I have to return to this subject as I am sure it will resurface when the House comes back in October. Indeed it may come back when the Commons returns in September
Those many well meaning people who wrote voracious comments on this a few months ago do need to look at the report on the death of Khyra Ishaq. the Report stated “The mother’s sound knowledge of home education legislation and a hostile and aggressive approach influenced and affected professional actions, preventing a full understanding of conditions within the home and seemed to render professionals impotent, thereby directing the focus away from the welfare of the children”.
It would be just too easy to blame the social workers for this. There is a problem if parents know they can take their children out of school without further intervention by anyone. The more home education spreads the greater the danger. If we are to have a successful home education sector then there does need to be regulation. I remember saying at the time of the previous debate that any future government was likely to return to this. The case of Khyra Ishaq makes my point with cruel clarity.
Lord Soley, perhaps your background explains your Atheism. I’ve known many who came from abusive homes, and my own Childhood was not exactly wonderful. Some go one way and others the other, but it does seem that too often people allow their own Emotions to cloud their Judgement on all issues.
Why do I mention God in this thread? Ask McDuff and its because I’m a Religious Fanatic who wants to force everyone o do things my way, but my actual Aim her isn’t God, but a Principle of thought. I am studying Psychology after all, so bare with me.
You said that perhaps being convinced God exists would depress you. But why would belief in God be depressing? Well, perhaps because you’d’ see God as a Heavenly Father in the same way your own Father was. Perhaps your Father is reflected in how you understand God himself, and you’d prefer no God at all to that. Or perhaps you think all the suffering you have seen in the world and personally expounded precludes the existence of God. Why wouldn’t he stop it?
But the underling premise is still your personal experiences.
And I fear that it often makes a slave of Reason, as David Hume wrote so long ago, and we often use Reasons simply to justify the conclusions we want or to get the things we desire.
Perhaps your own experiences with abusive Parents leads you to worry greatly about Parents in general. Perhaps the welfare of Children is rather fostered in your mind, as to see Home Education as simply a cover for Abuse, base don your own Past experiences with such machinations. While I do not doubt the Sincerity of your concern for the welfare and rights of Children, I have to wonder if perhaps your personal epicentres prevent you from seeking the grander scheme of things and the big picture.
Not all, or even most, parents are abusive, and seldom do they kill their own Children. This is not a common occurrence. Parents usually Love and wish the best for their Children.
Home Education can be beneficial to Children too. It allows the Courses to be customised to how that Child Learns. I wish I had been Home Educated as the school did not form its curriculum around my interests and certainly not around how I learn. As I am a severe Dyslexic and have a radically different manner of thinking than do most normal people, learning was difficult in School and I was thought of as stupid. The truth is I just can’t learn the same way others do, but can learn, and learn well, if done the way that fits me personally.
Still, to alleviate your concerns, perhaps we should listen to our good Friend JM and ask if there is a Win Win Win situation here.
Perhaps we should simply make it so Home Educated Children must be taken to a Social Worker every so often, say once every Three Months, for Evaluation. There they will have their academic levels evaluated, as well as living conditions assessed.
This will be made Non-Negotiable, and the Parents cannot refuse.
But the State will not interfere further, and will, so long as the child is Adequately cared for, and learning adequately, be left to his Parents for such Care and Concern. In that way the welfare and rights of the Child are considered and the Parents rights are too, and the State is satisfied that the Child is being educated and properly nourished and cared for.
I find what I have just written slightly distasteful in that it assumes Home Educators are somehow suspect, that they are more prone to abusing their Children or Negligence, but I Think it best to be a little distasteful than completely unpalatable, and this would-be a reasonable Compromise for what you wish.
Lord Soley wrote: “Simply blaming social workers is not good enough.”
But in this case it *is* good enough. The social workers had the power and the information. For various reasons, they did not intervene in the way in which their legal powers and statutory duties would have allowed and a child died. That is not a good reason to scrutinise hundreds of families who are legally raising their children in an appropriate fashion.
Lord Soley says-I think the chances of reaching common ground with most of my readers on this subject are very limited!
at least we agree on this!
you do not know what you are talking about Soley it was the soical workers who where to blame for that girls death they had loads of chance to help her but did not!
