Sunday 30 May 2010

School Attendance Orders; Part 2

Anonysue raised so many interesting points in answer to my post yesterday, that I thought it worth answering them in detail. Her first point concerned the action taken by local authorities if parents refuse to provide any information about their child's education. She cites the case of Philips V Brown. For those unfamiliar with the case, the background is as follows. In the Summer of 1977 Leeds local education authority became aware that a child called Oak Reah was not attending school. They contacted his parents and asked them what sort of education he was receiving and they more or less told the local authority to mind their own business. After a while, Leeds issued a School Attendance Order and then prosecuted Mr Philips, the father and Ms Reah, the mother. Oak Reah's parents mounted an ingenious defence to this. They argued that the local education authority was wrong to issue the School Attendance Order in the first place, because it could not possibly have appeared to them that Oak was not receiving a suitable education; since they had no information at all about him, how could it appear to them that he wasn't receiving a suitable education?

Although the magistrate decided against them, Oak's parents sought a judicial review of his decision and in 1980 this was heard. Lord Donaldson decided that the LEA was quite justified in making enquiries of the parents and that although they were entitled to refuse to give any information about their son's education, the LEA might then very well decide to issue an SAO. Since then, the parents of home educated children have been well advised to respond to informal enquiries from their local authority.

These days, parents are usually a little more cunning than Oak Reah's mother and father. For those who do not wish either to be served with an SAO or receive a visit from a local authority officer, the most popular gambit is to supply the local authority with an 'Educational Philosophy'. Such a document is particularly favoured by autonomously educating parents. The difficulty with such evidence from the point of view of the local authority is that it does not actually tell them what the child is learning or even doing. It is easy enough to download an Ed Phil, as they are know for short, from an Internet site and then simply to personalise it. The end result might say something along the lines of:

Our approach to John's education is in the main opportunity based,
child led and very flexible. It is impossible to provide a timetable or to
specify in advance which activities we will shall be undertaking.
We work to keep a good balance between child led, informal learning
and a more directed approach. In general, it is our aim to facilitate
learning through John's interests rather than artificially to contrive
situations to reach pre-determined outcomes. We are always vigilant for any gaps which should arise in our provision and ready, willing and able to make the necessary adjustments to fill them.


All that such a document tells the local authority is that an adult is capable of downloading an educational philosophy from Home Education UK and then personalising it. It is impossible to work out from an Ed Phil of this sort whether or not the child really is receiving an education. Sometimes it is accompanied by photographs of the child doing something vaguely educational or a diary detailing all the educational activities. Here again, there is a problem. Jean Turnbull, who used to monitor elective home education for Essex County Council, tells of visiting a family who claimed in a letter that their child used the local library regularly for research and so on. When she actually visited the home and spoke to the child, she discovered that the kid didn't even know where the library was; much less was she a regular visitor there. Other local authority officers report similar experiences with children whom the parents have claimed to be learning French, studying music or working on advanced mathematics. In other words, there is a suspicion that some parents just put down whatever they feel will keep the local authority at bay.

What then are the local authority to do in such circumstances? Often, they have not been given enough information for them to judge whether the child is really being educated. They cannot issue a School Attendance Order, because there is no evidence that the child is not receiving a suitable education. All they have are vague suspicions and a sense of unease. Reading the educational philosophy above, it is hard to know what is actually happening with this child. He could be wheelchair bound and completely non-verbal. On the other hand he could be an infant prodigy. He may be studying for GCSE's, but on the other hand his parents may be using him as a sex slave. One simply cannot tell from the Ed Phil, photographs and diary and yet in many cases this is all the information which parents are prepared to provide.

It is situations like this which local authority officers face every day with children who have been deregistered from school. No doubt most parents who decline visits and send in waffle like that above are actually providing some sort of education. It is equally certain that others are not providing any education at all. There will almost definitely be others who are actively harming their children. It is quite impossible to determine from examining evidence of the sort outlined above and without making further enquiries, which families belong in which group. Should we issue all the families with School Attendance Orders? Or should we simply take everybody's word for what they are doing, in the sure and certain knowledge that this means that a number of children will remain uneducated and a few of them also abused or neglected? It was this dilemma which the Children, Schools and Families Bill was designed to resolve.

10 comments:

  1. Simon wrote,
    "the most popular gambit is to supply the local authority with an 'Educational Philosophy'. Such a document is particularly favoured by autonomously educating parents. The difficulty with such evidence from the point of view of the local authority is that it does not actually tell them what the child is learning or even doing. "

    If that were the recommendation I would agree with you, this does not provide evidence of a suitable education. However, the recommendations (EO, HE-UK, etc) are that parents send a philosophy (so that the LA can tell if the education is achieving what it sets out to achieve), a list of resources you have access to along with a report on how the education has worked in practice over the previous year, either through a diary type approach, by providing samples of work, photos of activities, etc.

    http://www.education-otherwise.org/edphil.htm#howwrite

    "When she actually visited the home and spoke to the child, she discovered that the kid didn't even know where the library was; much less was she a regular visitor there. "

    So some people lie. Some people also physically abuse their children. Does this mean that every child should be physically examined by a doctor regularly to check that this isn't happening? Some people lie in their tax returns, yet not everyone is visited by a tax inspector.

