sure they know it by heart now!]
The consultation assumes that the creation of a register, the withholding or allowing of permission to home educate, the face to face meetings and the annual monitoring meetings will achieve ends which are not clearly set out.
The costs, in all senses, to achieve such a registering process have not been clearly set out.
There is no reading list showing evidence of a thoughtful, intelligent and compassionate approach to this matter.
I suggest that all involved in this consultation read more widely, reflect on the circumstances which might cause them as individuals to choose home education for one or more of their children and take more account of the many dedicated adults who have given many years of their time to home-educating one or more of their children.
Good luck with all the reading!
[My full name]
22/11/2012---
I hope my suggestions at Q8 are helpful to the officials charged with reading and analysing the replies, and act as a spur to some thoughtful reflections.
I can't say that I have yet had any new thoughts about home education as a result of this consultation process. Let's try:
I was surprised at how quickly I was able to write replies. Last time I did a similar reply it took me a lot more typing and retyping.
I was a bit annoyed with myself for leaving it until the last minute, perhaps this was because there was no replies counter showing the running total of replies sent in. This might have encouraged me to get involved earlier on.
I felt gratitude to the efforts of everyone who wrote and acted at the time of the Badman Review. I was aware that this was my turn to help out with a different geographical area.
I am aware that I think a future labour government in Westminster is likely and so further attempts to introduce licensing and monitoring are also likely. Being part of a 'counting of heads' at this point is a reminder to me of the process of coming together which is needed each time a suggestion is made which many people wish to challenge. I saw that Twitter is more of a force than during Badman. Otherwise, yahoo groups and blogs are effective communication networks just as at that time. I didn't use facebook much this time, but others may have.