It does not need an improved regulatory framework. what it needs is for you to keep your nose out of it and go put your efforts into the poor state of our state schools!
you should resign at once!
Dear Lord Soley,
I can tell you honestly, as we have discussed this over time and at great length: neither of my children can see any benefit, and indeed can envisage plenty of potential harm coming to them as a result of a visit from an LA official.
They both regard the intrusion as overriding a number of their rights, including their rights to having their best interests protected, their rights have their views taken into account, their right to be protected from arbitary interference from the state, their rights to privacy, freedom from discrimination and to freedom of association.
By promoting further state intrusion into their lives, in their eyes, you promote child abuse.
Ah but the Statist will not be sated till such is given.
If I could work my will there would be far less Government. Prior to the Early 20th Century there was nary any, and now our whole lives are so guided by it.
I should therefore agree with the above, but know it shant happen in this environment, so I hope my compromise is better suited, as while my Sympathies lie with the Rights of the Home Educators and Educated, I know the State will disregard what it does not like to see.
remember everybody do not vote Labour if you want home education to be safe! get your own back by not voting Labour!
Lord Soley, please read this link.
This is the sort of person you expect home educating parents to welcome into their homes!
You say you are concerned about children’s rights. I’m sure children have the right to be protected from people like this! I’m also sure this person had passed all necessary safeguarding checks too!
Former East Riding Council educational welfare officer admits possessing 800 child porn images
http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk
Dear Lord Soley,
It is now 06:36 on Saturday 11 September. I did inform you that I had booked an appointment to visit and inspecty your home at 06:00. I sit here all dressed up and no place to go! How disappointing!
You don’t want someone in your home invading your privacy, but yet you think that our children and us should have our privacy invaded, or worse, have Education Welfare Officers or OFSTED inspectors in our homes whoh are paedophiles and want to take our children into a room alone.
So Lord Soley, I did make an appointment to inspect your home. I waited for you to give me the address but you didn’t, so you obviously have something to hide and therefore something to fear.
I think perhaps I understand, you want your privacy respected and so you don’t just want anyone coming in an walking around your home.
Every three months I am subjected to people walking through MY home invading MY privacy and walking through every room in MY home! My crime you ask? I rent my home and don’t own it! So the Letting Agents come marching through my home every three months.
They are in my children’s bedrooms EVERY three months. They are in MY bedroom every three months, they are in my bathroom, my kitchen, my reception rooms, my utility room every room of MY home! This is because the house owner wants it! OUR privacy is invaded every three months by a box ticking agenda, so Lord Soley, you will have to fogive me for not wantinig yet another invasive inspection taking place in MY home.
I am ‘known’ to my Local Authority and so have met with them. I wouldn’t allow them access to OUR home! I went to see the Local Authority where they should be seen if at all, in THEIR office! As well, then I am seen on CCTV camera, so they can’t turn around and say I didn’t meet with them. I was prompt for my appointment, HE was 20 minutes late and he was at his office!!!!!! I went to see him, so he didn’t get caught in traffic!
Anyone can write a letter or send an email CLAIMING to be from the Local Authority to ‘inspect’ education provision, and to make sure that our children are ‘safe guarded’ but as I see from Annette’s link, that anyone WAS approved, WAS sanctioned by the LA and went through all the safety checks. As far as I am concerned, a CRB means only that the person has not been caught for any crimes, it doesn’t mean that they didn’t commit any crimes. This man was smart enough to not get caught.
So we can trust him because HE is from the State, or from the Local Authority. The State is our friend. My daughter came home from SCHOOL and told me that she was taught how wonderful Tony Blair is! Can you believe that? THAT is an abuse of power. The school has NO business filling children’s heads with that kind of stuff.
Schools don’t teach, they infiltrate our children, that is abuse. Are they shut down for that? NO!
So again Lord Soley, I was ready to inspect your home, where were you? Why didn’t you give me the opportunity to be proven wrong? Oh of course, that’s YOUR right to privacy. Why is it that YOU have the right to YOUR privacy in YOUR home, but you don’t want children of home educators to have that same right, a right which is guaranteed in the Convention of the Rights of the Child.
