'A suitable education'

As a parent, I have a duty in law as follows;

(I ) shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable—

1. to his age, ability and aptitude, and

2. to any special educational needs he may have,

either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.

I am interested in the wording of this law. One word in particular, in fact.

'HIM'

This law is written using a personal pronoun, with 'him' standing for 'the child' (of any gender) Why?

This law does not focus on all children, a faceless 'them'. It uses a personal pronoun very deliberately all the way through, denoting that EACH child has DIFFERENT needs and that my duty, as a parent, is to ensure that, no matter how many children I may have, the education of each one is decided by it's own personal abilities and difficulties, aptitudes and struggles.

I have two children. A creative, dreamy daughter who hates loud noises and crowds, is highly cautious physically and is so intensely visual it is often a source of amazement to me that she ever learned to talk at all let alone be the highly verbal child she is. And a loud, physically fearless son with a highly outgoing sociable personality who is drawn to sound over everything else but who at 18 months has yet to speak more that a couple of 'real' words.

There is no way that the same education that is suitable for my daughter would adequately fulfill my son's individual needs. And the kind of education my son will thrive on would be more likely to terrify my daughter than teach her.

Therefore, my intention is to attend to each one's personal needs, and I will do this easily because I know them very well as individuals. If my daughter learns best by seeing, she can learn by watching TV or watching someone else performing a task. If my son needs to hear to learn, he can talk to people, ask questions and listen to instructions. I will praise my daughter for jumping and my son for sitting still. I will leave my trustworthy daughter alone with the acrylic paint while I heavily supervise my not so trustworthy son's use of the crayons. I will hold my daughter's hand as she climbs while watching her younger brother zoom up without comment. And I will change with them, allowing crayoning alone for my son when he finally learns to neither eat them or draw on my furniture with them, letting go of my daughter's hand when she learns enough confidence in herself to climb alone. I will allow them to put aside old interests for new passions, allow them to leap ahead where they wish to without ensuring 'all previous steps have been covered' first or regress if they feel they need to with needing to 'show steady progress' because what they need is more important than what I want.

So, I will 'cause' my children 'to receive' an education that is suitable by making certain each one has their individual needs, wants and passions met. And by doing so I will fulfill my duty as laid out in the law that specifically defines the suitability of a person's education on how well it marries with their individual, personal traits.

In light of this, what sort of lunacy is the government's intention to try to define 'a suitable education'?

How do they intend to find the time to get to know every child in the country on such a personal basis that they will be able to say what will be suitable for each one at each stage of their educational journey? How will they follow each child through to adulthood and beyond in order to recognise what factors in the child's education served it well as an adult and what hindered it? How will they take this knowledge and use it to produce a method for determining the best method of educating any individual child?

How will they even recognise 'education' when they see it? After all, I often don't. I take it on trust that whatever my child is choosing to do at that moment must have some educational value to them or they would not be doing it, whether I can see it or not. I have always been proved right, but rarely at the time and never without surprise. If I can't always see the educational value of an activity, and I know how my child thinks, how will someone else fare better?

Obviously, they will do none of these things. It would be highly impractical and intrusive for a government to try it on even a minor scale. So, what are they talking about when they discuss 'defining a suitable eduation'?

It can only mean one thing. They want to set perameters based on what they think education looks like and define 'suitable' as 'that which suits the average'. Because they can't possibly define it on an individual basis without studying every child intimately every day of it's life until it dies.

And that means the government has not understood the law it perports to uphold. Because To define 'suitability' based on an average, or a majority, is to deny the personal aspect of it. The law does not confer the duty on parents to educate their child in the same way, or to the same standards, or using the same values or core subjects/knowledge as every other parent. It demands that education be something far more specific and individual, based on the child in front of you, not on statistics, studies, the lastest fads, cultural dictates or government desires.

From which I conclude that any attempt to define the meaning of 'a suitable education' in generic, countrywide terms would interfere with my ability to carry out my statutory duty to my two, very different, highly unique children and ultimately be in direct opposition to the law. And the government bods who think doing so would be a great idea and would solve a lot of problems haven't even realised it.

Assuming that 'suitable' means 'fit for purpose', what can be concluded about their education? And their ability to spot a 'suitable' one when they see it in another?

If it saves one child....

Argument;
"If these measures save only one child, it's worth it."

Response;
"Not if it harms a hundred others in the process it isn't."

I will not sacrifice my own living, breathing, growing, very real children at the altar of some hypothetical child who may or may not be 'saved' by measures based on such fear and mistrust and suspicion that they will thereby damage my children in ways that are impossible to calculate by forcing these things into their young lives via their own homes, the one place they should be able to feel safe and protected, over the protestations of their parents, the people they should be able to look to for comfort and support, and their own wishes, which should always be taken into account by those who claim to care for them. I will not stand by and watch my own children being harmed in the vague hope that by allowing it to happen to them it may stop harm to another.

One hypothetical life is not worth two real ones. Certainly not my two. One is definitely not a hundred, and above all one is not worth the thousands of real people whose lives would really be affected by the Children, Schools and Families bill.

