'We do not expect them to place any significant additional burdens on local authorities as most already monitor home education, and our proposals will provide additional powers that will assist local authorities in dealing more efficiently with the small number of cases where home education does not come up to scratch.'
This is patently ridiculous. I have had one meeting with an LA official since I withdrew my son from school two years ago, and if these proposals had been in force I would have had a visit when he left school, more visits to 'help' me draw up a curriculum and set targets, at least one visit per year to test his progress against those targets, and as many more visits as the LA felt like paying me. I would not have been permitted to decline any of them. Clearly that's more visits than under the present arrangements, and would be for the vast majority of other home educating families.
Perhaps what the response is really saying is that 'dealing more efficiently where home education doesn't come up to scratch' means using these new and unchallengable powers to force as many home educated children as possible into school. In that case, of course, the additional burden of monitoring imposed by the proposals would be offset. So this reply is either scandalously ill-informed or points to a cynically manipulative hidden agenda. Which is it, I wonder?
Sarah Willans
Posted on 30 Jun 2009 6:31 pm
'We do not expect them to place any significant additional burdens on local authorities as most already monitor home education, and our proposals will provide additional powers that will assist local authorities in dealing more efficiently with the small number of cases where home education does not come up to scratch.'
This is patently ridiculous. I have had one meeting with an LA official since I withdrew my son from school two years ago, and if these proposals had been in force I would have had a visit when he left school, more visits to 'help' me draw up a curriculum and set targets, at least one visit per year to test his progress against those targets, and as many more visits as the LA felt like paying me. I would not have been permitted to decline any of them. Clearly that's more visits than under the present arrangements, and would be for the vast majority of other home educating families.
Perhaps what the response is really saying is that 'dealing more efficiently where home education doesn't come up to scratch' means using these new and unchallengable powers to force as many home educated children as possible into school. In that case, of course, the additional burden of monitoring imposed by the proposals would be offset. So this reply is either scandalously ill-informed or points to a cynically manipulative hidden agenda. Which is it, I wonder?