Home Education

Lord Soley

The debate on my Private members Bill (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill

https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2017-11-24/debates/141D7347-083E-4EAF-9927-AD5283998B76/HomeEducation(DutyOfLocalAuthorities)Bill(HL)
was completed successfully and the Bill will now go into committee probably in late February. I announced in the debate that I will make some changes to the Bill and that I would be listening to various groups and individuals to make sure I get the Bill into good shape. Please read the debate to see what I was saying.

I have had significant numbers of letters and emails in opposition to the Bill but also some very important ones from people who had been home educated and for whom it went wrong. They do not have an effective lobby group which is a pity but understandable as many of them want to remain anonymous.

Let me make some key points here:
1. I am in favour of home education and have always been in favour.
2. My concern has always been for those who want to home educate but run into difficulties – they need support.
3. I am concerned for the welfare and the rights of those children for whom it goes seriously wrong – especially where it involves abuse or radicalisation.

My aim is for a light touch regulation for those doing it well. One visit a year should be sufficient. For those who take their child out but can’t manage so put the child back into school need additional help. It is not good for the child or for the school to have to deal with this in/out problem. There is a debate to be had around the issue of how best the education authorities, be it local councils or some other organisation, can help.

Most importantly we must have a register of children who are not in school. It isn’t just the children who are taken out of school but also the ones who are never registered in the first place. Estimates of numbers vary and there is very little research in this area of policy. To have no idea or contact with children is a bad idea. Parent’s rights are important here but so are the children’s.

I shall make further entries on this blog in due course.

61 comments for “Home Education

  1. Dave H
    07/12/2017 at 5:31 am

    The fundamental assumption that the state is always correct and can do no harm is sadly incorrect. Even the President of the Family Court has acknowledged recently that officials have made false statements and abused their position to the detriment of families. (This was made in the context of covert recording of meetings and noted that in some cases the existence of the recording completely changed things to the benefit of the family.)

    It is unfortunate that vulnerable children and those with special needs are over-represented in the home education community, but this is a wider reflection of the fact that the state school system has failed them. In trying to save one child, how many of these children might be traumatised or even driven to suicide by the invasion of their safe space at home by a stranger from the local authority? Especially if the child thinks that the official has come to send them back to the school which was the cause of the problems.

    There is also the strange belief that a child has to be seen by a ‘professional’ in order to be properly safe. This misses the mark on two counts; it ignores the fact that children attend school regularly despite suffering abuse and are not detected, and that all professionals are benign and harmless. Sadly this is not the case, and the list of people in positions of power over children who have harmed those in their care is distressingly long.. Once again, you may save one child but harm many others.

    Then we can move onto the monitoring side of things. If you’re monitoring children then that implies you are doing so against a standard. What standard do you intend to apply? The school standard is not appropriate because many children have been removed from school because that was not working for them, and neither is it appropriate for many of the wide range of educational approaches used by home educators. Following on from this, how do you ensure that local authority inspectors are properly trained to perform assessments, and how do you police the qualifications? This also comes back to the first point about assuming that the state is correct – in practice many local authorities overstep their powers and this is one of the prime reasons that home educators distrust local authorities in general. Some are very good but the list of bad ones is worryingly long. Perhaps you could investigate this issue instead, and if you did you’d find a lot of support amongst home educators.

    Returning to the idea of professionals identifying abuse, if teachers and other school staff can miss this in children who attend regularly, then what chance does an inspector who only sees a child once a year have? If you propose an increase in visit frequency then this significantly raises the cost, and one has to ask whether it’s the best use of all the money and whether it could be better spent elsewhere.

    For those who unfortunately think that home education didn’t work for them,do you propose a corresponding process for those who are being failed by the school system? I think you’ll find many more in that category. In the same vein, asking home educated children what they think of being educated that way should be matched by asking schoolchildren the same thing. I would expect in both cases the vast majority would be happy with their situation but a small number would not. If you propose to help the small number of home educated children in this category, where is the equal support for those for whom school is a problem?

    I (along with others) give general advice to home educators to decline the offer (in some cases a demand) for a home visit because as it stands, local authorities have nothing useful to offer that can’t be acquired from local and national home education groups because they have no budget for it. All that is available is some degree of hassle, depending on the quality of the authority.

    The Bill is the wrong approach to the problem; in attempting to help a small number of children, it risks harming a far greater number. A better approach might be to listen to home educators when they complain about the behaviour of local authorities and correct the abuse of power before giving the abusers more powers.

    • 26/12/2017 at 2:33 pm

      Norman Lamb’s
      , and the AgeUK lady member’s
      voiced findings, scrutinies and suggested peaceful-reform-‘plans’ in the House this Christmastide,
      a propos “advancing our further-learning and know-how enabling for “Care” as well as for “Health”
      are now more than fundamentally-significant, too -wouldn’t we better be thinking ?
      [ http://lifefresh.net and its two www. support sites (not-for-profit, power* nor prestige) – may be further relevant wherewithal ]

      Thank you, Dave H
      your insight is without doubt essential, too –
      ===================
      Let me also suggest to the Lords of the Blog “Team”
      that each posting peer en ds each ‘thread’ with a reasonably verbatim-based Summary of all sub -missions, and perhaps of any vital; “hidden” or “overlapping” Contexts too ?
      —————
      * underpinningly, “power” without prior wholly-fit-for-Purpose ability-completing and public-co-enablement, is not simply “vapid” but dangerous and mass-extinction threatening

  2. Sarah
    07/12/2017 at 8:20 am

    Honestly there is no need for a register. Every child is registered at birth, all children who apply for school are in the database so therefore all children born ( who have not sadly died) would be available for a LA if they felt they needed a list.
    I also don’t see what poorly trained in home ed people inspecting families would achieve, apart from causing children lots of stress at being subjected to intrusive questions by random adults with their own agenda, perhaps we should also have adults checking on every child in the school system since so many leave school illiterate or traumatised from bullying whether they would prefer to be home educated.

  3. Roxane
    07/12/2017 at 9:02 am

    One of the many problems we have with an LA official coming to assess our educational provision is that we worry for the entire year that what we are doing will not be understood, appreciated or passed as acceptable, and this because the education we provide is so vastly different from school education with which most of these assessors are familiar. We wouldn’t expect the work of doctors, lawyers, nurses, financial advisers, teachers etc. to be assessed by someone who had no first hand experience or real understanding of the field and yet this is something that home educators must endure all the time.

    Then there is the problem of subjectivity of assessment. Given that most home educators do not want to jump through state determined hoops, (often because they recognise them for what they are – a outdated, unnecessarily cumbersome and extremely inefficient ways of acquiring an effective education – using any sort of tool to assess learning is never going to be possible. It will all come down to whether the assessor says “yea or nay” on the day, and even if they are highly trained and experienced in the field, that may well come down to whether they have had enough biscuits or not. http://www.economist.com/node/18557594

    Home educators feel very vulnerable when it comes to this sort of assessment. LA officials can say pretty much anything about them in their reports, and HEors are then up against it to prove that assessments have been unfair. HEors do not have access to endless resources with which to defend themselves against the state machine, and they do not trust social services or the family courts, with their reputation for back-covering and secrecy. Camilla Cavendish should surely understand this.

