RE:
FAO Rt Hon Margaret Hodge, Minister for Children, re IRT Main
Well we have finally received a reply.
The good news is explicit reconfirmations that "children being educated at home"
are "certainly not "missing from education" ", and that it is not the
Government's aim that in future all children should be educated at school.
Further good news is that the IRT guidance is to be updated, and that the
context of the "securely anchored" phrase will be clarified to make it clear it
applies to children registered at school. Also there is a statement that a
"fact sheet" has been updated. Also the writer has provided the name of the
present person responsible for Home Education.
I dont think there is any bad news in the reply, except that there is little
specific commitment to providing clear information about the option to home
educate, in the future. What I will do from this point on is to keep an eye out
for any DfES sourced text which fails to provide information about home
education when it should, and which risks harming home educated children when it
does not distinguish them from other children. Please keep an eye out, and help
me to spot any such documents, and then I will refer them back to this letter
and response. As a start I will be asking them to specify which fact sheet they
are referring to, and pointing out 1) that the DfES website home education FAQ
are not as clear as the main HE parents page; 2) that the home education page
is not clearly accessible on the site, and should be linked from pages on school
aversion, attendance, bullying, and from the primary and secondary school pages
as well as the pre school page, which is the only linked access point at
present.
If you have any comments or suggestions please post them.
Many thanks for your participation.
P
----- Original Message -----
From:
Sheena.HUXLEY-DUGGAN@dfes.gsi.gov.uk
To: p
Cc: Chris.HIRST@dfee.gov.uk
; Bev-MH.SMITH@dfee.gov.uk
; Althea.EFUNSHILE@dfee.gov.uk
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 12:05 PM
Subject: Respone: FAO Rt Hon Margaret Hodge, Minister for Children, re IRT Main
Dear Mr P
Thank you for your email of 17 November marked for the attention of Althea
Efunshile and copied to Margaret Hodge, Minister for Children, Young People and
Families. Your letter has been passed to me to reply.
You raise a number of questions about the Identification, Referral and Tracking
(IRT) guidance recently issued by the Children and Young People's Unit and
express particular concern that the guidance gives the impression that any child
who is not in school is "missing from education".
I am sorry if this was the impression given. Children being educated at home,
just like children being educated privately or in other settings like hospitals
or other alternative forms of education are certainly not "missing from
education". The text you have quoted from was part of a short summary annex to
the IRT guidance. The aim was to give a quick overview of the Government's work
to address the problems of children who go missing from school. It was not
intended be a definitive guide to those legally in or out of state education nor
indeed to suggest that it was the Government's aim that in future all children
should be educated in school. The law on this is quite clear and has not
changed: the duty to ensure children receive an education lies with parents and
they may choose to fulfil this responsibility by home educating if they wish.
The Department is due to up-date the IRT guidance and because of your
representation and another that has been made, we will add to the wording to
make explicit that the reference to anchoring children in school applies to
those children who are school educated. I hope this will serve to remove any
risk that the text might be wrongly interpreted.
On your broader point about the position of home education being made more
explicit across the Department and its new structures, we have fairly recently
up-dated our brief fact sheet to give prominence to the message that home
education is a choice that parents can make and that it is education rather than
schooling that is compulsory.
In addition, the team which now has formal responsibility within this Department
for Home Education has been advised of and fully briefed on your concerns. The
relevant contact in the team is Beverley Smith and she can be contacted on 01325
391 160. Alternatively, you can write to her at: The Department for Education
and Skills, Pupil Wellbeing and Transport Team, Ground Floor Area D, Mowden
Hall, Staindrop Road, Darlington, DL3 9BG.
I hope this has been helpful and my thanks once again to you and others for
taking the time to draw these points to our attention.
Louise Bridson
Team Leader, Vulnerable Children Division (formerly Team Leader, Improving
Behaviour and Attendance Division)
Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2003/0066456
-----Original Message-----
From: P
Sent: 17 November 2003 18:17
To: dfes.ministers@dfee.gov.uk
Subject: FAO Rt Hon Margaret Hodge, Minister for Children, re IRT Main
Guidance
Hard copies of this letter have been sent to Ms Efunshile, and Rt Hon Margaret
Hodge.
This Email has been sent individually to the CC: circulation below.
17th November 2003
P
On behalf of 87 participants
FAO Althea Efunshile, Director, Children and Young People's Unit.
Level 4E.
Caxton House,
6-11 Tothill Street,
London. SW1H 9NA
CC: Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MBE MP, Minister of State for Children.
Department for Education and Skills,
Sanctuary Buildings,
Great Smith Street,
London. SW1P 3BT
And Email CC: IRT Central Project Team, Regional CYPU Managers (IRT Guidance
Annex B).
Dear Ms Efunshile,
We are writing to enquire about the content of the CYPU document "IRT:
INFORMATION SHARING TO IMPROVE SERVICES FOR
CHILDREN - Main Guidance, The Children and Young People's Unit's guidance and
emerging findings from the IRT
Trailblazer projects."
