The Education Secretary ordered officials in late December to review home education in England over fears that parents could be ‘poisoning’ their children’s minds.
According to senior Government sources, home schooling beyond the reach of inspectors is now ‘on the radar’.
The Independent on Sunday reported that the Government is considering giving parents and teachers a ‘specific point of contact’ at local councils in order to raise issues about a child. A Government source said: ‘There has always been the freedom in this country for people to educate their children at home. Many people do it very well. But we need to know where the children are and to be certain that they are safe. For every parent doing a brilliant job, there may be someone filling their child’s mind with poison.’ Large increases in the number of people who home educate have been noted from 2010 to 2015.
The six hour rule
Concern was expressed by Ofsted that a very small number of people may be misusing the right to home educate to place their children in unregistered and potentially illegal schools, such as those Islamic schools ‘found’ in late 2015 where literature containing ‘hate’ materials were being used in structurally unsafe buildings.
The Government consulted on greater regulation of part-time education settings providing more than six to eight hours a week of tuition from late 2015 until 11 January 2016. The consultation caused many Christians to believe that church groups could be included in this registration process as holiday clubs or attending weekly clubs combined with Sunday church could fall under the definition of ‘intensive education over six hours per week’ on which the Government consulted.
Distorted consultation
The consultation was seen to be misleading in many places, with questions implying that laws do not already exist to protect children at risk from predatory adults or dodgy health and safety procedures. The details requested about the organisations represented by those filling in the consultation could have also provided the Government with a type of ‘register’ it was proposing to compile.