    The prospect of assessment can also easily be hugely damaging to educational provision. Many HEors understand that helping the child pursue their interests is the most efficient and suitable form of education, and yet they worry that this may well not pass muster with the assessor and they therefore alter their educational provision, thereby make it far less effective. Children also often become demotivated at the prospect of assessment.

    Then there’s the problem of the fact that many HE children will not want to see the assessors or show them evidence of their work. One of the main arguments in favour of registration and monitoring is that the state should be able to hear the voice of the child. Given that many HE children are saying that they don’t want to have to be seen by an official or produce their work, how can the state be genuinely taking the voice of children seriously, when they have ignored it as soon as they step through the door?

    Many home educators also feel strongly that a double standard is being applied in asking only home educated children where they want to be educated. When school children are asked where they too want to be educated, then perhaps it would feel like a fair question.

    It feels all the more ironic that it should be the voice of the HE child that is sought, when it is actually the case that many home educators spend their entire family lives working consensually and respectfully with their children, not invading their privacy, not demanding to see work that isn’t freely offered, and generally doing their best to respect the human rights of their children.

    This is on top of a load of other arguments about ECHR infringements, the problem of a state determined education undermining democracy, the state appropriating parental responsibilities, and therefore later being held to account etc, etc.

  4. Zoe Sadaoui
    07/12/2017 at 9:26 am

    When are we going to see the evidence that home educated children are at risk of abuse or radicalisation? I’m not sure it’s good practice to change British law based on assumptions.

    Giving EHE officers greater powers than the police to enter a child’s home and ask them questions is not a “light touch”, it is invasive and a completely disproportionate response to a non-existent problem.

    This is a bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack, by burning the entire haystack to the ground.

    Please don’t act like you are supportive of Home Education. This Bill is nothing but prejudiced and discriminatory in order to exert control over a minority group.

  5. Michelle Eshkeri
    07/12/2017 at 9:58 am

    Dear Lord Soley

    There is still no concrete evidence that home educated children are at any greater risk of harm from abuse, neglect or radicalisation than their schooled peers. Indeed you have now been supplied with recently gathered examples of a range of issues occurring in our nations schools which are forcing more parents to remove their children in order to protect their physical or mental health or both.

    Current legislation is sufficient to give authorities powers to check on home educated children where a concern has been raised and to identify and close any schools found to be operating illegally, returning those pupils to mainstream schooling. No additional laws are needed to protect children from these two potential problems.

    Home educators should not be discrimated against and have their rights to privacy trampled over by changing the law to allow authorities access to their homes unless a concern has been raised. Such a change flies in the face of our legal premise of innocent until proven guilty. Home education per se is not a red flag for raising a concern.

    Local authorities employ staff who have little to no training in, understanding or tolerance of educational approaches which do no emulate school. They are ill equipped to form accurate judgements on how suitable a provision might be for an individual child because they do not know the child, may not understand the impact of any special educational needs or disabilities and will certainly not understand how best THAT child learns. To make appropriate assesssments of provision, significant training would be required as well as employing a great many more officers to make visits. Resources for such an undertaking would be better spent improving schools so that more children can be supported in the system and are not forced into home education by inadequate education, safeguarding issues or unmet SEND which is currently rife.

    If your intention really is to help children to access a good education, then your efforts would be better directed at dealing with all the problems in the state schools.

  6. Simone
    07/12/2017 at 10:29 am

    I don’t see why I need to put my child on any sort of home education register. She was registered at birth and is registered with our GP and dentist if you make that compulsory for everyone then you don’t need to worry about children not being seen. I don’t want an unqualified stranger coming into my home judging my child, she isn’t a performing monkey and her work isn’t mine to show. What about my child’s rights to privacy?

  7. James Edwards
    07/12/2017 at 5:10 pm

    Dear Lord Soley,

    I am thankful to you and to God for your service to our country and its citizens. I commend and share the concerns of this Bill for the many parents forced to home educate without support (or desire, especially when this is forced because a school does not believe it has the resources to accommodate them) and for children mistreated under the auspice of home education. Much of the debate in the 2nd Reading was honourable (excluding the ‘almost hysterical’ language and misgivings of one member); the sense of Lord Lucas’ comments are also not excusive to libertarians and a pray you further allow his council.

    Nevertheless I believe the current governmental failure towards this vulnerable subset is, not significantly, but wholly due to failed implementation of the existing laws and not a lacuna in legislation or the protections it affords. Moreover, as well intentioned as this Bill is, its foundations are totalitarian in nature and a total departure from the current values instilled in our laws giving the benefit of doubt to the individual and the family. Saying that we don’t have existing laws to prevent the harm and mistreatment of children is preposterous, and that the government cannot know the number of children not employed in state education, farcical. We monitor births and deaths (and emigration) and everything in-between involves the sort of maths I’m teaching my 5-year old. Taking the example of Wales this is certainly possible and so this facet provides no supporting evidence for your bill. Also I have not encountered those in support of this bill demonstrating how current laws are deficient in closing down illegal unregistered schools; Ofsted can and has prosecuted numerous illegal schools so grounds here also for the bill are dismissed.

    Historically monitoring was to provide parents with insight to keep the state accountable, not the other way around! All parents already carry legal responsibility for the care and education of their children (The Education Act); for those that discharge this duty to a school, OFSTED provides essential feedback to ensure the schools meet their obligation to the parent(s) and child. Such a reporting mechanism is redundant when the parent is present (unless you want to start thinking of the state as the ultimate parent of our children). Where there is evidence/strong suspicion of wrong, social services and laws already exist to intervene (even if they lack the resources – which would be further stretched with such unfocused legislation). It would, in fact, legislate a presumption of incompetence in parents and a presumption of competence in the government (the seeds of totalitarianism): potentially usurping ultimate rights over ones children even when there is no legitimate concern for harm or safety.

    Please Lord Soley, this imprecise bill founded on an Orwellian premise is not the solution. It is pejorative to parents generally; a serious threat to free thought and diversity where differing ideals – even if innocuous – will be subjugated to the will of the state or the prejudices of the OFSTED inspector. How will the government be held accountable when it has (not to all intents but to all purposes) usurped the rights of a father and mother to raise their family with values that may oppose that of the government? You are giving a green card to every Lord and Politician that follows you; are you genuinely that nonchalant to trust yourselves (and those that wield authority beyond the bounds of their understanding or informedness) this much?

    I fear even our lawmakers (and journalists) have forgotten history, and worse may continue to ignore those who voice its portents. Not OFSTED nor any political entity should be the bedrock of a society. “The family is the basis of society. As the family is, so is the society” – Ashley Montagu

    If I have misunderstood and misread the Bill I would value any insight or comments. I also appreciate that when a Bill such as this is misunderstood by the press (BBC) it can create stigma for those opposed to something purported as an unadulterated good. But be not in doubt that it is adulterated – by mandating that the government encroach on the freedoms and diversities of families.

    Without “radical and extensive amendment” this bill in time is likely to do much much more harm to our society than good. I cannot see how anyone who knows a jot of history could support it unless their motives are insincere. Thank you for your concern and efforts but please heed the warnings of those you have mentioned consider the ramifications of legislating a snoopers charter upon a certain demographic when the solution to your concerns is already within the powers of the state.