*SIGH* it’s 07:02 now and I guess you aren’t going to come online and give me your address so I can carry out my inspection.
Here is the link with the story in more detail Lord Soley:
http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/news/educational-welfare-officer-admits-possessing-800-child-porn-images/article-2626306-detail/article.html
Now, I just want to say, the potential for abuse comments go BOTH ways! The Local Authority employees ALSO can potentially abuse children and he clearly has contributed to the abuse 800 times, at least. Each time a pornographic image is made of a child, that is an act of abuse. So he is committed 800 acts of abuse, or as I said, contributed to it. Either he took the images, or he PAID for the images.
What if someone in his position tries to make my children strip for their own gratification? I mean nobody suspected this guy of anything untoward. Do you know in schools the children have to strip naked for their teachers? They call it ‘swimming lessons’ and ‘PE’. The children have to change in front of their teachers! That’s a paedophile’s dream job. ‘Safe Guarding’ the children to see if they have any bruises on them. So you see, the potential for abuse is in the schools too, but you don’t mention that at all!
I don’t buy it for one minute that these images were the result of ‘job stresses’. Yet you want us to let the likes of him into our home, take our children into a room alone and talk to them? You want these perverts to be in regulatory authority over us? People who want to protect our children from abuse of any kind?
800 children have been damaged and this man has contributed to it.
He may have been caught, he may have pleaded guilty to the crime but the fact is, he was around vulnerable 15-16 year olds. It doesn’t say the ages of the children in the images, how would you feel if your child or grandchild had been exploited for the likes of this person?
I really have to question it when an adult DEMANDS to be alone in a room with a child just because they work for the Local Authority either as a social worker, or an educational officer. That to me SCREAMS paedophile. Do you hear that too? Or are you too busy counting the £££ that you will rake in if your draconian measures come into law?
The state would never be able to protect all children because it would cost too much and be open to abuse. Who watches the watchers?
Communities are the best protection for children and always will be.
That is why the instances of abuse amoung HE families is acutually so low (please don’t anyone quote Badman’s innacurate maths to me unless you can prove that 2=6).
As a society we have lost our communities as we live more isolated from each other.
A new mum shouldn’t spend her time alone or with other new mum’s because what does she learn from them? (To be fiercely competetive and lonely). Instead she should be with other familes with children of all ages and relatives who can help and guide her.
That’s the essence of home education to me. Children learning from other children and adults, and being protected by the relationships they develop with them.
Do you understand me Lord Soley?
So now we come to it. There must be more regulation. No research to determine whether the regulation would cause more damage by its existence. Saving just one child from abuse by its parents may be at the cost of several who are abused by the state.
At present, there are quite a few cases where parents claim that social services are interfering with no cause. Go and investigate those claims before proposing anything that might increase their frequency. I’m sure you will find that social services will always hide behind ‘the privacy of the child’ even when that is not in the best interests of the child. More official oversight and suspicion makes people less likely to deal with the state and more likely to hide problems because they know that the system will assume guilt and ignore evidence to the contrary.
It comes down to the fact that the state system is broken and until the government fixes it to our satisfaction, home educators will fight Lord Soley and others with his views all the way. Any statement about why more regulation is needed will be met by several vigorous rebuttals challenging its premises. So far, the only ‘evidence’ in favour of more regulation is a vague hand-waving about potential abuse. If the pro-regulation camp can’t do better than that then they should stop trying to scare people into giving the state more control.
Dave H,
You have no name address and I feel that in this vast cloud of things said you might be in part responding to me. My point was at most to increase occasions for interference possibly and for regulation. Mostly however, it was to offer a few limited services in a friendly way where they could be cost effective. That would isolate the most paranoid perhaps. I do believe the paranoid state is sometimes justified if never ideal. It may be that it is justified in Britain today. I believe whatver good people there are in any government have to consider working toward some kind of sythesis as among their goals.
I wasn’t aiming it at you, it’s more the entrenched attitude in some quarters that more regulation is always needed and that only the state cam be trusted.
