This Statutory Instrument was published yesterday:

The Children’s Trust Board (Children and Young People’s Plan) (England) (Revocation) Regulations 2010
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2...ntents?type=em

and

So, here we have the English Coalition Government going through a piecemeal unwinding of Tony Bliar's Nanny State while the Scottish Government is seemingly powering ahead with New Labour ideology in the from of GIRFEC. Funny world isn't it?

I'm forwarding this on behalf of a friend. A small group of home educators in
the north east have organised it...

Hello Everyone,

I am just letting you all know about the Home Education Conference that is
taking place in Newcastle Upon Tyne on the 21st of October. The venue is the
Discovery Museum which is no more than a 10 minute walk from the main railway
station.

Some of the speakers attending include Dr Paula Rothermel, author Alan Thomas
and Karen Turner from the Home Education Centre in Somerset.

All the details including programme, speaker profiles and application form can
be downloaded from the following website.

http://www.livelearnandgrow.org.uk/

I would be very grateful if anyone interested could purchase their tickets by
the 12th of September.


Looking forward to seeing some of you there.

Carolyn Blackburn

Just watched a recording of tonight's opening episode of a bbc series called waterloo road. Here is the plot taken from the official website.

"Karen’s first challenge at the school arrives in the form of the Kirbys - sixth former Jonah and 13 year old genius Ruth, who have both been homeschooled by their father, Marcus. Marcus’s ex-wife Hannah wants her children to experience mainstream schooling, but he has little faith in the state education system. Whilst Jonah relishes the opportunity to make new friends and have new experiences, high achiever Ruth feels she’s got little to learn - she soon takes matters into her own hands and runs away! When the school discover Ruth’s disappearance, they alert the police and create a search party. But the process proves particularly hard for Karen, as it is painful reminder of her own family situation."

Its hard to imagine annyone actually watches this drivel but I notice its in its sixth series so I suppose someone must. In the end the 'homeschooler's (refered to as unworldly) realise that they need to attend school in order to learn things other than how to pass exam's!!!

Here it is folks. Today's lesson in homeschooling direct from the bbc


http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...s_6_Episode_1/

P

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Does anybody want to try pointing out to them that , as children, all of these people had their learning facilitated not dictated resulting in them being self motivated individuals?
If they truly want history to live on, they must trust the children.
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from Teachers TV
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Not really sure best place to post this thread.

There are free places at cinemas all over the country for National school films week. These places are also available to Home Educators, just folow the link below.
www.nsfw.org

Alison x

Ali said on the Data loss thread-
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So I thought I had better go see what outcomes I should be working towards- the search brought some interesting results . Here we have
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But it is ok because this will be another ecare won't it ? it won't be THE ecare will it? because \THE ecare is just electronic as opposed to paper medical records isn't it? THE ecare is not some big business that spawns businesses and charities is it?
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It must be pretty new must 'Social eCare Solutions ' they only have 8 customers as yet
FosterCare UK
Anchor Fostercare
Families for Children
Sankofa Care
SWAN Fostering
Progress Fostering Services
and
24 Seven Fostering Ltd
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Rainbow Fostering Services
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only 8 of the many foster agencies but it is a start and with it's Management Team-
Lord Victor Adebowale - Strategy Advisor
Lord Victor is the Strategy Advisor at Social eCare Solutions. Victor is a Life Peer.
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It is a very complex simple system isn't it this ecare? I wonder if the child protection market became saturated and ecare was cloned from it , reproduced in the same money grabbing - society destroying - form, but dressed in different clothes.
Elaine's daily outcome - 1 headache

Highlands collect information on every child . This thread covers the forms to be completed with details of each child . I will give each form it's own post.
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CHILD AND FAMILY DETAILS

CHILD’S FORENAME:
SECOND FORENAME:
REGISTERED SURNAME :
Family Name (s)
Forename Known As:
SURNAME AT BIRTH
DOB
CHI
Sex at Birth
Telephone
1st Address:
Post Code
Mobile:
Telephone:
2nd Address
Post Code
Mobile Phone:
Nursery/School Attending
Email:
Family Members in Household/s
Surname
Forename
DOB
CHI
Place in Family to Child
Significant Medical History
Additional Residents in Household/s
Surname
Forename
Relationship to Family
Other Associated People (eg. Grandparents, Childminders)
Name
Relationship
Address/ Telephone
G.P
Health Visitor
School Nurse
Practice
Parental Responsibility
Child’s Current Religion
Not Disclosed
Date
Child’s Ethnic Group
Not Disclosed
Date
Child’s Ancestry Related Health Risk
Give details
Child’s First Language
Mother’s First Language
Father’s First Language
Child’s Communication Difficulties YES/NO
(includes vision and hearing impairment as well as language)
If YES, please state
Mother’s Communication Difficulties YES/NO
(includes vision and hearing impairment as well as language)
If YES please state
Father’s Communication Difficulties YES/NO
(includes vision and hearing impairment as ell as language)
If YES please state
Interpreter Needed: Child YES/NO Mother YES/NO Father YES/NO Carer YES/NO
Interpreter Arranged: Yes/ No
Name:
Telephone:
Communication Assistance Required
Child
Please identify
Mother
Please identify
Father
Please identify
Mother in Employment: Yes/No Maternity Leave:
Occupation:
Father in Employment: Yes/No
Occupation:
Part time/Full time
Days Worked
Part time/Full time
Days Worked
Family Pets in household