    Yours, a concerned parent aware of the harm misappropriated power from the family has inflicted in many past (even well-meaning) societies.

    James Edwards
    Romford

  8. Maya Young
    07/12/2017 at 5:38 pm

    My son was failed by the education system and is now taught at home where he is thriving. I am happy to do my annual report on my sons progress and teaching methods etc however he has Autism and anxiety and my fear is that tests or regular visits would hamper him due to these additional challenges meaning he is not comfortable with strangers coming to the house. I see education my child as a huge responsibility and his success as my prime motivator and would think most parents would feel the same to me regular inspections are the same as going around to people’s houses at meal times to check the children are being fed for no other reason than they are not eating in public. Ordinary parents want their child to learn and have far more motivation to help their child succeed than a paid stranger so why would they need checking up on? My LA is very good and I know should I need support I only need to pick up the phone to the home education department. Making sure all LA’s adhere to the guidelines already in place would be a much better use of resources than bringing in more legislation. My son benefits hugely from not having to follow the nation curriculum meaning he his learning up to gcse standard in some subjects while having the flexibility to still work on the basics in others.

  9. Gill Purchase
    07/12/2017 at 6:46 pm

    Will you be posting all the comments you receive or just a select few?

  10. Gill Purchase
    07/12/2017 at 6:48 pm

    If you are moderating posts and only posting a select few- is that not denying us our right to Freedom of Speech?

  11. Gill Purchase
    07/12/2017 at 6:55 pm

    More presentable facts that schools are no longer fit for purpose and why parents like me have removed my child from the system that failed her. Instead of being applauded I’m being threatened that I will be treated like a criminal.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201612/why-our-coercive-system-schooling-should-topple

  12. 07/12/2017 at 7:03 pm

    What is actually needed is an
    Holistic Health Building and Life-Education Sector –
    for all ages and conditions of people.

    And within this clear-need lies also the clear need to define and name the National Health Service what it factually is
    The National Hospitals & Illnesses Sector
    delivering Primary Medical Care NOT Primary Health Care – a UN title which the UK and BMA usurped under Britain’s long pre-established.Primary Medical Care in 1978, the British National Hospitals and Illnesses sector having already been mis-named “NHS” in 1948.

    Three further points within this Thinking-Orbit also need constitutional correction and updating :-
    (1) The “education” you refer to is actually the equivalent of “schooling” –
    which in turn is “training for working in the Workplace”
    [it has never been education for living in Lifeplaces].

    (2) You are a Public advocate, elected by and for the Public good, not for your own “private” career, protected-memberships, and “private” Bill-concocting.

    (3) The whole top-heavily deluded and deluding civilisational-edifice needs to be brought “down to Earth”:
    the “better” human-being you are, the LESS you should be able and willing to transparently emulably live off –

    no more than one-human-living is all any one-human-being personally “needs” – all your business and workplace expenses are paid by your Employer, and out of our Peoples’ Sovereign Power Taxes..
    Our governors, “leaders” and “betters” should be showing us millions and billions of “ordinary” people how to make our one-human-living (~£300 pw] “go further”.

    Certainly that is what an Holistic Health Building and Life-Education Sector for all ages and conditions of people needs to also bring to us all to start making us truly more sustainworthy than we very deludedly-destructively are “careering” along under.

    And so, don’t you also need to rename “home education” what it factually is, namely “schooling” – –
    “home schooling” ?

  13. Gill Purchase
    07/12/2017 at 7:07 pm

    Why are you not debating ‘why’ are so many children being removed schools, not just SEN but bright, articulate and gifted children too?

    It was blatantly obvious that most of the Peers who contributed towards the debate did not have a clue at the crisis state schools are in. Not only from underfunding but bullying from teachers, abuse and sexual violation. It is a parents job to safeguard their children from these situations, hence we remove them from these places and protect them in our care.

  14. Gill Purchase
    07/12/2017 at 7:18 pm
  15. Linda Adamson
    07/12/2017 at 8:02 pm

    My grandson is receiving an exceptional home education after he was failed by the school system. They are more than managing. He is not been radicalised and safeguarding is certainly not an issue. Why does he need interference from officials to try and make him return to the system that failed him? Parents who decide to home educate deserve support if they wish to receive it but to be left alone if they are succeeding. They are entitled to have that choice!

  16. Linda Adamson
    07/12/2017 at 8:33 pm

    0 comments for Home Education
    Where are they all then?Still waiting for moderation? Really?

  17. Caroline Ellis
    07/12/2017 at 9:22 pm

    Your Bill needs completely rewriting. As it stands it risks depriving children of a truly child-centred education, causing real damage to many kids with additional needs and alienating families from state institutions. If it’s about support then you need one simple clause and ditch the rest that clause should be along the lines of local education authorities MUST a) respect the freedom of home educating families to meet the learning needs of their children free from unwarranted state intrusion b) work in partnership with local home educators and their organisations to develop practical support for all home educated children to enjoy self-directed learning and enriching educational experiences and opportunities. We had started to pursue this kind of agenda in Somerset with our LEA – we’d started to have real trust and positive relations and they had acknowledged this approach was far more effective in keeping children safe and promoting their welfare than some souped up policing approach. Your Bill has thrown that all up in the air – I am incandescent with rage that a lot of hard work is going down the toilet and it’s going to be to the detriment of families and children. I don’t know who is briefing you but they are clearly idiots. You still have the opportunity to turn this around please seize it.

  18. Katie
    07/12/2017 at 9:42 pm

    My concerns with your lasted update. Still there is no recognition for the huge volume of children that are home educated due to a massive lack of training and support in schools. This affects children of all abilities but in our case a very able child who was bored & bullied. Our son wanted to take his own life and no support given. It was like a game of pass the parcel trying to get someone else to pay for support. What will it do to him to have assessments put in place? Put the money into sorting out schools, training staff on gifted and talented policies again (this was cut from training many years ago) & then many won’t have the need to take their children out in the first place.

  19. Susanna Matthan
    08/12/2017 at 1:15 pm

    Quote:

    “I have had significant numbers of letters and emails in opposition to the Bill but also some very important ones from people who had been home educated and for whom it went wrong. They do not have an effective lobby group which is a pity but understandable as many of them want to remain anonymous.”

    Presumably your next Bill will be one asking for those who have thoroughly schooled and for whom it went terribly wrong. They left schooling illiterate and emotionally traumatised. Such a pity. Is there an effective lobby group? It’s not even that they want to remain anonymous! The bullying and victimisation alone, never mind their lack of educational provision, should want you to help them, sharpish. For the sake of the children. Obviously.

  20. Cindy Heaster
    08/12/2017 at 6:00 pm

    What guarantees could you provide that “light touch regulation” will not later evolve to include mandatory assessments? How would you define “successful” home education without the use of standardised testing?

  21. Very Concerned
    08/12/2017 at 9:10 pm

    I strongly disagree with this Bill. Whilst I agree that protecting children and the vulnerable is an essential part of a moral society, I do not agree that a special case exists for protecting a small minority of children who are Home Educated, over and above those children who are educated by other means. A much greater number of children educated within the traditional school system (state funded or privately funded) are subject to abuse and radicalisation. I accept that this is also a minority of children, however this minority contains much greater numbers of children when compared to the minority of Home Educated children exposed to abuse and radicalisation. Thus, our aim should be to protect all children.

