An Interesting Home Education Article

Now that we will be moving back to England I have decided that I really need to pay far more attention than I have been to the new consultation by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) about new guidance on "children not receiving suitable education" . I have been following it a little but to be honest a lot of it went over my head.

I have come across a very interesting article on The Indedependent Newspaper Website about the current consultation on children 'missing education'.

At the moment Home Education is covered under the 1996 Education Act: "The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable; a) to his age, ability, and aptitude, and b) to any special educational needs he may have, by regular attendance at school or otherwise."

The DCSF want to issue fresh guidelines to LEA's (Local Education Authority) on what would be deemed as 'suitable education'. The worry is that home educated children would be considered 'missing education' if the LEA deemed that the education they were receiving at home was not 'suitable'.

At present the 2007 guidelines on Elective Home Education state:

"Parents are required to provide an efficient, full-time education suitable to the age, ability
and aptitude of the child. There is currently no legal definition of “full-time”. Children
normally attend school for between 22 and 25 hours a week for 38 weeks of the year, but
this measurement of “contact time” is not relevant to elective home education where there
is often almost continuous one-to-one contact and education may take place outside normal
“school hours”. The type of educational activity can be varied and flexible. Home educating
parents are not required to:

• teach the National Curriculum
• provide a broad and balanced education
• have a timetable
• have premises equipped to any particular standard
• set hours during which education will take place
• have any specific qualifications
• make detailed plans in advance
• observe school hours, days or terms
• give formal lessons
• mark work done by their child
• formally assess progress or set development objectives
• reproduce school type peer group socialisation
• match school-based, age-specific standards."

I am wanting to try and implement a more child-led approach over the coming months. I would consider the education that I will provide as being suitable to the age, aptitude and ability of my children. It does worry me a little about having to report to the LEA about our educational provision particularly if we move to more autonomous learning.

We would still have some structure but I am thinking that perhaps 2 hours a day will be a "Time-Out period" where we turn off the TV and computers and spend time together as a family doing child-led activities including maybe reading about a topic that interests them or doing a lapbook or making a display table, basically whatever happens to be their current interest.

I have to thank Julie at Homeschooling Ideas for introducing the idea of the "time-out period". Her website has a huge wealth of resources for home education and I really recommend you pay her a visit.

I know that I am not obliged to inform the LEA of our arrival back in England and that I am home educating but I am worried that they will find out about us. I don't know if it is better for me to maybe get in touch with them once we are settled or wait for them to contact us.

I am almost certain that a member of my family will inform them of us. My aunt said to me last night that I have to be 'ofstead registered' and I informed her this was not the case and she was most disturbed that I didn't have to 'report' to anyone about us homeschooling.

I am expecting my family to put huge pressure on me to put the kids back into school in England but I had a good talk with dh last night and we are ready for them. He agrees that Home Education is the way to go thankfully. I know that if my mother gets no joy from me about putting the kids in school she will start on the kids themselves telling them they will enjoy it and make lots of friends. I will be interrupting her the minute she starts on that as its not fair on the kids. I have given them the option of returning to school or carrying on as we are and they both want to carry on with homeschooling so I am very happy.

The Independent article also goes on to talk about home educated children settling into university quicker as they are more used to independent learning as opposed to their schooled peers who have been to a large extent 'spoonfed' and had a more directed learning experience.

You can find more information on the consultation on the Freedom for Children to Grow website and they have produced a flier on it.

You can respond online here by just saying NO!!