Understanding the government’s proposed changes to home education – by Freedom Hoskins

Freedom Hoskins – a Romany mother who home educates her own child – delves into the Children’s Wellbeing and School’s Bill and looks ahead to what the changes to home education may mean for Romany Gypsies and Travellers

If your child is currently being home educated, or you are planning to remove them from school and educate them from home in the future, then the new ‘Children’s Wellbeing and School’s Bill’ is something that could potentially have a huge impact on your family’s life if it gets passed.

Currently it is perfectly legal for your child to be educated without attending school. The Education Act 1944 states that parents have to ensure that their child receives an education “suitable to his age, ability and aptitude, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise”, and the Education Act 1996 described the definition of “suitable” to include the meeting of “any special educational needs” of the child.

This means that currently home education looks very different depending on each individual child as all children learn differently, but every method of home education is valid and beneficial to the child.

If this proposed bill is passed unamended it will negatively affect a lot of families who home educate their children, but especially those families who educate their children by methods other than sitting at a desk reading and writing.  As we all know, education happens at all times and all places, and the magic of home education is often the freedom of being able to learn when and how is best for each individual child, but this freedom is currently being threatened!

At the moment if your child has never attended school there is no requirement to notify your local authority that your child is home educated, but if this bill is passed unamended it will be a legal requirement to register your child with your local authority if they are being home educated.

Children will be on a home education register and you will be required to provide a lot of information about each child, such as how many hours each child spends learning, who educates them, websites they use and much more.

Under the new bill, the organisers or education providers of any groups, events or activities the child attends, or any online classes they take part in, will be required to submit very detailed information about each child to the local authority.  Of course, this would mean they would have a lot of extra work involved in providing their services which would require a lot of extra time and resources, as well as possible safe guarding issues depending on the child.

Due to this, some groups, classes, events etc. have already been stopped due to requiring too much extra work by organisers, and some colleges have already cancelled classes which were planned for home educated children.

In addition, children with an EHCP (Education Health and Care Plan), SEND (Special Education Needs and Disabilities) children, children attending SEND schools, and children on Child Protection Plans will not be able to be deregistered from school without permission.  The local authority can decide that a child should remain in school.

Currently, parents of children who are home educated and known to their local authority need to provide an education report, but this, as well as all contact, can be provided via written letter or email, and a ‘paper trail’ of everything that is said can be kept, which can be very beneficial.  If the new bill is passed unamended, local authorities could demand to see children in their own homes, and if parents refuse, they could be issued with SAO.

Imagine someone from your local authority visiting your home and not understanding the way your child learns because it doesn’t look like how they think it should and then deciding that they need to return to school where they can learn in the ‘correct’ way!  Your child could be forced to attend school, regardless of if they have ever attended before, regardless of how this could negatively affect their mental health and regardless of how this might affect your cultural traditions.

The current proposed bill can be found in full here: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/59-01/0177/240177.pdf

The main section of importance for parents of home educated children is ‘Part 2 – Children not in School’.

To keep up to date with the progress of this proposed Bill there are some very helpful and informed Facebook groups which can really help with understanding the bill and knowing what you can do about it.

The Bill has nearly gone through the House of Commons, and has had some amendments - but none yet to the home education bit - and will next go through to the House of Lords where it will be examined in detail. You can track the progress of the Bill as it becomes law here: Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill - Parliamentary Bills - UK Parliament
 

By Freedom Hoskins

*Freedom Hoskins is a pen name

(Lead stock photograph: Children at Appleby Fair (c) Eszter Halasi)