    Given the current resources available to councils and schools, the fact remains that children slip through the net within the school system. Teachers are banned from teaching for inappropriate behavior. Councils loose many SEN Tribunals for not following the Children’s and Families Act and SEN Code of Practice, both put in place to protect children, in particular the most vulnerable. It appears common place to excuse a lack of adherence to legal statute and government guidelines due to lack of finance at school and council level.

    Therefore, I would propose that we should make it a priority to correct this situation first, and work to protect ALL children, not just those from a specific small minority. I fail to see how those who charged with the responsibility of protecting the vast numbers of children who are attending schools, those same people who fail these children in so many ways, could reasonably be expected to protect a very small minority of Home Educated children. it is implausible.

    I love and protect my children like no other. Regardless of how they are schooled, no government employed representative has ever offered my children the safety and protection they receive at home. Quite the opposite has been observed.

  22. tizres
    10/12/2017 at 10:12 pm

    “I shall make further entries on this blog in due course.”

    Great news!

  23. Dave H
    11/12/2017 at 3:12 pm

    I have seen various comments along the lines of “most home educators are fine, we’re just after a small minority”. If that is indeed the case then write some legislation that targets the small minority that need it without harming the larger group.

    I also don’t believe that ‘light touch’ regulation will remain light, if only because it is the nature of governments to tinker and add more and more red tape. At some point something bad will happen and there will be a reactive over-response to pile on extra checks and monitoring that probably wouldn’t have made any difference to the sequence of events but makes those in government feel good because they have Done Something.

    The two cases most often quoted when arguing for more regulation, Khyra Ishaq and Dylan Seabridge, are, when properly examined, both entirely due to the shortcomings of local authorities, overworked and not properly understanding the rules. Ishaq was known to the authorities because the school had made several referrals to social services, who failed to act properly. They sent the EHE inspector round when they should have turned up themselves because it was a welfare issue, not an education one. Seabridge was similarly known to his LA, and yet they failed to act. Having one extra annual check by an education inspector would have made very little difference to either of these children, having a social services department that wasn’t already overburdened might have done.

  24. Blaire Palmer
    12/12/2017 at 10:04 pm

    I’m not sure why my comment was not posted. Could you let me know if any part was inappropriate? Thank you.

  25. Gill Purchase
    13/12/2017 at 1:09 pm

    Yet another example that ‘safeguarding’ concerns should be focused on those children in schools and not those that are home educated.

    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/dec/12/are-we-ignoring-an-epidemic-of-sexual-violence-in-schools?CMP=fb_gu

  26. Amanda Frier-Russell
    13/12/2017 at 3:11 pm

    If the govt out more effort in making schools better for all & stopped attacking parental rights within school, then fewer parents would feel the need to home educate. Now your trying to make hime schooling as over regulated as actual schools, you never learn! If you want to enforce regulation on home educators then pay them the same pupil premium per home educated child as schools get per child. You cant have it both ways! Just ask yourselves why home education is on the increase, over regulation within schools, class sizes too big, schools dictating far too much to parents, poor SEN provision, ridiculous expensive uniform requests, the list goes on. Try fixing the education system govt broke before interfering in home education.

  27. Nick Johnson
    13/12/2017 at 3:36 pm

    More red tape to protect the children?
    More laws eroding the rights of citizens in the name of protection: sounds like a Nazi state now a days. Parents are no longer able to do what they feel best for their children. Take a look at Finlands education system and it’s success then look at the way you and the cronies who pretend to make legislation for the benefit of others, you guys don’t want to prepare children to become anything other than plebs working to the same standards of the industrial revolution. This will just be another job for the boys and more money wasted and I’m sure someone will earn well while giving free reign access to a home.

  28. tim Rooke
    13/12/2017 at 8:41 pm

    The House of Lords should be addressing the fact that children are going to school hungry and that GP’s are diagnosing Rickets in children, there are bigger issues to be tackling in this country rather than a minority of parents who choose to home educate, maybe its time to prioritise and focus on the key issues parents are facing in this country.

    http://www.itv.com/news/granada/update/2017-12-12/special-report-increased-numbers-of-children-going-to-school-hungry

  29. Blaire Palmer
    13/12/2017 at 9:09 pm

    I will try again!

    Parents who choose to home ed haven’t done anything wrong. Our kids are out in the world at least as much as school educated kids. Their education is tailored to their individual needs. We have access to extraordinary resources and have often educated ourselves about how kids learn in a way that parents of schooled kids have not. We’ve made massive sacrifices and huge decisions in order to be able to home school.

    You may think that I represent the kind of parent who is doing it well and should have nothing to hide. So why would I resist a little visit or registering?

    Because I don’t trust that anyone else knows my kid like I do, no one cares as much as I do. To any state case worker I’m a statistic. If some individual thinks we aren’t doing enough or that my child is “falling behind” (which she was at school anyway) or doesn’t agree with my theories about education they can ruin our lives with one tick of a pen. Please don’t let that happen.

    The real issue in our education system is school. The abuse and bullying that happens in school is well documented. The school system with its hierarchy, disciplines, teacher-pupil dynamic, punishment and reward, tests and streaming was built for the needs of a 20th century industrial society. Our world is vastly different now and I don’t want my child to be squeezed in to the shape that school needs her to be squeezed in to, to conform to make an easy life for a teacher, or to be told she’s good at this and not good at that simply because the government has determined a child should progress at a specific rate and excel at things school says is important. More than that, I think school would make her a less valuable, creative, happy, contributing member of society when she grows up. The idea that I’d have to prove that my choices about my child meet the state’s expectations is ludicrous since I believe the standards the state tolerates in our education system are inadequate.

    I do not trust the state to raise my child or make life changing decisions about us against our will. I think this proposed act is open to abuse by officials who already overstep the mark hoping that parents are unaware of their legal rights and I think the funding would be better directed towards the real problem – the outdated education system and the abuse and indoctrination that happens at school.

    There’s got to be a more clever way to address concerns around child abuse or religious extremism than this. It’s too blunt a tool. Let’s work together to come up with something enlightened and forward looking not simplistic, outdated and based on fear.

  30. 14/12/2017 at 7:45 pm

    It would be interesting to be “home educated”,
    with this particular Post –

    as to why suddenly we have 30 comments,

    most of which were sent in the day immediately following the post –
    but were kept back from publication for a whole week – ?

    considering the
    near-longstanding lack of interest in the Lords of the Blog,
    by both the Public
    and recently by the Peers themselves,

    what is now happening ?

  31. Di
    15/12/2017 at 9:38 am

    Trying again…

    Lord Soley you say,

    “My concern has always been for those who want to home educate but run into difficulties – they need support.”

    Government institutions could’ve already provided support, if they really wished to do so, but they haven’t. So your “concern” seems disingenuous.

    “I am concerned for the welfare and the rights of those children for whom it goes seriously wrong – especially where it involves abuse or radicalisation.”

