(D) For All the Good it May Do...
Anyone want to sign one of the government petitions about home education?
It calls on them to reject the Badman Review on home education, a deeply flawed document (the evidence to discredit it is mounting) and not the sort of thing that a competent government should be using to formulate policy.
Please write to your MP on the subject as well - "thin end of the wedge" and "the Stasi would be proud" are some of the more repeatable comments made about the proposals.
The review keeps on about how it's important for children to be seen by 'other' adults and that school staff perform this important function for schoolchildren. Nice to see they're safe at school, and that abuse is easily spotted. The best evidence the home education community has come up with so far (more accurate and more detailed than Badman's efforts) suggest that the national abuse rate for all children is about 1.8% and that for home educated children alone is 0.8%.
So, please contact your MP and express disgust at the way the government is railroading through proposals to destroy home education and allow a gross invasion of privacy.
Feel free to crosspost this.
ETA: Some links as to why it's bad.
From a social worker
A set of links pulling it apart in small bites. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Lord Lucas has some good comments in his blog. And here.
A letter to an MP.
This one has links to various reviews of the review.
Also read the proposals, with 2.3 and 2.6 of special note. Would you like a local authority official to be allowed access to your house and to interview your child without you present? The registration requirements are totally inappropriate for autonomous education, and they're putting in a lovely big hole in the rules so that little Johnny can be taken out of school to be home educated on the beaches of Ibiza for two weeks and then put back into school.
It calls on them to reject the Badman Review on home education, a deeply flawed document (the evidence to discredit it is mounting) and not the sort of thing that a competent government should be using to formulate policy.
Please write to your MP on the subject as well - "thin end of the wedge" and "the Stasi would be proud" are some of the more repeatable comments made about the proposals.
The review keeps on about how it's important for children to be seen by 'other' adults and that school staff perform this important function for schoolchildren. Nice to see they're safe at school, and that abuse is easily spotted. The best evidence the home education community has come up with so far (more accurate and more detailed than Badman's efforts) suggest that the national abuse rate for all children is about 1.8% and that for home educated children alone is 0.8%.
So, please contact your MP and express disgust at the way the government is railroading through proposals to destroy home education and allow a gross invasion of privacy.
Feel free to crosspost this.
ETA: Some links as to why it's bad.
From a social worker
A set of links pulling it apart in small bites. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Lord Lucas has some good comments in his blog. And here.
A letter to an MP.
This one has links to various reviews of the review.
Also read the proposals, with 2.3 and 2.6 of special note. Would you like a local authority official to be allowed access to your house and to interview your child without you present? The registration requirements are totally inappropriate for autonomous education, and they're putting in a lovely big hole in the rules so that little Johnny can be taken out of school to be home educated on the beaches of Ibiza for two weeks and then put back into school.