The document contains the following section in Annex C:
"Children Missing from Education
The Government aims to ensure that all children are securely anchored in school
and that those who are missing are
rapidly identified and successfully re-engaged with learning. IRT will
contribute to ensuring that multi-agency
systems, within each Local Authority can identify and monitor the progress of
children at risk of going missing and
those who are already missing education, so that they receive a full-time
education appropriate to their needs.
The Government is:
· supporting work with LEAs over the coming year to help improve the
identification, referral and re-engagement of
children missing education, complementing and building on the improvements to
multiagency information sharing which
are the subject of this guidance;
· working to identify and build on forms of educational provision and support
which work best for this group;
· improving information and data on children missing from education so that
preventative action can be better
targeted and tailored to need."
We are sure that you are aware that section 7 of the 1996 Education Act confers
the duty on parents to cause their
children to receive efficient full time education... by regular attendance at
school or otherwise, and that a
significant minority of parents choose lawfully to do so by educating their
children themselves, based at home.
In that context the section of the guidance above is very disturbing, stating as
it does that "The Government aims
to ensure that all children are securely anchored in school and that those who
are missing are rapidly identified
and successfully re-engaged with learning." At face value, the direct
implications of this opening sentence in its
immediate context underneath the heading "Children Missing From Education" are
that:
1) Children who are not at school are universally missing from education.
2) Children who are not at school are universally not engaged with learning.
3) The government does not recognise the legality of the parents' right to
choose to educate their children at home
under section 7 of the Education Act, and instead prefers that ALL children must
attend school, moreover that they
should be "securely anchored" there.
We would appreciate your confirmation that the law has not changed, and that:
A) It is not the case that government seeks to ensure through law that ALL
children attend schools.
B) Nor that children efficiently and suitably educated at home by parental
choice in accordance with s7 of the 1996
Education Act are missing from education.
It may be that this opening sentence has simply lost its proper contexts: that
the government wishes to ensure that
all children registered at a school attend regularly, and that parents of
children of the ages when education is
compulsory who are not being educated are required to cause their children to
receive an education. However this
does bring to light a serious concern of parents who choose to educate their own
children. This group of parents
choose to educate their children in this way because they wish to give their
children the best possible education.
They are willing to undertake to do so, often at considerable effort, expense
and level of commitment. Concerns
about how successfully their children would engage with the available school
provision are often a factor in the
parents' decision to provide an alternative education. Education at home has
the advantage that through continuous
one to one contact with the child, the education can be precisely tailored to
the child's age, aptitude, and
ability, in a way that classroom teaching with its high pupil teacher ratios
cannot match. In these ways parents
who educate at home are responding to exactly the same concerns that the
government is addressing in its focus on
ensuring children are receiving an education, and that they are engaged with it
as positively as possible. In that
context it is deeply regrettable to parents who educate their children at home
when their position is confused with
that of children who are not attending school for other reasons.
In addition to requesting that you clarify the status of home education in the
light of the section quoted from
Annex C above, we would request that the attention of all existing departments,
and new departmental structures
which are developing, are directed to take into account the position of home
educated children. It would be
unfortunate if staff responsible for the introduction of new tracking systems
were not themselves clear about this
point, and so included home educated children in inappropriate categories in IRT
systems. It is also possible for
legally home educated children to acquire stigma in their local communities
because of a negative view of home
education incorrectly inferred from government documents and campaigns
(including truancy campaigns) which group
all "children out of school" together. The public can draw the mistaken
conclusion that school is the only legal
and efficient way in which education can be provided. It is in the interests of
home educated children that this
is avoided. A suitable way to avoid this problem would be to ensure that
whenever text is drafted that is focussed
on attendance and social inclusion issues, that the legal status of children
educated at home by their parents is
referred to in the same area of the document. Specifically whenever the phrases
"missing from education" and
"missing from schools" are used in a document it would be constructive to
clarify and acknowledge the legal status
of children educated at home by their parents, and also to clearly and
explicitly distinguish this group of
families from others who might be failing to cause their children to receive an
education. Please can you confirm
what actions will be taken to ensure that the interests of children legally
educated at home by their parents are
not prejudiced in future documents?
We note that the document section states that for the group of children "at risk
of going missing and those who are
already missing education" the Government is "working to identify and build on
forms of educational provision and
support which work best for this group". A proportion of home educated children
are those who have been removed
from school following negative experiences, or when they have ceased to engage
with the curriculum, and in these
cases home education provides a high quality option in helping children to
re-engage with learning. So parents of
children "at risk of going missing from education" will be better supported if
education at home is afforded a
positive profile within government documents, reflecting its positive benefits
as an option for some in this group
of children.
Thankyou for your attention.
P&S
Parents providing education at home.
This letter was drafted in consultation with, and on behalf of, the individuals
and organisations below, who have
asked for their names to be listed, and wish the contents to be considered as
fully representing their views and
requests. The majority of the individuals are parents providing education at
home. The balance of individuals are
related family members, and adults formerly educated at home.
ORGANISATION PARTICIPANTS:
ARCH, Action on Rights for Children - in education
http://www.arch-ed.org/about_arch.htm
Wealden Home Educator's Network (Kent and Sussex)
http://www.when.omnia.co.uk/
85 individuals were also listed.
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