This is a write-up of the Facebook Q&A about proposed new government guidance on home education which took place on January 10th 2024. The government is considering making some changes to the home education guidance. The new guidance is not ready to be used. It is still at the draft stage. The current guidance can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/elective-home-education
General Points
- I got more comments than actual questions and in return, my answers signposted to the consultation questions which I felt were the best fit for the views expressed
- A high number of consultation responses is the first and most obvious indicator of the level of controversy and the strength of feeling about the subject. Historically, home education consultations have always drawn more responses than other education consultations; it is something of a tradition.
- That being said, consultation responses where the answer boxes are left blank don’t have such an impact. The same is true of model answers which appear to have been copied and pasted; these are categorised as “campaign-style” responses.
- If you possibly can, the most effective way to respond to a consultation is to write something personal in your own words even if it is just for one or two questions; you don’t have to answer all the questions for your response to be counted. (See Tipping Point below)
- The home education guidance consultation is a mix of multiple choice questions and free text boxes where you can write your answer in your own words.
- You don’t have to work through the answer form page by page. If you have a particular point you want to make, you can just go in and find the relevant question. Once you have answered your particular question, you can do Save And Come Back Later in case you find something else to say in another answer box. I explain Save and Come Back Later here https://edyourself.wordpress.com/2024/01/02/home-education-guidance-consultation/
- I made the free text boxes my priority and I found the multiple choice questions were just getting in the way. I felt I was being guided in a certain direction. Hence, it worked better for me if I ignored the multiple choice questions to start with and just zeroed in on the answer boxes to make my points, returning to add any extra comments from the multiple choice afterwards. (This was especially true with the safeguarding multiple choice questions which weren’t even about the safeguarding chapter)
- There is no last page with an “Any Other Comments” type question. The consultation abruptly ends after the safeguarding question. However, it is possible to interpret Question 7 at the beginning of the consultation as an “Any Other Comments” question. Anything said in other answers can also be said here. Maybe answer some other questions first and then come back to this? Q7 Do you have any comments regarding the tone or general content of the guidance
Q&A
The LA weren’t there when we needed them. They have failed my child. They didn’t want to listen before so why should I talk to them now. All the LA is interested in is getting children back into school. My LA doesn’t agree with home education.
There are a couple of questions in the consultation that leap out as a way to make those points. Q7 Do you have any comments regarding the tone or general content of the guidance + Q13 If you know of local authority EHE guidance which you believe to be good practice, please provide details so it can be considered for inclusion as an example of good practice in the guidance. The online consultation actually says “Please provide details of good practice in EHE”. This is where you can say what you think a good LA might do or should do when a child starts being home educated after a terrible time in school and what effect it has when LAs do the opposite. This is where you could also comment on how you anticipate things might change if LAs wanted proof of instant suitable home education, more about that here https://edyourself.org/parents-guidance-inconsistencies/ Questions 16 and 17 which ask about the LA “establishing whether home education appears to be suitable” also provide an opportunity to say something about your interactions with your local authority. Q16 Is the guidance clear on what is considered a proportionate level of engagement between local authorities and parents when establishing whether home education appears to be suitable as part of the informal process? [This is a multiple choice question, so just ticking a box] + Q17 Do you have any comments regarding how suitable education is outlined in the guidance or further information that illustrates your answers above?
Won’t this all just go ahead regardless? LAs just do what they want anyway. My LA acts like it’s already been decided. My LA insists that changing the guidance is just the start and that everything in the Schools Bill will be brought back. It could even be to flush out home edders not already on a list somewhere. Does the DfE have to take our responses into account?
