Home education

Voice Official Response 1026: Home Education (October 2009)

Voice welcomes home education review (June 2009)

Voice welcomes DCSF’s review of home education and the Statutory Guidance (revised) for Local Authorities in England to Identify Children not Receiving a Suitable Education (January 2009)

Policy

Voice is not against home education, but we do have concerns. For example, if a parent is ideologically opposed to teaching a child to read and the child doesn’t learn until s/he’s 10, then we would say that s/he’s been denied access to a wealth of experience that, in normal circumstances, would have been open to him/her for several years. We would be worried about parents who didn’t have clear objectives about what they wanted to achieve.

We think there should be more monitoring of home educators so that children don’t slip through the net. Inspections by the local education authority should be compulsory, and parents should have to present the child and his or her work.

Financial Times, 12 July 2008: "Some parents try to mask children’s school absence": Letter from General Secretary Philip Parkin

Official Response 955: Consultation on Home Education Guidelines (July 2007)

Official Response 863: DfES: Elective Home Education - Guidelines for Local Education Authorities (April 2005)

 "School’s out for ever": Guardian, 2 February 2005

PAT (Voice) Annual Conference 2004:

Motion IV.4  "Conference believes that the Government should consider upgrading procedures for monitoring Children Educated at Home by parental preference as a matter of urgency." Proposed by Kim Tomsett (Sussex). 
 
Kim Tomsett’s speech (pdf) (motion number 4) 

Voice’s policy guidance on this motion at the time was "Local Authorities have a responsibility to ensure that all children of compulsory school age receive appropriate education provision.  The DfES collect national data on the educational achievement of children being educated out of school.  LEAs should have systems in place for gathering this data."   

The media coverage of this motion (scroll down to August/July) 

Some of the coverage, however, gave the impression that Ms Tomsett and PAT (Voice) were opposed to Home Education. This is not the case. The motion proposer - who works with home educators - was concerned to improve procedures not stop Home Education.

Earlier policy documents:

OFFICIAL RESPONSE OR817: Revised Draft Guidance on Home Education (Scottish Executive Education Department) (October 2003)

OFFICIAL RESPONSE OR785: Educating Children at Home (This response is made on behalf of, and in consultation with, the Scottish Executive Committee (SEC) of Professional Association of Teachers in Scotland (Voice)  (27 March 2002)

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