    The law already provides what is required here. Also, I’m sure you know that the government are currently failing tens of thousands of children, who are being abused in schools, and who are already registered as well as seen by teachers. This hasn’t prevented their suffering fro being ignored: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/dec/12/are-we-ignoring-an-epidemic-of-sexual-violence-in-schools?CMP=fb_gu

    “For those who take their child out but can’t manage so put the child back into school need additional help. It is not good for the child or for the school to have to deal with this in/out problem.”

    So, when a child and the parents need to be responded to as individuals, you judge them as “bad”? Your solution to the parents is to ignore a child’s distress and shove them into a system that has already failed them?

    Are you really the right person to be addressing the issue of education for children when such comments reveal that you do not see children as people who are worthy of individual response and respect?

    “Most importantly we must have a register of children who are not in school.”

    As others have said, children already are registered at birth and in other ways. The money to fund this would be better used if put towards something that would genuinely help.

    “Parent’s rights are important here but so are the children’s.”

    There is no real recognition of children’s rights in our society. Scarcely one child in school would choose to be there. People don’t genuinely listen to what the child wants even when they do “see” them. Ideas for how to help children have free access to debate and discussion regarding how they are educated and what happens to them would be welcomed by many home educators.

  32. Tina
    16/12/2017 at 6:40 pm

    I took my children out of school as their mental health was at risk because of a very rigid system that means more and more great teachers are leaving bringing in younger, less experienced teachers. They witnessed teachers and telling 8 year olds their work was ‘crap’, being called idiots and punishing them by taking sport away without getting the full story. Low morale, lack of energy and being stretched to their limits are side effects for teachers in this rigid system that makes no one happy and is causing anxiety in primary school children. Since leaving my children are confident, polite, happy, questioning, interested and interesting children. They feel no pressure to have play stations, phones or X boxes and would rather play outside in the cold than sit inside on a screen. We need to put our focus on why so many parents are taking their children out and tackle the appalling state our education is currently in with results taking more importance over mental well being.
    Until that happens my children will not benefit from any more state interference since it was the state that drew them into home ed in the first place. The state needs to self reflect on why self harming in youngsters is on the rise, depression, anxiety etc etc and spend less time worrying about interferring in home ed families. When we have a system like they have in Finland we will begin to see a huge difference in our children and far less people home educating. Spend your time researching their schooling system and not focusing on hard working families who love their children so much they are willing to sacrifice so much to ensure they are happy, well rounded individuals instead of just putting up with what the UK offers us.

  33. Pingback: Co-Controlling
  34. Lord Soley
    Lord Soley
    20/12/2017 at 5:41 pm

    If you think there are no problems for ALL children in home education then I think you are dangerously naive. So I repeat, my aim is not to get some heavy handed regulation but to help those who need help and to protect that small minority of children who are at risk.
    One of the ways you could all help is to suggest ways in which parents wanting to home educate but finding it difficult could be helped. Could those of you who are doing well be of help here? Do you have an organisation which could be approached to help?
    The Bill will go into committee stage probably in February and I will be looking at amendments at that time. Any suggestions?
    Finally I do not moderate this site – I did set the blog up about 12 years or more ago but it is not regulated by me. If your remarks are not offensive or excessively long then they are likely to be published.
    I hope to arrange a meeting in January for those who object and will give more details in the New Year.
    Meanwhile seasons greetings to you all.
    Lord Soley

    • Lord Blagger
      20/12/2017 at 10:09 pm

      So if an organisation is crap at teaching, damaging the child, should they be banned?

      Or is it as I suspect when the state damages kids, its all ok, just if the state think parents are doing it?

      It’s the same argument as Charlie Gard.

      Here the hospital decides not to treat. So the hospital goes to court to stop the parents from taking their child else where for treatment. The child is to be left to die.

      What does the state do? It appoints a lawyer for the child that is an advocate for euthenasia.

      You couldn’t make it up, but its real.

    • Amie Miles
      22/12/2017 at 12:43 pm

      In response to your further clarification there are several organisations who advise. They take calls to offer support and information to parents who come into Home Education. I am happy to provide those to you, however the question is why the council’s who are legally charged with offering this support, but are not. Instead many people face a postcode lottery, whether they get the correct advice and support is always based on if the council know the correct legal terminology and have set aside a trained professional who knows the scope of the law at present.

      I volunteer at one of the home educating organisations and I found that there were influxes of parents who felt alone and scared because the council do not offer there support, they don’t have a list of local groups and other parents who also educate their children from home and they don’t stay within their remit. This means that councils create a hostile working relationship which many parents cannot and will not work with. Their is a lot of importance in the working relationship between parents and the council in home educating. Those who feel they need support need only ask an organisation or a Facebook group in their area for help. There is a support structure of intelligent and experienced parents out their helping others.

      Never have I ever come across as much support than the home educating community. I have found friends and community spirit with in that support network which understandably Lord Soley you will not have yet experienced. When Tony Blair said he wanted everyone to think ‘big community’ we did, in fact we were the first to be attacked by those who thought that being community based was ‘dangerous’ and a risk to the child because it is not monitored enough. Trust in the big community – the home educating community, one of the largest communities in the UK and in fact the world. There are no commercial heads of home educating and there isn’t a hierarchy of responsibility based on monetary gain, thus every home educator is responsible for their own sub-set of standards, self monitoring and research. You may perceive that as risky, but what we see as more risky is a council who are already overstretched have already been proven corrupt and neglectful taking charge in monitoring a sub-set of people who to date have not had a single case of neglect attributed to them!

      Can you therefore see why the anti has been raised against your bill, it comes across as presumptuous, based from scaremongering hearsay instead of facts. What is needed is a logical factual law based on information gathered. So the law needs to be refined in setting out what is expected by councils when encountering a home educator,not; demanding proof, reports, photographic evidence and being forceful in their new relationship with a parent. It does not make them out to be supportive nor informative, in fact the local authorities who are leaders in being supportive work closely with their home educators to provide a better service to newcomers. The councils who are renowned for overstepping the mark cannot even get the correct terminology using ‘home schooling’ in place of ‘elective home education’, they threaten parents and in many cases tell parents is it ‘illegal’ to educate a child from home. In the last 3 weeks I have met home educators across 5 counties and always find at least 1 in each county who is a foster/adoptive parent, helping the child in their best interests to find themselves develop a strong sense of self before approaching there academic potential. You will find that the initial accusations you made were very hurtful to the community and if this bill in the way it is worded and presented gets through it will divide the country and force home educating into being more secretive much like the Salem witch trials, home educating parents who want to be good will show up and sign the paperwork but be forced back to schools so councils don’t have to monitor them thus save on funding the education department, and those who you feel are not doing it ‘the right way’ will be more evasive and hide the children further. In safeguarding you will find that the children who have come to harm were either under 5 when they came to the attention of the authorities or they were hidden in schools throughout the country and continued to go unmonitored.