The Department for Education might go ahead with revised guidance and LAs might just do what they want anyway even though this is only a draft and the current 2019 guidance remains in force. [MORE] The final version going through unchanged from the draft will only happen if home educators are defeatist about it. The most likely thing after the consultation ends is that it all goes quiet for a while and the government will say it is considering the consultation and will respond in due course. The government response when it arrives might or might not be accompanied straight away by new guidance. The new guidance might vary from the draft as a result of feedback from the consultation. There used to be rules about length of consultation and how soon the government had to respond afterwards, but this is no longer the case. The current (2019) guidance is not great, but it includes some balancing assurances which have disappeared from the new draft such as parents not having to prove that their home education is suitable. [MORE] I don’t see how LAs can predict the future with any degree of certainty. It seems to me that all bets are off. The government has said it remains committed to a children not in school register and yet it wasn’t included in the Kings Speech, instead we got revised non-statutory guidance which as I have said elsewhere on this thread today, can only be stretched so far. In terms of privacy, the consultation does not ask for home addresses, only for the local authority in which you live and “prefer not to say” is an option. You can also check a box requesting that your response be kept confidential. (Local consultations on local policies operate differently because you may need to prove that it applies to you as an interested party because of where you live) There is no rule which says the government has to go with the majority in a consultation. But there might be a tipping point where the proposed changes no longer seem such a good idea particularly if operational difficulties become apparent or if it looks likely to be counter-productive. This is where words matter in the answer boxes!
What does it mean where it says the guidance was developed with home educating parents and representatives from the home education community?
What I think has happened is that in 2022 the law was going to be changed [Schools Bill] and if there had been new law then there would have been a need for brand new statutory guidance. To soften the blow, the government said that there would be an “implementation forum” or “national panel” with representatives from all sides in the debate which would make sure the changes were introduced smoothly and that the guidance was user-friendly. I believe some people were asked to join this panel while others wrote to the Department for Education and volunteered themselves. And then once the new law was dropped, this group was still in existence and so my guess is it became a group discussing changes to existing guidance within existing law, rather than new guidance for new law. I wasn’t part of this but I am piecing it together from what other people have said. It is a thankless task trying to make things less bad but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying. (Arguably it is even worse when you DO get thanked if you don’t want to be associated with it in any way) A similar sort of thing occurred from my own experience when the SEND law was being changed between 2012 and 2014 and I was able to have conversations with DfE about what the SEND Code of Practice would say in relation to home education. At the time it was very frustrating and I felt I had stopped nothing bad and added nothing good but over the years my verdict has become a little bit less harsh.
My LA doesn’t think children with special needs should be home educated.
There is a question about special needs in the consultation. Q24 Do you have any comments regarding SEND in relation to EHE. Q24 follows on from a question about home education with an EHCP including “when a child with an EHC plan will be home educated” which opens the door for feedback on what LAs might be saying to schools about keeping children on roll. You could go in and answer Q24 first and then do Save and Come Back Later. However, I would recommend answering the Safeguarding question at the same time (ignore the multiple choice safeguarding questions at this point) As I say here “Chapter 8 of the new draft home education guidance is headed Safeguarding: the interface with EHE. The contents are largely the same as Chapter 7 of the current (2019) guidance but because the new guidance seeks to normalise routine annual monitoring escalating to formal action under education powers if the LA believes parents have provided “insufficient information”, and because the guidance says the threshold for formal action is the same as for a child protection referral, the safeguarding chapter assumes a new significance, particularly for children with special needs and disabilities” https://edyourself.org/safeguarding-in-new-guidance/ Q32 Do you have any further comments related to safeguarding in the EHE guidance
Why is there no support? The LA keeps saying it can’t help and I’m on my own.
There is a question about support in the consultation. This is one time when the multiple choice question might be a helpful prompt because it asks whether the new guidance will encourage positive relations between parents and local authorities. There isn’t any government money for home educating families. Families can’t claim government funding directly and local authorities don’t get any money for home education (either for monitoring or support). In theory LAs are allowed to use High Needs Block funding for home education support but in reality many LAs are millions and millions of pounds overspent on their High Needs Block already and can’t afford even the statutory things the law says they HAVE to pay for eg special educational needs and alternative provision as many parents turning to home education in desperation are only too well aware. The lack of specific funding means that home education is often picked up by preventive services who are used to dealing with vulnerable children missing education. If the thing you most want to comment on is lack of support – not just what you can get from the local authority but also whether they are generally supportive of home education – then you can go straight to Q27. You can use the Save and Come Back Later feature in case you get any more ideas about other sections before the consultation closes or alternatively you can submit with just Q27 answered. Q27 Do you have any comments regarding support for parents in the EHE guidance.
Is there an effective way to complain about this draft guidance? If so, how and who do we complain to? What things should we highlight in our complaints?
