Is the Government right to be concerned about home-schooling?
The NSPCC is backing a national Government investigation into home-
schooling, leaving many devoted parents feeling they're in the firing
line. Hilary Wilce speaks to some of the mothers and organisations
involved
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Tens of thousands of home-educating parents are in a fury about a
government decision to set up an inquiry into home schooling because of
fears it could hide child abuse. They say there is no hard evidence, and
the investigation smears them all with suspicion. Two thousand parents
and organisations have written to the Government in protest at what
pressure group Action for Home Education call "vile and unsubstantiated"
allegations.
The inquiry is a "clear incitement to hatred of home educators" says
Clare Murton, a supporter of Action for Home Education. Many rank and
file home educators agree. According to Katie Bell, 45, a mother of two
in Croydon, the Government is almost saying that home-educated children
are prone to abuse: "It's an attack on our beliefs. If they said
something like that about any other minority they would be lynched."
The decision follows a case where 19 years of abuse went unnoticed
partly because the three children concerned were home-schooled and no
one saw their bruises and broken bones. Last year the children's foster
mother, Eunice Spry, was jailed for 14 years. Child welfare agencies say
one or two other such cases are in the pipeline.
In addition, education authorities claim that some of the estimated
20,000 parents who home- school do it to avoid being prosecuted for
having truanting children, to hide forced marriages, or to mask the fact
that a child is babysitting younger siblings. So, in a climate made
jumpy by recent high-profile abuse cases, the Government has asked
Graham Badman, former director of children's services for Kent County
Council, to review the safeguarding and support of home-educated
children. Badman has also been appointed chair of Haringey's local
safeguarding children board, in place of Sharon Shoesmith, who was
sacked after the Baby P inquiry.
"If there are problems we have to look at the evidence," says Baroness
Morgan, the Children's Minister. "Home education is a small but
important part of keeping children properly safe. Also local authorities
have a significant duty to ensure all children are receiving a suitable
education and some are saying they don't have the tools for that. But we
have no desire to undermine a parent's right to educate their child at
home. The vast majority are almost certainly doing a decent job."
But home-schooling families feel persecuted, according to Ann Newstead,
of charity Education Otherwise. "The authorities say that if they can
see a child every day in school then they can look for subtle changes
that indicate abuse, but 99.9 per cent of cases of abuse and neglect are
happening to children in school," she says. "There is no evidence of
abuse in home-schooled families, and when you push people for this they
just say: 'Well, statistically it has to be happening.'"
The Spry case, she claims, was about welfare failure not home schooling.
New home education guidelines were brought in only two years ago. "Many
of us think that the real aim of this review is to gain educational
control over parents. The authorities didn't get the powers they wanted
last time, so now they are using welfare as their trump card. They want
some form of compulsory monitoring. They are under pressure to get
results, and they live by outcomes and performance indicators."
However Tony Mooney, a retired head and home-school adviser for a local
authority, says there are good reasons for wanting closer monitoring. He
visits families on deprived estates who turn to home schooling after
problems with bullying or school attendance. "I'm very worried that a
lot of young people are not getting the schooling they ought to," he
says. "Authorities have no right to see the child, or to see what they
are doing. Parents can just list what they've been doing, and give
examples of their work, but who's to say that it's actually the child
who has done that work?"
Vijay Patel, policy adviser for the NSPCC children's charity, also sees
the need for a review. "Some people use home education to hide. Look at
the Victoria Climbié case. No one asked where she was at school. We have
no view about home education, but we do know that to find out about
abuse someone has to know about the child."
Currently, parents whose children have never been in school are not
obliged to inform the local authority of their existence, but pupils
withdrawn from school are subject to local authority inspection.
Relationships between home schoolers and education authority varies
widely. Areas such as Sheffield and Milton Keynes are models of good
practice, say others, while others have no idea how to approach it. One
authority groups home-educated and vulnerable children under the same
heading.
Home-educators vary widely. Some do it for religious or philosophical
reasons; others withdraw their children from school because of problems.
Some opt for an unstructured approach, while others follow the
curriculum closely.
Katie Bell has educated Robin, 12 and Ben, eight, at home for four
years. "I was thinking about it for a long time. Then one morning they
were unhappy, we were late, everything was wrong, and I just said
'Right, that's it'. We bagged up their uniforms for the charity shop and
we've never looked back."
Her sons have been tutored for maths and science, and learned French
from another home-schooling mother, but do most of their learning at
home.
"We are keen on the freedom of it, they can do what they want, when they
want. My older son couldn't sit still at school, or concentrate, but now
he plays his guitar or does his Rubik's Cube for hours. My younger son
didn't read until about a year-and-a-half ago, so we bought him comics
and things he was interested in, and he reads fluently now.
"This review is all about wanting to control how children are taught the
curriculum. I personally wouldn't mind if social services were called in
to see if children are all right, but if it's about their education –
well, for most home-educating parents, education is their greatest
passion."
The figures bear this out. US research shows that home-educated children
– even less advantaged ones – markedly outperform children in school by
the age of 14. Research by Paula Rothermel of Durham University has
similar findings. "They do very well compared with the norms for state
school children. It may be school dumbs children down, or it may be to
do with how the brain works when left to its own devices."
Local authorities already have the power to give parents an attendance
order followed by a supervision order if they are dissatisfied by a
situation, she points out. "But they seem very frightened to say to a
parent 'you have failed'. And if they don't use the powers they've got,
why do they need more?"
The only thing everyone agrees on is that the numbers of home-schooling
children are rising fast. Katie Bell's children may soon not be counted
among them, however. If the authorities take away her freedom to educate
her children as she wants she says she's off to Canada. "They even give
you money for home schooling there," she says.
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Thursday, 26 February 2009
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