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(Continued from previous page)
Ah, so this is where we will find the good practice towards us described in the home office guidance, in which "No further action should be taken where children indicate that they are home-educated".
Oh dear:
Are you sitting down?:
There are *NO SPECIFIC REFERENCES TO HOME EDUCATED CHILDREN WHATSOEVER*!
What there is are references to children "not on a school roll":
Brace yourselves:
"If the young person was not on a school roll, EWOs would normally contact Admissions after the sweep to ensure that progress was being made on the individual's case. One authority carried a list of young people known to be excluded or off-roll during a truancy sweep. Any young person claiming not to be registered could be cross-referenced with this list. One LEA would follow up the young person with Social Services and check the Student Support Service's missing children list. Another LEA also mentioned conducting home visits if necessary. The possibility of finding young people who had fallen out of the education system was seen as a positive spin off of the sweeps."
Under: 'The approach':
"· If not on school roll - sweep personnel carried a list of pupils out of school, checked details against list/name and address taken, contacted or referred to Admissions, took young person home, followed up through Social Services, carried out a home visit if needed."
Under: 'Other follow-up conducted with pupils':
"· If a young person was vulnerable, hard to reach or not on any school roll, they were referred to Behaviour Social Support Service."
"· If a child was not on roll this would be followed up by an EWO, admissions would be contacted, home visit made and family given advice, referred to SEWO and admissions."
5 years. That is the length of the best before date on parliament's assurances! :-(
The length of this report which the DfES 'summary' encourages the reader to look up, while quietly allowing the HO guidance to slip down the back of the filing cabinet, is 13,627 words (the HO guidance is 4,080), so saving the busy officer reading time would not seem to be the motive behind them publishing their own so called 'summary'.
82 LEAs contributed 'best practice' to this report, and not one of them had anything to say about how they treated HEers they encountered?
Tearing up parliament's assurances and 'important safeguard' to us is a clear consequence, and cannot possibly be construed as an oversight. Encountering Home Educators is now instead a "positive spin off of the sweeps".
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