      The links for the most popular support organisations are numously listed in the better local authorities pages however the links for yourself are;
      http://educationalfreedom.org.uk/
      http://www.home-education.org.uk/
      https://www.heas.org.uk/
      https://www.educationotherwise.org/

      I’m also going to provide you with my local authorities website link so you can see the help and advice the policy (which is in line with the law) and the information that any new home educator would see on their site. Note the website has clearly offered support and help contact information as well as sources of information from a couple of the links above.
      http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/education-and-learning/home-education/

      May I finish by saying Lord Soley that you only needed to ask for this information, presuming that your sources were factual and correct was an oversight, trust instead int he growing popularity of Home Education to show you that it is a supportive loving and helpful community group, which offers a better choice to most parents across the UK than that of a hostile state school environment that many schools deem ‘apt’. I’d also like to point out the growing use of home education to get around the new ‘fine’ situation of parents going on holiday or take a sick child to hospital, it is a trend that has been ‘forced’, and many will forget that school summer holidays were put there because parents removed children from school to harvest the fields many years ago. It has never before been the schools duty to over-rule the parent in their decision for educational provision. It is increasingly highlighted in the news that parents are being punished for taking a grieving child from the school, I think we need to as a community look into this culture and perhaps change that mentality returning the emotional well being and educational responsibility to the parent as the state school records to date show a decline in popularity.

      Turn the situation on it’s head and compare this to a corporate situation the state school education (or Tesco in a supermarket scenario) held 80% of the market place, now it has fallen to 60% popularity with home education on the rise (which could be seen as the underdog Asda). Market competition is healthy for it increases quality and standards, rather than turn on home education questioning why, look at the provision that state schools have and ask them why? You maybe surprised as to why flocks of people feel that the quality of education is not fit for purpose anymore.

      • Soohie
        22/12/2017 at 7:11 pm

        100% agree with this.

      • 08/01/2018 at 11:07 pm

        How do you distinguish Skills-Training for an efficient ‘fit-for-purpose’ Job/Career in the Workplace (40 hrs per week) –
        and Enablements-Educating for Longest-Term sustainworthiness in the Lifeplace. (128 hrs per week) ?

        There is a very serious and already Earthlife-Destroying Conflict in insidious but ‘traditionally-historical progress’, betwixt the World-Politico-Economic Workplace and the Whole-Human-Civilisations’ & Peoples’ Lifeplace.

        Our Overarching British Education System’s universities and schools ‘existentially-deny-by-exclusion’ many good and authoritative advances in Individual Human Development Knowledge and Practical Know-How; thus causing huge shortfalls in Lifeplace-Sustainworthy enablements as well as in Workplace Fitnesses-for-Purpose efficiencies.

        Make your own check through some lists of these ‘ignored’ and thus virtually ‘outlawed’ life, education, work and skilling advances, via not-for-profit, power nor prestige e-sites
        http://www.lifefresh.co.uk ;
        http://www.one-human-living.com ;
        and http://lifefresh.net
        as well as my approx 600 previous submissions-with-source-references, published by this Lords of the Blog e-site.
        ——————-
        Our Earthlife and Human-Race & Civilisation Predicament is so enormously over-burdening and under-cutting both each individual human-being and whole Populations organisations, that “School-Training versus Home-Education” is but a minor ‘band-aid’ issue and a urobic “red-herring” divgerting us from seeing and tackling the causative greater Issues.

    • Dave H
      22/12/2017 at 9:04 pm

      I think you’re looking at part of the problem too closely. Those who come to home education willingly are able to throw themselves into it and get what help and resources they need from the huge support network of home educators up and down the country. Various support groups on Facebook and other places contain questions and requests and invariably someone has had the same issue before and can provide help and advice on resolving the issue.

      You should be looking more carefully at those who feel they have been forced into home education because all other paths have been closed to them. Some will decide that actually, it’s the best thing that could have happened now they realise the opportunities available and so will merge into the group I described above. The few who are left are the ones who need your support, because they would probably rather their child was at school and are struggling to cope, but have found that school and social services have been unhelpful and actively causing trauma to the child. You don’t need monitoring or registration to help these people, you need to have a clear duty placed on local authorities to act when one of these people requests help, and to actively monitor the behaviour of schools who force the children to leave by various underhand methods. If such an option was clear and could be seen to be working then you can be sure that other home educators would be more than happy to point these families in that direction.

    • Caroline Ellis
      22/12/2017 at 10:14 pm

      Dear Clive, A practical point really. It’s about how to support anyone who might be struggling. We have a system of peer support – online, on the phone, in person – in our Home Ed communities. Parents in touch with a local or national group can get a heck of a lot of peer support and in most areas there are loads of classes, activities, socials etc so no one feels they have to do it all alone. I speak to a huge number of parents at the end of their tether with schools and try to give them sense of their options and explain how HE works. Parents are also really honest and open when things aren’t working and seek and receive non judgmental advice and help from fellow HE parents. There’s a wealth of experience and ideas to tap into. I’m sure the sense of community and support I’ve had has made a huge difference to me and my son. Taunton Home Education is the Group I’m with – have a look at our website. My number is on there if you can’t signpost a parent who is saying they are struggling anywhere else please feel free to suggest they give me a bell. We’re experts by experience and never too busy to lend an ear to anyone who needs help.

  35. Home Ed Surrey
    21/12/2017 at 9:06 am

    There is currently places parents who have either been forced to home educate due to failings of the education system, or who decide to remove their child from an environment this is damaging their child. There is a large home education community nationwide. There is no one organisation but rather, small communities online and offline that are open to new home educators. They are encouraged, when they join one of the larger groups on facebook, to join their local groups so they can meet other local home ed parents. There’s are hundreds of home educators online that go out of their way to help new members who have got in out of their depth, through no fault of their own.

    Those that have bad experiences are those who didn’t choose home education. Their child has been excluded or expelled, or off rolled – which happens more often than you realise. They are not ready and don’t want to home educate. It isnt for everyone.

    You ask what can be done for those that home education didn’t work for? They need an education system that isnt failing children on a large scale. One that supports and helps sen children and where the extra funding they bring to the school is actually used for that child.

    The help they need is more schools built, as there is a current shortage and schools that over subscribed. That the national curriculum is written by teachers, for educating children. Not by politicians.

    You will find home educators come in varying shapes and sizes. We dont fit neatly in a box. Just like school doesnt suit all children, neither does home education.

  36. Jean
    21/12/2017 at 9:26 am

    I think the real issue here is child abuse and radicalisation which has nothing to do with home education, it is sadly happening to children across the board, so perhaps talking about those issues seperately rather than lumping them in with families who choose to home educate would make more sense.
    The school system consistantly misses abused or radicalised children.

    We register our children at birth so shouldn’t be required to do anything else.

    The only real issue I think that needs addressing regarding home education is for the families who find themselves doing it not out of choice but of necessity due to the school system failing their child.

    My family made a well researched decision to home educate our children so we were well prepared and happy doing it, perhaps instead of wanting to interfere with families like mine, you should concern yourself with families who are being so failed by the school system they are feeling forced to home educate.

    It is the school system which is broken.

  37. Rosemary Charles
    21/12/2017 at 11:11 am

    I wrote a comment here regarding your Bill on 7th December but it has not be published. As you had previously said you received little criticism of your intentions it is not surprising if many wrote to put a different viewpoint. Thus it leaves a bad feeling when not all those comments are published nor, I assume, read. What I wrote may not have expressed agreement but it was not impolite. There seems little point in commenting anew if the previous comment was disregarded.