There will always be cases that escape the net, no matter how draconian the net may be, and regardless of how unpleasant it makes life for the huge majority of home educators who just want to be left to get on with it. If there must be more regulation, then perhaps those who make the laws need to be a bit more creative and target the new laws more effectively so that the majority are left undisturbed. The system is broken, so fix it before imposing it on us – I’ll keep repeating that one ad nauseum if necessary.
As for your comment about services, Frank, I did cover that point somewhere above – if the state can provide a service we like, we’ll use it. If they can’t, we won’t.
Dave H,
A lot of what you say makes good sense. I will say that it is unusual from the filters that separate you from me for me to hear so libertarian a position from Europe or the UK that was written recently…
Quote: “For a number of reasons one of which is about potential abuse. It really isn’t helpful or fair to simply blame social workers. Parents do have to take responsibility and unfortunately some are particularly cruel and some kill.”
It is helpful and fair to blame social workers when social workers are supposed to protect children when parents maim those children or want to kill them. Then the social workers don’t do their jobs. If they don’t do their jobs then get rid of them.
Parents do take responsibility for their children. Home educating parents more than most. If they didn’t they’d send them to school.
If our society followed your logic, we would see that some dogs bite so kill all dogs.
Some drivers cause deaths so burn all the cars.
Some aircraft crash so stop building aircraft.
I was bullied in school but I don’t advocate closing all schools. You cannot argue that because one person of a subset of people is guilty of abuse/murder that all people in the subset should be put in prison. It’s not even mildly logical. Unfortunately, you had a bad time when you were a child, that’s sad and rotten for you. It should not determine the laws of this country or the legislation.
Your stance undermines generations of liberty and common sense in this country. Your thinking punishes the many who do no harm to punish the few who do (or might). It is neither logical nor fair.
Of course the Lords want more regulation.
They can dictate to other’s what to do, but exempt themselves from the consequences.
The don’t have to pay for it either.
After all, as at least one Lord has said here.
She’s owed her expenses because she has paid taxes.
What do the rest think? Should they get money back on their taxes?
meet with you any day Lord Soley to explain why home education is so good and why we do not need any new laws on home education when can you meet us? or will you duck out of it and hid in the Lords??
Let me nail this lie from Clive Soley about rights of home-educating parents being at odds with the rights of their children, as it’s a deceitful ploy commonly used by those who advocate more regulation.
The rights of our children – including their welfare, happiness and education – are our foremost and overarching concern, and lie at the heart of our decision to educate them outside of the school system.
Simply put, we do not trust the state to respect and support the rights of our children. Most of us have ample evidence to justify this, whereas the case made by Soley and others is based on a small number of conveniently-distorted headline cases and their own narrow personal experience, compounded by their poor judgement or, in some cases, downright dishonesty.
Soley is in denial about the failures of the state, perhaps, not surprisingly, given that he has spent most of his working life attempting to exert state control. His observations as a probation officer have left him with a somewhat jaundiced view of parents, but this does not justify his narrow focus on home educators.
Undoubtedly, there are cases of exceptional, deviant behaviour that lead to abuse but this issue is completely orthogonal to home education. Children may be abused before they are of school age; children may be abused in school as well as in their own home. Concentrating on home education is a distraction from a big problem but is convenient as a means of diverting attention from the failings of the state.
It appears that Soley is trying to shield those who fail in their jobs to protect children; ironically, through his incompetence and poor judgement he is inadvertently working to facilitate child abuse. If he is genuinely concerned about the welfare of children, then he should pay more attention to those in school.
Finally, a comment on Soley’s remark that “Sometimes we just have to accept that there is little common ground between dissenting views”: this is another political trick to allow him to ignore the facts and adhere stubbornly to an illogical point of view.
Lord Soley, we don’t want you to simply listen to us; you have a public duty to engage in reasoned debate and accept that policy should be based on evidence. Instead, it’s clear from your remarks that you cannot justify your position and you would rather legislate on the basis of prejudice and misinformation.
Did you report your parents for the abuse you say you suffered Lord Soley?
“There is a problem if parents know they can take their children out of school without further intervention by anyone”
Firstly, the problem in the case of Khyra Ishaq was with social workers who *didn’t* know the laws they’re supposed to work under. If they *had* known the law and applied it, then the laws relating to home education would have been irrelevant anyway, since it was not an issue of education, but of reported, suspected abuse.