A thread on the quality of England's GCSE exams.
Please bear in mind the questions were set whilst Labour were in power.
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These papers DO NOT reflect the standard of this years GCSE papers

Tomorrow, 20:00 on BBC Radio 4:

Join in the debate by emailing iconoclasts@bbc.co.uk or text during the programme on 84844.

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This particular piece of guidance that they are updating concerns the under 5's so I am posting it only for it's 'educational' value. This guidance development is ongoing and will update
‘NSF for children, young people and maternity services’ (DH 2004).
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Labour spent 13yrs and billions of pounds making England the best place in the world for children to grow up, and then in 2009 commissioned NICE to update guidance because
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Is it me or does producing guidance based on decades old research which after 13yrs of making England the best country in the world for children to grow up in.... seem a tad iffy?
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I don't usually link through as it is annoying to follow a link just to find it forwards you but I am doing it for two reasons
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1. It would be good to hear if other authorities have tried this ruse
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2. By linking here we have a reference point where people can come and get the facts to argue their corner should they meet with the same stubbornness.
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FOI to

Brent Borough Council

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It is certainly an eye opening stream of correspondence , do read it.

Did anyone catch that documentary last night called ‘Faith Schools Menace’ in which Richard Dawkins put the boot into faith schools? At the climax of the program Dawkins authoritively states his main point in an extremely self-assured and almost God like tone which is that “our greatest responsibility in education is to unleash children’s curiosity and never limit their questions.” No one would disagree with that as an honourable aspiration but the means by which he proposes to achieve it falls way short of its aim. For someone who claims to be an EVIDENCE-based rational thinker how come he hasn’t looked at the EVIDENCE, which, if he had bothered to do so, would have enabled him to delete the first word of the documentary’s title. All the irrefutable and reproducible research findings, arrived at through the logical, reasoned and scientific methods that Dawkins is so fond of (as am I), strongly indicate that there is practically no place on earth that suppresses children’s curiosity and limits their questions more than school. If anyone can show me convincing evidence to the contrary my kids will be sent to school forthwith (assuming they would want to go after critically evaluating the new EVIDENCE). Earlier on in the documentary he expresses his disgust for the way children are labelled as Catholic, Protestant, Muslim etc but completely misses the most common label attached to children which is ‘schoolchildren’; which by his reasoning is surely equally repugnant since it labels children as belonging to the state (in most cases) before they have the cognitive ability to understand and critically evaluate the EVIDENCE offered by the likes of Gatto, Meighan, Holt, and their many international associates, showing that school-based learning produces significantly lower levels of academic attainment, social skills and, most importantly, emotional and psychological well being than learning by other means. The EVIDENCE also explains how schooling came about, what its real purpose is and how it impedes natural learning processes (I liked the history of British schooling put forward in ‘Overschooled but Undereducated’ which parallels Gatto’s in many ways). It has been said that schooling is the only true world religion and many of the arguments Dawkins applies to religion have exact equivalents that can be applied to schooling, some of which are probably best illustrated in Illich’s ‘Deschooling Society’. How can someone as astute, observant and insightful as Dawkins completely miss the elephant in the room?
An EVIDENCE-based solution that follows Dawkins’ logic would not just be to abolish faith schools, it would be to abolish schooling altogether and replace it with a learning framework fit for a democracy, a large part of which, of course, would be home education.

Food for thought from Walter Humes - a Scottish educationalist who was not afraid to point out The Hidden Politics of the Curriculum for Excellence...

Anyway, back to the article where he discusses Sebastian Faulks’s 2009 novel ‘A Week in December’.

Here we go again:

Ofsted warning over 'untracked' children
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10994370

'I want to take my girl of 10 on a gap year': Emma Thompson puts travel before school
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...el-school.html

Okay so far but . . .

and

Exuse me, but it really isn't any of Camden Council's business where this family go or what they do. Did the Mail drum up this story or is Emma Thompson going to be a perfect state Mum and do everything the council says?