    • Barbara Stark
      21/12/2017 at 3:17 pm

      I had the same, Rosemary. My polite response was not allowed.

  38. Rebecca Daisey
    21/12/2017 at 3:10 pm

    Why is the elephant in the room, that children are being forced out of school because of unmet special educational needs not being addressed? That’s why home education is rising at an immense rate. I would suspect this is to do with transferring the budgets to schools directly and not ring fencing special needs budgets. Along with academy’s, lack of special schools and the SEN reforms, which schools still don’t understand.

  39. Harminder Samra
    21/12/2017 at 7:19 pm

    Well that’s a load of nonsense! We were forced to home educate as LA failed to provide us with a school and I have been fighting for 4 years through tribunals and he has an EHCP for special needs. He needs to be looking at counties who are failing children – not the parents. There are many groups on fb in a similar situation. Our 11 year old was offered a school 16 miles from our house and yet all the local schools are grammar and full of out of catchment children.
    Without the support of other parents home educating we would not have managed to provide our son’s with an education. We work together to start tutored lessons and sports sessions. It is hard as a parent but we will do everything we can to provide them with an education with warm, loving people who are passionate about teaching. Guess what NO BULLYING!

  40. Anon
    22/12/2017 at 6:36 am

    ” I most certainly do not think it appropriate for any person/s defending the belief the age of consent should be removed to be involved in anything to do with legislation which is there for children’s rights.”

    This would presumably rule out the government writing guidance then, given that current members of parliament were in the same naive position as Holt in the early years.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/…/pie-controversy-harriet…

    Let’s be clear however: there is no evidence whatsoever that Holt’s naivety on this issue differed from certain Labour politicians.

    The fact is that there was a lot of naivety around in those days which is not the case now. No-one within the home educating community is advocating for anything to do with lowering the age of consent. There is a full understanding of its value in preventing abuse of children.

  41. Tina
    22/12/2017 at 8:24 pm

    Dear Lord Soley

    We took the decision to home educate our 5 year old daughter, because we believe she has a right to a childhood.

    We believe she has a right to play freely, and spend at least 3 hours a day outside, getting in touch with nature.

    We believe she has right to abstain from too formalised an education at 5 years old, when she is still developing her fine motor skills.

    We believe she has a right to feel safe and not be coerced into spending entire days and weeks of her life where she is controlled by a group of adults who have little interest in knowing her parents.. we believe she has a right to take her time and work out who to trust, not be coerced into trusting a teacher just because they are a teacher therefore they must be right! This very outlook disempowerd children at the beginning of their lives. To prevent the abuse you talk about, we need to empower our children and listen to them if they don’t feel safe.

    We believe our child has a right to receive an education tailored to her interests and enthusiasms, not standardised like a factory process.

    I could go on, but the point is, the current education system is failing our children. I withdrew my child because I could no longer authentically believe that the education system was good for emotional and physical development.

    Please turn your attention to the real issues here… This isn’t about control, it’s about empowering our children.. believing in them… trusting them and honouring their rights as children…

    If you truly care so deeply about the welfare of children, I suggest you look towards reforming our education system drastically!

  42. Anon
    23/12/2017 at 8:10 am

    Lord Soley wrote:

    “One of the ways you could all help is to suggest ways in which parents wanting to home educate but finding it difficult could be helped.”

    *Put such families in touch with national and local HE groups, both in real life and on line.

    *Extend and fund EOTAs provision for those for whom it is suitable and desired. Distance learning should be an option in this provision.

    *Fund EHCPs within the schooling system properly so that parents no longer get to the point where they feel they have no option but to withdraw their child from school.

    *Stop Ofsted assessing schools by results rather than by provision. This will mean that schools will feel less inclined to off-roll pupils by the backdoor in order to bump their exam ratings. It will also stop the intolerable pressure that is placed on schools since however well a teacher works, he is not going to be able to force knowledge into the head of a pupil who is determined to stare out of the window.

    *Get Ofsted instead, to manage the process of deregistration so that the schools are not penalised, but rather so that it is clear that the child is well set up to learn at home.

    • 26/12/2017 at 2:52 pm

      Anon – and very welcomely ‘anonymously’ for ‘whole-world-participatory-democratisation’ so I should think –

      A very brief point, but I strongly-suggest very vital to be scrutinised and ‘peacefully-revolutionised’ –
      your focus upon “child rights” (is ‘good’ of course
      [and I would add “especially to amend the UN Declaration where it says
      “the child shall conform to the parents religious persuasion”-
      to read
      “the child and parents shall resolve religious matters ‘No-Lose’ Method III Cooperatively”]

      Without the whole world Public first having at least “neutral” internet to (United Nations administered) Lists of Needs –
      there is no point in pursuing “rights to satisfy needs”.

  43. Anon
    24/12/2017 at 6:21 am

    For clarification re the point:

    “Get Ofsted instead, to manage the process of deregistration so that the schools are not penalised, but rather so that it is clear that the child is well set up to learn at home.”

    NB: By this, it was not intended to mean that Ofsted should get involved in the deregistration process of an individual child, (heaven forbid that there should be further pressure on families at this stressful point in time), but rather that, Ofsted should be clear on the potential for huge benefit for many children in being educated at home, and therefore look favorably upon the process of deregistration when it is done in a supportive fashion by the schools.

    In other words, Ofsted should continue in its role of inspecting schools, not families, but with a more supportive approach towards home education.

    • 27/12/2017 at 1:53 pm

      Agreed.

      The point I submit is about the bigger
      but influencing, even ‘controlling’, Contexts
      behind Home Education and Ofsted per se;
      [that’s “all”] –

  44. 30/12/2017 at 10:22 am

    A quick look into
    http://lifefresh.net
    today (Saturday 301217)
    could also help our general co-education progress –
    as well as some greater Contexts including Baroness Deech’s above “Taking Back Control”

  45. maude elwes
    01/01/2018 at 8:32 pm

    @ Lord Soley,

    This entire thread strikes me as a big cover up from start to finish. No one, including you, really wants to address the reality of the appalling situation we have in our State schools. I personally would never send a child of mine to any British state school today. I feel any parent who takes a chance on this kind of indoctrination is risking their children’s mental health and future prospects.

    Why do I say that?

    The school curriculum is inadequate for any well thinking young person for whom, it is hoped, will mature into a free thinker, able to understand and accept a need for education and enjoy it. As opposed to what is hammered from 4 to 24 in our system today. Indoctrination is not education. And what is being covered here is political chicanery that passes for abuse against the child. Not one person wants to speak out on the ‘reality’ of what our schools have become. Which is why the mass movement to home educate exists. And why the government want to quell the flight by parents so terrified to leave their children in the hands of people they do not trust.

    Firstly, classes the size of crammed hounds waiting to chase the fox is not conducive to beneficial education. Children of all intellects and background jammed together in what is the equivalent of a packed tube train is detrimental to their inclination toward any syllabus. Incompetent teachers, so filled with political correct dogma, you feel nauseated simply having to listen to their deranged notions.