Secondly, it’s simply not true that HE parents are not subject to appropriate intervention. Where there are genuine concerns, there is ample provision in law for intervention. You seem to be unable to step back and realise that it is just that the law does not allow routine unwarranted intervention, and rightly so, both on grounds of privacy and disproportionate cost.
If your interest in discussing this issue is genuine, then I would encourage you to engage with the issues raised by those who have taken the time to comment, as otherwise you give the appearance of merely trying to evoke a bunfight for your personal entertainment, which only serves to discredit you.
Reading some of these comments I wondered why there were references to my parents. I now see that I had left out a key word, ‘working’. My parents were certainly not abusive. The paragraph should have read as follows:
Parents do have to take responsibility and unfortunately some are particularly cruel and some kill. Some of these parents are also very adept at using all means possible to keep social workers, doctors, police and others at bay. I spent much of my life WORKING with grossly disturbed and violent parents (many of whom had been victims of abusive parents themselves) and they can be exceptionally manipulative. They will use the power to take a child out of school if they think it is in their interest to do so. So there is a problem about the rights of the child in relation to the rights of the parents.
My apologies for the confusion
Lord Soley,
I think someone once almost said to me “You are entirely kind and fulll of uncomplicated goodwill”. Based on that I think you can see that my writing was very possibly based on sincere confusion over your unintentional error. It very possibly was not an attempt to as some might say “get your goat”. Thanks for clearing this up.
FWSIII: There was no ‘error’ in what Lord Soley wrote, nor in what Clive Soley wrote thereunder;
only a mistake in reading and comprehending what he wrote.
It was perfectly clear without the additional qualifying and quantifying word “working” that the sense was of many parents, and not at all focally of Clive Soley’s own parents.
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0051St25
JSDM,
This is mostly a matter of tone rather than substance. “Error” is not entirely wrong in either case nor enitrely correct either — communication is always multi-lateral as you profess to know. In fact, my note tends to state what you chose to restate in a more polemic manner. However, this gives me a chance to say I will be taking an indefinite leave from commenting on LOTB with this note. I will probably be reading it less for a while untill it no longer seems part of my life and then will drift back as a disinterested and unseen visitor in the future. http://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/i-plan-to-cease-commenting-on-the-british-blogs/
Lord Soley says-So there is a problem about the rights of the child in relation to the rights of the parents.
Are you going to uphold the right of a child to be home educated Lord Soley? yes or no will do?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8022403/Family-kept-children-in-cages.html
For your information. Checks & balances in SCHOOLS not working? This is totally shocking 🙁
There is a problem, worldwide and still within the UN hierarchy, between the needs (and thereby rights) of the Child and the needs (and thereby rights) of the parents of that child.
The same problem prevails between Priest and Child, and Schoolteacher and Child.
Somewhere under Rights, Religion, Differences, Child, and Parents, in a Document such as the Universal Declaraion of Human Rights, it is written that
(“) In a dispute between Child and Parents over a religious matter, the Child shall conform to the wishes of the Parents(“);
whereas more modernly, relationship common-sense would be (“) the child and parents shall resolve the issue by the win-win-win participatorily cooperative needs-identification and problem-solving method(“).
So the UN (whoever) has in that matter been authoritarian rather than fairly authoritative; and that must surely be because a power-majority among the Nations wants to keep it old-fashioned authoritarian, in that “conform to the parent – teacher – priest – boss” one-way directive way.
So – that being the Worldwide obstacle, what are Britain’s particular obstacles ?
Remember, there is no adequately serious qualification needed to become a parent; neither a biological parent, a social parent, a foster-parent, a step-parent, a godparent, nor any other kind of parent.
Lord Soley (and also as Clive) makes sensible approach to the public in the discussion he is facilitating here.
That as a Lord he, and most other Peers, could probably put some matters with greater Clarity, Charity, and Self-Correction opportunity than they are doing,, is a very relevant but distinctly separable and more overarching and underpinning Task-topic; and one which challenges The People equally seriously.