Projected 'support' for home educators

At a recent All Party Parliamentary Group meeting, the DCSF came out with the following pledges of support, to show that they are thinking of providing benefits to home educators as well as the planned severe restrictions. The Golden Carrot to balance out the Big Stick With Nails In It, if you like.
Having looked them over, this certainly hasn't done the job of a good Carrot and made me any less aware of the Big Stick - far from it, it has instead thrown it into sharper focus as it clearly shows how little thought has really gone into what Home Educators really need or want, and how little they plan to exhert themselves, mentally or financially, in finding out and providing it.
Read on for my opinions of each 'bite' of the Carrot;

• LA forums for HE families

If I want to talk to my LA, I will do so by letter, phone or personal e-mail, as it would come under the heading of 'personal correspondance' and as such would not be for public consumption. If I want HE advice, tips, emotional support etc, I would not be interested in what the LA have to say (particularly not after reading the so-called 'information' leaflet they sent me unasked before Christmas - turns out they are rather notorious for misinformation and ultra vires practices) I will go to the forums and blogs already available to me that are used by people who have actual been-there-done-that experience of what I am dealing with.
Verdict - redundant

• Plans to extend flexi-schooling

Hmmm. And how exactly are you planning to achieve this? Currently, flexi-school arrangements are at the discretion of head teachers, who use their own judgement to decide whether or not to accept a 'flexi' student. These private arrangements are thrashed out between the parents and the school and are an extention of the parents quest to provide for their child's specific, individual needs, ergo no two flexi-school arrangements are alike. They are few and far between, however, because many heads have little to no experience of how such arrangements can work successfully to the benefit of all parties involved, which can lead to frustrating experiences for families attempting to find a school willing to enter into them. Now, if the plan is to encourage heads to view such arrangements favourably by providing them with information/opportunities to see first-hand how other schools have done it and by practical actions such as ensuring things like Ofsted ratings or exam league table standing for the school is unaffected by taking on these pupils, this is a 'support' that would be useful for the few home educating families that wish to 'flex'.
However, the track record of this government suggests they are more likely to 'support' families in this by taking away the autonomy of the head in this matter and making it unlawful for a school not to comply with any flexi-school request. Not only would this set up the back of any head teacher, but it would immediately call for the issuing of statutory guidelines on how a school should go about accomodating flexi-schoolchildren in order for heads to carry out their new responsibility 'properly', which will lead neatly into a need for a 'Flexi - curriculm' for all schools to follow, probably involving strong recommendations for number of hours a child should study on the premises, subjects that should be taken by the child and an inclination for the schoolwork to be viewed as more important than the home education sanctioning inroads being made into HE time by the school. This route will undoubtedly leave most parents in a situation where it is more difficult, not less, to find the flexi arrangement they want for their child as annoyed and browbeaten heads who don't really want their child insist that flexi-schooling can only be done according to the government guidelines and never mind that you need something different.
Verdict - likely to be disasterous.

• Use of school libraries to be made available

Why? I have a perfectly adequate public library within walking distance, and at least another 3 a short bus trip away. At the public library, we can stay for as long as we want, take out up to 10 books at a time for 3 weeks for free, without being restricted to a particular section, request books we want that are not on the shelves to be sent over from other libraries, use the computers, take out DVD's, get copies of research papers, engage in activities such as the summer reading scheme if we choose to (or not if we don't) and all either for free or a nominal fee. The opening hours suit us and we have built up an excellent relationship with the librarians.
So, why would I want to use the library in the local school? It's hardly likely to contain anything I can't get from the public library, more likely it will contain a lot less, and it's unlikely it's opening times or borrowing rules will be more convenient either. Textbooks, in my experience, are usually in the 'reference' section and I would be more likely to purchase those than borrow them even if I had the option to. And if I lived in an area without a public library building, there is a good chance that area would also not have a school (or at least, not one likely to be big enough to have much of a library) - though it may well be serviced by a mobile public library. So, why exactly would this plan to open up school libraries be a benefit?
Verdict - redundant

• Support to families with children with SEN.

Schoolchildren with SEN are supposed to be supported. Many home educating families pulled their children out of schools because they found that supposition to be unfounded, with either no or little support at all or inappropriate services being offered. And children with special needs that are health-related should be recieving support for those needs via the Health Service regardless of the educational environment. So to offer support that families are already entitled to or which they have previously rejected on the grounds of unsuitability is something of a disingenuous promise.
Now, there are those out there who home educate SEN children who never had a problem with the support provided in school and deregistered for other reasons, or who never sent their child to school or whose needs have changed since. These families might well find they want to access some support if they could. Even without raising the concerns of whether any such support would be on a 'supplied when asked for' basis or if it would be more of a 'we are going to give you support whether you want it or not' system, this 'SEN support' is an unhelpful promise since it is so vague, failing to give any clue as to what the DCSF may mean by it. 'Support' can mean anything from handing you a bullet-point leaflet to providing grants and use of facilities, from forcing you to accept a particular therapy on pain of losing other support or other benefits or your child itself to rewriting existing laws and guidelines that have previously overlooked the home educating community to take account of the fact that said laws and guidelines affect them too. Nor does this proposal give any indication of who would provide the support and where amongst other things. SEN support would not necessarily have to come via the LA, nor would it necessarily have to be local for instance. So which is it? Without knowing what 'support' entails, it's impossible to know if it will be either a step in the right direction, useless, or a scourge on society.
Verdict - naive and vague

So, what I am getting from this is that the DCSF want to relieve me of my parental autonomy in return for a small handful of empty promises that either offer services I cannot get better elsewhere or that are likely to make life just that bit worse if I ever do find myself in a position where the areas they affect affect me too.
Not much of a Carrot, is it? Rather more of a Poisonous Weed.