    A friend of mine has an almost five year old son. He was at a Montessori nursery before starting at this Islington melting pot he has just joined. His teacher wears a burka. And don’t dare say it is not allowed, it is under the guise of non discrimination. And what is this subliminal message, being sent to the psyche of a little Western boy, as an example of what is good practice? The idea that women, if they are good, chaste females, deserving of respectful behaviour, must cover their hair and body, to ensure no man will be aroused by their exposure. The message is in the image. It denotes girls and women, who do not cover themselves are asking for male aggressive attention. That, whether you want to admit it and uncover the truth or not, is what they are sending out unconsciously. It is surreptitious and all pervasive. It is not, so called ‘inclusive.’ It is denial of fact to pretend otherwise.

    Multicultural, global indoctrination, leaves no room for home grown cultural British expectation of values and lifestyle. As too much attention to all other cultures and expectation of ways of life, leaves no room for the host British culture to counter their objective and include its value and expectations, over and above their extreme opposition. There simply isn’t time when 32 different peoples language, lifestyle and aims, are crammed into one classroom. The result is total confusion to all who enter such a disparate environment.

    The EU and Global requirement on sexual exploitation of the very young, is, again, all pervasive, leaving little or sparse room in a fertile mind, to concentrate on what is important to know in order to become a functional intellect. When you fill a mind with all pervasive bodily extremes it leaves little room to focus on other, more enlightening, matters. Especially with the male of the species, at any age. To deny these facts is disingenuous.

    Here are examples of what I’m suggesting. Political correctness and mass indoctrination gone mad.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIv-KOQ5F4A

    This is not simply in the EU, it is also taking place in the USA. It is Global.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL5-gz5L8c8

    And rape in schools.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngy1YbjWkmY

    Multicultural learning via teachers barely able to speak the language.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk-V2uPcSLw

    So, with this new burden being placed on parents we, once again find, children from non Muslim or extreme religious parents have to accept the sacrifice of their future, via repressive government control, because of their political decisions. Taken without first putting it to a public vote. To fill the country, to the level of explosion, with migrants from cultures not conducive to our expected way of life, was an illegal act that goes against the rules on Human Rights Law.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqylhpMXXqg

    What gives any government a mandate to invade our society with alien ways of life, without first asking permission of the society they rule and without explaining what results to expect of such measures, will be on the social cohesion of their community? Democracy doesn’t work that way.

  46. maude elwes
    02/01/2018 at 2:48 pm

    Once again this website asks for public response to political moves planned to be taken on our behalf.

    I find this notion only applies when you respond in the way they want you to respond.

    I have written what I consider an informative reply to why there is a growing rejection of the public, en masse, to their children being indoctrinated by State schools. I added that indoctrination is not education.

    Naturally, my post went straight into they mustn’t say that bin. Too controversial.

    I backed up all I wrote with examples and factual evidence to support my belief in home education and why the need for it. As well as why I felt so little was being openly written about the experiences parents have had to endure should they decide to home school.

    The important message in my post of how I feel the State want to deconstruct all public identity, on every level, and that it is beginning in the classroom earlier and earlier. I fell it is creating an enforced separation between parent and child in order to remove the influence families have socially and culturally on their future. It follows ‘Brave New World’ line by line.

    I do hope this message is found acceptable for the thread.

    • 04/01/2018 at 2:40 pm

      In their founding years, universities were for “all-round-education-about the-whole-of-life, in the Lifeplace and not necessarily for “work”. –

      but they have gradually become “gloves on – or off”
      Career-Ladder and Workplace training competitive profit, power and prestige-building institutons,

      and as responded by a group of retired professors on-stage to a middle-class audience in America of recent years
      (“) “You can become the best Doctor in the world without any education whatsoever …

      but what you must have is the best training and the rightly-times best job-placements –
      then you could even become the best lawyer as well – and again without any education whatsoever (“).
      ——————-
      Thus reasoning also, since the schooling and university training is for the Workplace it is at root the “property” of the Employers, who should therefore be footing all of the Costs.
      ——————
      At deeper root than that lies the truth of much EarthLife-Survival – but almost 100% so in our humankind survival and thrival case:

      the teaching to offspring of ways of “behaving”* and of pretending-
      both “how to crack a nut”, and “how to put potential predators off the scent” and “play ‘dead’.

      * “behaviour” is very largely beyond our conscious control, as it depends upon innate and acquired components such as Hormones, food and drink ingredients, and on inculcated characteristics, roles and habits. [So it is distortingly and unfairly wrong to tell someone to “behave yourself”.

      So in truth, both our education-for-life or life-enablements, and our training-for-work or job/career ‘skillings’, require one to be continually learning further ‘roles’, and how to act-out or perform the appropriate ‘character’ and ‘part/s” -in-the-everyday “play” of Civilisation.

  47. Lord Soley
    Lord Soley
    10/01/2018 at 1:54 pm

    Thanks for the constructive suggestions and the pointers to support networks which I will follow up.
    I think we can see some areas for co-operation here. I have already been checking on the possibility of making it easier/cheaper for HE children to sit exams. I am looking at other possible amendments but this is still ‘work in progress’.
    I know that many commentators believe I am against home education and will go on believing that regardless of what I say so there is little point in spending more time on that point but I simply re-state that I have always been in favour of the right to home educate.
    I am still concerned that so many ‘objectors’ to my Bill seem to think that there are no problems in this areas and all could be solved if schools were better. In my view, that is not the case. For example, when children are taken out of school and then put back in again there can be many and varied reasons why this happens and we cannot rely on the parent simply spotting the various assistance models that are available.
    I also think there is still a naïve belief that all parents who take their child out of school do it in the best interests of the child. I have too much experience in my own life to believe that everyone’s behaviour is totally altruistic. That can lead to horrendous mistakes – think Jimmy Saville and the belief by millions of people that his behaviour was totally altruistic. I have dealt in the past with abusing parents – it is a very challenging area of human behaviour and not some simple and easy matter to deal with. The same is true for radicalisation.
    Finally I have no part in deciding what posts go on this site. That is for Hansard not for me and like all administrators of sites they have rules which are published on the site.

    • 10/01/2018 at 3:06 pm

      Please don’t forget that still “insidiously underlying and overshadowing” the whole of World Civilisations’ Progress and Education Sectors’ Fitness-for-Purpose, is the
      (1) Continued “militantly economic-growth-aggressive slaughtering”
      of this Earth’s Lifesupports themselves, and of millions of human-lives annually
      (2) the lack of distinction between
      (i) “training & skilling-for-the-(40-hour/week) militantly-competitive jobs-&-careers Workplace” – which has increasingly become the Main and Exclusive Focus of schools and universities;
      and
      (ii) “education into-sustainworthy lifestyling and enablements for personal-efficiency in the Lifeplace (128 hrs/week).

      (3) The UN and UK constitutional-hostility – and thereupon the ‘Education’ Sector’s inhibition of All-Round and in some “depth” Individual Human Development exclusivity towards both Individual and Group Holistic-Living -&-Health-Building subjects
      such as “Self-Knowledge and Self-Control Know-How” [“Your Body” by Beata Jencks] and potential- faculties such as Somatics,
      should foundationally have long ago become.
      ——–

      Your lordship, there is much more …but it is to be hoped that the above shows a serious part of our whole Human Predicament –
      and as Factors will be kept “clamped-to-the Scrutiny and Legislation tables” until they have been cooperatively and completely “win-win-win” Resolved .

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