Dear Editor,
I am writing with respect to Nicola Laver’s piece on education at home, or as she or a sub-editor have inflated it, ‘Bill may force reporting on Sunday School attendance’ en February 2025.
The article states the bill’s aim is to improve the safeguarding of children and raise educational standards, neither of which should be controversial aspirations. However the article conveys quite a lot more ‘heat’ than ‘light’ on the subject by quoting from Christian Concern and Christian Institute personnel to give concerns over ‘echoes of totalitarian states’, a subheading which does not appear to be a quote from anywhere else in the article.
Fundamentally, local councils want to know that children are being appropriately educated and that there are safeguarding ‘eyes and ears’ over the children in their area. For the majority this is achieved by the pastoral care system within schools. For children in private homes this presents a greater challenge to assess their safety and the suitability of their education. For example, education that does not evidence teaching Maths and English would not be considered suitable.
The Sunday School reference is included because all people providing the child with education of some kind should be noted. This is helpful as the church should have a functioning safeguarding policy that can ensure that any such concerns can be reported to the local safeguarding board. This is not about making judgements on faith teaching but on the welfare of children, which is the paramount concern.
Claims that the 1989 Children Act already allows for the state to intervene if a child is suffering significant harm is the truth, but not the whole truth; professionals in schools, teachers in churches and other voluntary sector organisations are part of the helpful system that can notice or query potential harm. This is made much harder if a child has disappeared from view.
Can I suggest a way forward. The article mentions ‘home-education groups’ expressing shock at the bill. Could I urge such groups to meet with local safeguarding board officials to express their concerns so that they can exercise their right to educate children at home and help local authorities to fulfil their responsibilities over the welfare of children living in their area. Such an approach is not sensationalising the issue, but is seeking to address it for all parties. Christians who home educate fear nothing from a local authority seeking to satisfy themselves of the safeguarding oversight of children in their area. It would also pull out those very few but tragic cases where a child is withdrawn from school to then suffer abuse and neglect and possible death at home, as did Sara Sharif.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Whalley
Leicester