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JSDM0033St25Sep10
answer the question Lord Soley?
Lord Soley says-So there is a problem about the rights of the child in relation to the rights of the parents.
Are you going to uphold the right of a child to be home educated Lord Soley? yes or no will do?
Peter. It does sadden me to read comments like yours. You either haven’t read what I have written or you are so blinded that you can’t accept it. I have made it clear on this site and elswhere that I am in favour of home education. I have also met your group. I went to the House of Commons meeting and answered questions. Try reading what I have said again – and open your mind.
Lord Soley- says It does sadden me to read comments like yours. You either haven’t read what I have written or you are so blinded that you can’t accept it. I have made it clear on this site and elswhere that I am in favour of home education. I have also met your group. I went to the House of Commons meeting and answered questions. Try reading what I have said again – and open your mind
You have not answered the question Lord Soley Are you going to uphold the right of a child to be home educated Lord Soley? im not a member of any group! i speak for my self thanks! you not met me so how about it then when are you free? or will you carry on hiding in the Lords?
you sadden me Lord Soley by your failure to support home education and children! and by your using that poor girl death Khyra Ishaq) to attack home educators she could have been saved many time but the Local Council and Social workers did nothing! why dont you look into that? or will that upset the unions who pay loads of money to the Labour party? you dont care about children why would you when you can hide in the Lords and make out your working! when ever i watch the lords on TV most of you look like your a sleep nice job if you can get it can i apply!
“Remember, there is no adequately serious qualification needed to become a parent; neither a biological parent, a social parent, a foster-parent, a step-parent, a godparent, nor any other kind of parent.”
Of course not. Should we have qualifications for everything? Breathing? Drinking water? Climbing stairs?
The natural impulse in the overwhelming majority of parents is to do anything to further the health and welfare of their children. It is not for the state to colonise the parental role UNLESS the parents either turn their backs on parenting, die or are unforgivably bad parents. Whenever the state acts as parent, it does a terrible job. The state should never, ever be a parent of first choice.
Hello Mandy Potter (MP ?):
So you see no need for such non-career school-subjects as “Home Economics” and Body-Mind Centering”, and are categorically against pre-education in Parenting ?
Would you also be against pre-natal yoga education, then ?
———-
On the one hand the nations of the whole world, we in Britain included, need to raise a universally-agreed wholesome education for individual-human-development i.e. within the 75% lifestyle-timeframe, whilst on the other hand we need (or rather The Governmental and Employer Sector needs) to raise both the specialised skilling and the all-round training for the aggregate-human-development purposes of the 25% workplace-timeframe.
—————
Your correlation of ‘parenting skills’ with ‘personal-abilities’ is a false one, Mandy; and is also known a non-sequitur as well as a slippery-slope fallacy.
You should give some true premisses and a true conclusion for your categorical denial of a need for more and better pre-parenthood-education.
You should make it clear what you mean by “It is not for the State to take-over the parenting role unless the parents … are ‘unforgivably bad’ parents”; in other words what would you see to be the difference(s) between your (implied) criteria for judging the goodness or badness of a parent, and mine or A.N. Other’s ?
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0030Th07Oct
The trouble with qualifications is they make the recipient think they are competent, when we all know that the former doesn’t mean the latter.
That is why the medical profession always got it right when they made junior doctors do so much practical work. Now this is being reduced their competence is being compromised, as was pointed out by a recently qualified consultant in the Times a few weeks ago.
Look forward to lots more medical blunders in the future folks.
IMO a parent who has spent the formative years with their child full time would be better qualified as a parent AND teacher by the time the child reaches compulsory education age.
JSDM, I would answer you but I haven’t got a clue what you mean.
Mandy Potter is not now nor ever has been an MP (if you are implying that I am a Member of Parliament).
Louisa Southey, I totally agree with you.
I am sure you are well aware that the school had already made social services aware that there was a problem and that social services let Khyra down, so even if Khyra had remained at school and not been taken out of school she would still have died. Social Services did not do their job properly and that is all there is to it; don’t try to find a scapegoat. Families who take their children out of school to home educate them love their children very much and only want the best for them and have recognised that school in this country (in a lot of cases) just isn’t the best.