[Ali P]

1 Do you think the current system for safeguarding children who are educated at home is adequate? Please let us know why you think that.

Yes

There are adequate measures already in place for safeguarding all children, whether home educated or schooled. The focus of the Government should not be on persecuting a minority group on the basis of their making a perfectly lawful choice in respect of their children’s education, but on ensuring that state agencies take appropriate action where a child is known to be at risk of significant harm.

In the cases of Victoria Climbie, Danielle Reid (Scotland) and the children fostered/adopted by Eunice Spry (with the LA’s approval), the professionals involved, including NSPCC personnel, failed to use existing and entirely adequate powers to remove the children from environments which were known to be abusive.

Intervention, where necessary, should be proportionate and based on professional judgements by senior staff using set procedures, but the crisis in social worker recruitment and retention across the UK, along with the near bankrupting of LAs due to pending equal pay settlements and lack of funding by central government, means that statutory children’s services are not being delivered effectively or at all. Why is the Government not concentrating its resources on protecting the most vulnerable children, including those who are ‘looked after’ by the LA as corporate parent and for whom the outcomes are unquestionably dire?

Do you think that home educated children are able to achieve the following five Every Child Matters outcomes? Please let us know why you think that.

2 a) Be healthy

Yes

This question is based on the erroneous assumption that all respondents share the government’s outcome based obsession and have been taken in by the stated agenda behind ECM. Home Education Forums falls into neither category.

There is no reason why home educated children should be less healthy than schooled children; indeed it is nonsensical to generalise as each child’s health and wellbeing is individual to that child and a ‘healthy’ outcome for all children cannot be dictated or even expected. ‘Being healthy’ is hardly achievable for a cancer sufferer, a child with a life limiting illness or a child who is being bullied and physically or mentally abused in the school system.

How does the government propose to ensure that all schooled and ‘looked after’ children are guaranteed this ‘be healthy’ outcome? And if the government fails in this objective, what legal redress will be available to the ‘failed’ child?

2 b) Stay safe

Yes

This question is based on the erroneous assumption that all respondents share the government’s outcome based obsession and have been taken in by the stated agenda behind ECM. Home Education Forums falls into neither category.

There is no reason why home educated children should be deemed any less safe than schooled children who are often subject to such bullying and abuse in schools that their parents have had to home educate in order to keep them safe from harm. Many schooled children report feeling safe only in the holidays and at weekends and a minority of those have resorted to self harm, running away from home and tragically even suicide. A new member of our forums reported only last week her six year old son asking if he could “go to heaven” to avoid school bullies.

This question also outrageously infers that any child who has not stayed safe (due to being a victim of crime, for example) is somehow responsible for the ‘failure’.

How does the government propose to ensure that all schooled and ‘looked after’ children are guaranteed this ‘stay safe’ outcome? And if the government fails in this objective, what legal redress will be available to the ‘failed’ child?

2 c) Enjoy and achieve

Yes

This question is based on the erroneous assumption that all respondents share the government’s outcome based obsession and have been taken in by the stated agenda behind ECM. Home Education Forums falls into neither category.

This is a particularly risible question in the context of a questionnaire relating to home educated children, given the schooling focus in the ECM outcomes framework. Of course there is no reason why home educated children should be deemed any less likely to ‘enjoy and achieve’ in their lives than schooled children, whose meeting of government decreed enjoyment and achievement targets seems to be entirely dependent upon how well or badly they do in jumping through the hoops of state administered tests rather than how they ‘enjoy and achieve’ in their own lives by their own lights.

As an aside, ‘enjoying and achieving’ to higher education level is always going to be problematic in that it will inevitably lead to failure in other areas, especially economic wellbeing. As one of our forums members recently pointed out, the likely ‘outcomes’ of a university education these days are unemployment (or burger flipping wages), permanent indebtedness and poverty.

How does the government propose to ensure that all schooled and ‘looked after’ children are guaranteed this ‘enjoy and achieve’ outcome? And if the government fails in this objective, what legal redress will be available to the ‘failed’ child?

2 d) Make a positive contribution.

Yes

This question is based on the erroneous assumption that all respondents share the government’s outcome based obsession and have been taken in by the stated agenda behind ECM. Home Education Forums falls into neither category.

All children, whether schooled or home educated, are capable of making a positive contribution to their community and environment, although schooled children may have less opportunity to do so by dint of compulsory daily attendance at a closed institution. Home educated children instinctively build positive contribution into their daily lives and regularly take part in activities which benefit other individuals, environmental projects and community groups. By way of example, some young members of our forums and local home education groups regularly shop for elderly neighbours, take part in peer support and mentoring activities, involve themselves in nature conservation and actively promote and practise the recycling and reuse of resources.

On the other hand, schooled children are often coerced into making a positive contribution which is not of their own volition or choosing. Bouncing on a trampoline to raise sponsorship money for a charity whose aims are antipathetic to their own is one example cited by a young forums member.

How does the government propose to ensure that all schooled and ‘looked after’ children are guaranteed this ‘make a positive contribution’ outcome? And if the government fails in this objective, what legal redress will be available to the ‘failed’ child?

2 e) achieve economic well-being

Yes

This question is based on the erroneous assumption that all respondents share the government’s outcome based obsession and have been taken in by the stated agenda behind ECM. Home Education Forums falls into neither category.

As the economy enters the worst recession in living memory, thanks to a Government inspired culture of rampant consumerism and greed, it is difficult to imagine how anyone will be able to escape relative poverty. However, the rejection of irresponsible spending in favour of more self sufficient, environmentally friendly lifestyle choices may be the key to alternative means of achieving economic wellbeing.

Home educated children are far more likely to have learned to use, reuse, recycle, borrow, swap and generally dispense with the ‘must have it now’ culture which relies on peer pressure and is so cynically promoted by the media. Use of alternative networks such as freecycle which keeps unwanted items out of landfill may be anathema to the schooled children and wage slaves on whom the impact of peer pressure is greatest, but it is positively embraced by many home educators and other environmentally responsible individuals.

Home Education Forums was born of the realisation that home educators make great entrepreneurs since educating your own children and running your own business present similar challenges, all of which are best overcome with support from others in the same ‘community of interest’. Home edupreneurship is now booming with a disproportionate number of home educated young people considering self employment or already self employed in a variety of sectors. Home educated children are more likely to work out their own creative solutions to problems rather than expect to be fed the ‘right’ answers. They are also far more likely to come up with innovative ideas than schooled children, whose enterprise projects are usually controlled and predictable without any of the risk associated with real business.

One (non home educating) business owner who facilitated an enterprise workshop for home educators recently commented: “These are the sort of young people we need to help revitalise the SME sector, either running their own businesses or as employees. I’ll be back in a couple of years to headhunt some of them.”

How does the government propose to ensure that all schooled and ‘looked after’ children are guaranteed this ‘achieve economic wellbeing’ outcome? And if the government fails in this objective, what legal redress will be available to the ‘failed’ child?