A short(ish) thread on the bizarreness of the current "Covid fears driving rise in home education" narrative:
#FairHearing4HomeEd #HomeEdNotVulnerable #EHE #HomeEducation #HomeEd

Firstly, the suggestion seems to be that C19 is not a valid reason to home educate. It is perfectly valid, and entirely reasonable. Many people are concerned about transmission in schools & the effect on their kids & wider family. And these concerns are not being fully addressed.

Is it any wonder, then, that people are voting with their feet? These are not irrational parents who can’t be arsed to send their kids to school, but caring, conscientious parents trying to do what’s best for their family. They are not parents to be worried about.

Secondly, why should the reason for deregistering have any bearing on the success of a child’s home education? I know of HEors for whom HE was not the first choice, but it’s turned out to be hugely successful & beneficial to the whole family, and they wish they’d done it sooner.

Then there’s the talk of “vulnerable” children “falling off the radar”, which (sadly) seems to go hand-in-hand with discussions on EHE. Let’s look at the “vulnerable” bit first.

Children are not *made vulnerable* by virtue of being home educated. On the whole, these are NOT vulnerable children, but children of loving parents - who are making a difficult but considered decision for their child’s benefit.

That’s not to say that there will be NO vulnerable children in the EHE cohort, of course. But any such children were *already vulnerable* before the decision to HE, and so school & the LA are already aware of the issues there, and can offer support to those families.

Indeed, the LA offering support *where it is needed* is a far better use of their limited resources than the bureaucracy of a one-size-fits-all register.

Re. the proposed register, it’s worth noting (again) that every single child who is deregistered, for any reason, is already known to the LA, by virtue of them having previously been on a school roll. The LA *already have* exactly the information that is proposed for a register.

Which kind of covers the “falling off the radar” bit. These kids are all known to the LA, because the school has a legal duty to notify the LA when removing a name from the school roll. A register would give no additional information. Zero.

Lastly, what is the government’s fear here, really? Why is it seen as a bad thing that more parents are choosing home education? Are they really concerned about the individual children, or just the reflection on the school system?

As I see it, there are 3 possible outcomes for a child who is de-registered this year:
a) They return to school once the pandemic is over
b) They remain HE, because C19 was never the reason for HE
c) They remain HE, because they discover that actually HE works better for them.

I don’t see how any of these outcomes are negative *for the child*. For the school system, maybe, but not for the individual child. And that’s all we care about as parents, really. Our job is to do what’s best for our kids as individuals, and we just want to be free to do that.