Support home educators (homeschoolers) in England

GREAT NEWS - April 8, 2010

Last night in the House of Lords, the clause to regulate home educators was thrown out of the Children, Schools and Families Bill. So the status quo remains. Congratulations to all of you who have worked so hard to help make this happen!

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Please help us keep our freedom to home educate as we, and our children, see fit.

Please support us in petitioning the Prime Minister of Great Britain to reject the recommendations of the Report to the Secretary of State on the Review of Elective Home Education in England by Graham Badman.This report is a totally disproportionate response to a 'perceived' problem full of unsubstantiated allegations that home educated children are more at risk of abuse than those at school. This simply is not true, as the report itself makes clear. Enacting the recommendations in this report would establish the state as “parent of first resort”, even though current legislation makes parents responsible for providing a suitable education for their children.

The report proposes to introduce monitoring and registration of home educators. Local officials would be given automatic access to private homes to interview children without their parents or any other trusted adult present. This is outrageous and a serious challenge to civil liberties. Registration may be refused or revoked on safeguarding grounds, though so far it is unclear what these grounds may be and Badman in his report stated that such grounds could be “any other concerns” that the local official had. Under such conditions, “registration” could really mean “permission” especially when home educators come up against inspectors who are anti-home education.

The proposals also introduce the need for the parent to submit an approved 12 month plan and for their child to “exhibit” at the end of the year that their plan has been successfully implemented. This will put an end to autonomous education/unschooling, as any such child-led philosophy would be decimated by having to implement such a structured scheme. This would also seriously curtail the flexibility that many structured home educators enjoy.

Across many countries there seems to be an attempt to undermine home education and to make sure that all children receive the state’s approved version of education, Sweden is moving to ban home education and it is already against the law in Germany.

Please help us stop this happening in England. This is becoming a global problem for home educators/homeschoolers. Let us unite and say with one big voice, “enough is enough!"