The first thing I would say is don’t think of a complaint as an ALTERNATIVE to the public consultation. A complaint is an extra thing on top of the consultation and I would say do your complaint AFTER the consultation. Meanwhile the government has published draft versions of new home education guidance and asked for feedback. You have until January 18th to give your views. What is being proposed is not a change to the law, it is a revision of non-statutory guidance. A change to the law would involve parliamentary scrutiny. The government did plan to change the law last year but the plan failed. Everything in the Schools Bill required an Act of Parliament to make new laws or amend existing laws because any government can only go so far with the law as it stands. What tends to happen when a law fails to go through is that the government starts saying that new laws aren’t strictly necessary after all; it turns out that much can be achieved by other means such as asking public bodies and institutions to adopt new ways of working voluntarily, explaining how this will streamline things as well as leading to improved outcomes and is therefore achievable within current budgets. (This is critical because no new law = no new money) However, the government can’t force anyone to make these changes without a law to back it up, especially if what is being asked is perceived to go beyond the law or be in conflict with other law or make it more difficult to get the job done. If you believe that this new guidance is stretching the law too far, you might consider writing to someone in Parliament such as your MP or a member of the House of Lords, asking them to raise your concerns with the Department for Education. There will be more information available about this after the consultation closes.
LAs threaten safeguarding all the time + LAs pick on single parents/neurodivergent parents, parents with disabilities
The question about safeguarding is the last question in the consultation but you can answer it first. Q32 Do you have any further comments related to safeguarding in the EHE guidance You can answer the questions in any order and answer as many or as few questions as you like. If your number one concern or objection is that home education has become all about Safeguarding, you could just go in and answer that one question and submit your response straight away. Alternatively you can do Save And Come Back Later which gives you the option of coming back and filling in more answers (or of course coming back and NOT doing more answers, just pressing Submit) You also have Q7 which is a catch-all question roughly translated as “Any other comments” and includes protected characteristics which are summarised here https://www.gov.uk/discrimination-your-rights Q7 Do you have any comments regarding the tone or general content of the guidance including consideration of protected characteristics
What does Human Rights legislation state regarding Parents/Carers rights?
Article 8 [right to respect for private and family life] and 9 [freedom to manifest one’s religions or beliefs] are relevant. They are what is called qualified rights as indicated by the word “except” or “subject to limitations.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights
Are home ed now to be treated as CME (children missing education) until proved otherwise + what about a child who can’t or won’t demonstrate skills or knowledge in the presence of a stranger or who will react really badly to being tested, also how can I trust the person who is doing the testing to look at education holistically and not just focus on literacy and numeracy?
Yes, in the new draft guidance it feels like LAs are being encouraged to investigate every case of EHE to make sure a suitable education is being received and the new focus on literacy and numeracy is a very narrow view of what education actually means. Section 437 (1) says “If it appears to a local authority that a child of compulsory school age in their area is not receiving suitable education, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise, they shall serve a notice in writing on the parent requiring him to satisfy them within the period specified in the notice that the child is receiving such education.” [MORE] The new guidance seems to be saying “it may APPEAR suitable, but are you sure you’ve looked closely enough” or “why did you sign off on this and say it appeared suitable, did you do All The Checks”. Essentially it is lowering the threshold for investigation and encouraging LAs to err on the side of caution where they won’t feel confident to say it appears suitable in case they are challenged, better to play safe and say it’s still under investigation, or that because parents haven’t allowed yxz, the LA hasn’t been able to conclude that education “appears suitable”. It will be miserable for everyone! Questions 16 and 17 about suitable education and proportionate level of engagement are the most immediately relevant questions here. You can answer the questions in any order and answer as many or as few questions as you like. Q16 Is the guidance clear on what is considered a proportionate level of engagement between local authorities and parents when establishing whether home education appears to be suitable as part of the informal process? [This is a multiple choice question, so just ticking a box] Q17 Do you have any comments regarding how suitable education is outlined in the guidance or further information that illustrates your answers above? Question 7 is also relevant because it is a broad question about tone and content, as well as treatment of protected characteristics https://www.gov.uk/discrimination-your-rights Q7 Do you have any comments regarding the tone or general content of the guidance including consideration of protected characteristics. You may also wish to comment on the impact of suitability assessments where children have special educational needs and disabilities. The SEND question is here Q24 Do you have any comments regarding SEND in relation to EHE
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