    "What then are the local authority to do in such circumstances? Often, they have not been given enough information for them to judge whether the child is really being educated. They cannot issue a School Attendance Order, because there is no evidence that the child is not receiving a suitable education. "

    Of course they can. Not providing enough evidence is the same as providing none and Lord Donaldson's ruling would apply.

    "He may be studying for GCSE's, but on the other hand his parents may be using him as a sex slave."

    The same is true of children in school. The majority of children who are abused never disclose the abuse and it is never discovered by others. Plenty of children are failed academically at school. Why should home educators be held to higher standards or a higher level of suspicion?

    "It was this dilemma which the Children, Schools and Families Bill was designed to resolve. "

    It would have failed. The majority of abusive parents would have been too clever to be caught by an annual visit of a couple of hours (as endless visits by trained SS to problem families show). It would have caused more harm than good through false positives and stress. Yes, I know you wouldn't find a visit from an official to be stressful but plenty do. I'm surprised you don't see this stress in action during your work for the charity.

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  2. Oddly enough, the families with whom I work do not seem to find the visits of officials at all stressful. If I suggest such visits from others by saying that somebody from social services, Occupational Therapy, the education department or whatever might be able to help them and would they like me to fix up a visit. the invariable response is to say 'Yes, please'. I have never found peope to be at all opposed to this. I work with families containing children on the autistic spectrum and have never noticed these children becoming distressed about strangers entering the home either. It makes me think that this might be a particular, home educating thing.

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  3. "If I suggest such visits from others by saying that somebody from social services, Occupational Therapy, the education department or whatever might be able to help them and would they like me to fix up a visit. the invariable response is to say 'Yes, please'. I have never found peope to be at all opposed to this."

    Yes, I suppose the situation is different. These are people coming to the house to offer help rather than to judge and possibly decide that the child should go to school against their wishes, so probably not a good comparison. Maybe a more accurate comparison would be DLA appeal tribunals. Now I know for a fact that people find these stressful!

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  4. That's quite true, of course; DLA appeals tend to be very stressful! That's because a good deal is riding on the outcome, i.e. the difference between making ends meet for a family and being in serious financial difficulties. All events like that which take place in a formal atmosphere away from a parent's home and with everybody wearing suits and collars and ties are usually uncomfortable affairs for the parents.

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  5. Didn't your LA inspectors wear a suit and tie? We had two in suits and ties along with the obligatory briefcases. Personally I find people like that visiting my home more stressful than visiting the same people in their offices. I also found home education visits more stressful than a DLA tribunal. The DLA tribunal affected only our income, the home education visit potentially affected our lifestyle choices.

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  6. This is an interesting point. I tend to feel more in control when things are taking place in my own home. I can say, for instance, 'Please don't do that' or 'I think we'll end it here'. When you are in a formal setting, perhaps an office in the town hall or something, this can be more tricky. After all, it's their territory and to a certain extent you are playing by their rules. I suppose it is simply a matter of personal feeling though. You evidently feel more at ease in their offices; I feel more relaxed in my own home.

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  7. "I tend to feel more in control when things are taking place in my own home. I can say, for instance, 'Please don't do that' or 'I think we'll end it here'. When you are in a formal setting, perhaps an office in the town hall or something, this can be more tricky."

    Maybe it's a male-female thing? I would feel more confident about walking out of an office - walking away from an argument or confrontation of some kind, than standing up to someone and asking them to leave my home. I would not like that sort of unpleasantness and upset in my home in front of my children so I think I'm more likely to put up with it and then feel bad about it later.

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  8. Good point, actually. I hadn't thought of it that way, but you may well be right. I don't actually make a habit of ordering people from my home, but I suppose the knowledge that I can do is reassuring and gives me a sense of power?

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  9. The main advantage of having the visit at home is if you can set up a video camera to record the whole visit. After all, if the inspector has nothing to hide then he's got nothing to fear, right?

    I'd still go visit them elsewhere, once they've worked out we officially exist, as opposed to the unofficial regular meetings that local home educators have with our LA. It'll be interesting to see what they think of the new regime in Westminster.

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  10. Funny thing is: I went to school with and was a classmate of Oak Reah..... in The Netherlands. His famnily emigrated to the Netherlands somewhere in either 1981 or 1982 and he was my classmate for two years. His presence was actually a quality boost for our English lessons in the last two years of our primary school as we had to talk English to him, as he did not understand a word of Dutch in the beginning. We all got along pretty well and he was integrated into our class pretty quickly.

    If there were any reasons by his parents for Homeschooling him, they must have been based on either the system or the quality of the UK schooling at that time.

    As far as I know he still lives in the Netherlands, where he is a cook in or owner of a vegan restaurant.

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