Scots charity enquiries "skyrocket" as English home educators head for the Highlands

MEDIA INFORMATION FROM SCHOOLHOUSE HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
For immediate release, 2 August 2009

SCOTS CHARITY ENQUIRIES "SKYROCKET" AS ENGLISH HOME EDUCATORS HEAD FOR THE HIGHLANDS

England's loss will be Scotland's gain, says Schoolhouse

Scotland's national home education support organisation Schoolhouse has reported a dramatic increase in enquiries from English home educating families who are preparing to move north of the border following publication of a DCSF-commissioned report on elective home education by Graham Badman.

While the summer holiday period is usually less busy for the charity, enquiries from England are said to have "skyrocketed" since the report was published in June and its controversial proposals were accepted in full by English Children's Minister Ed Balls.

Schoolhouse spokesperson, Alison Preuss, said:

"Our volunteers have been dealing with a growing number of enquiries from England since the home education review was first announced in January, but these have skyrocketed in recent weeks. The latter half of June saw a fourfold increase when compared with the same period last year. We are not only being asked about the law relating to home education in Scotland, but about the political climate, transport links, housing, employment and business opportunities by parents who are making plans to move to Scotland as the direct result of stigmatisation of home educators by the UK Government.

"These are parents who are not prepared to sacrifice their children's right to a suitable education, nor abdicate their legal duty to provide it, on the altar of DCSF dogma. As law abiding citizens, they are outraged at the prospect of having their private family homes routinely invaded and their children interrogated alone by strangers, which is what the Badman report has proposed and Ed Balls has so enthusiastically welcomed."

Meanwhile, the Scottish Government has confirmed that it has no plans to undertake a similar review in Scotland since its own statutory guidance on home education, issued in 2008, has proved both helpful and workable. That guidance was informed by a comprehensive consultation exercise and included recommendations from the Scottish Consumer Council (now Consumer Focus Scotland) which had undertaken independent research into relationships between home educating families and local authorities.

Comparing the approaches of the Scottish and UK Governments, Ms Preuss said:

"Schoolhouse is satisfied that the right balance has been struck with the Scottish guidance. We are disappointed that the DCSF made no effort to learn from the Scottish experience before labelling home educators in England as likely abusers and traumatising their children. There is no evidence of a link between home education and child abuse, although some local authorities still seem desperate to discredit home education while doing precisely nothing to deal with bullying and abuse in their own schools.

"It is time to drop the hysteria and accept that the vast majority of parents, whether schooling or home educating in England or Scotland, have their children's best interests at heart. Local authorities on both sides of the border should surely be focusing their increasingly stretched resources on the protection of children who are at risk, rather than seeking to interfere in the lives of ordinary law abiding families who have simply chosen to reject their schools."

An unprecedented backlash from home educators has resulted in the announcement of select committee inquiry into the Badman review. The most contentious government claim, that home education could be used as a cover for child abuse and neglect, has meanwhile been demolished by AHEd, Schoolhouse's counterpart south of the border, whose members collected child abuse statistics from every English local authority using the Freedom of Information Act. Analysis of the data effectively demonstrated that home educating parents are far less likely to abuse than schooling parents.

Ms Preuss said:

"It will be a sad day for English citizens if they are to be persecuted for choosing to care for and educate their own children in accordance with a long established legal right. If MPs do not reject these draconian proposals when they come before the UK Parliament, Schoolhouse anticipates an influx of home educating refugees from south of the border. England's loss will be Scotland's gain as we have plenty of room for well educated, motivated and enterprising people who place the same high value on freedom that we do."

ENDS

For more information, please contact Alison Preuss on 0772 962 3532 or at media@schoolhouse.org.uk.

Now reported in the Guardian. Does anybody know who Techla Wood is?

Yes, I am she - long term home educator, one of the founders and former secretary of AHEd and creator/owner of the facebook group Stop The UK Government Stigmatising Home Educators.

Why do you ask?

Just curious.

I'm not really involved in the political campaigns that have erupted in past couple of years. I am intrigued by people from the 'higher echelons' of the HE movement who have a finger on the pulse to what is happening in government circles, and the people who are tireless heavyweight political campaigners who are sometimes given media coverage. My only HE activism has been trying to persuade parents of children with AS to consider HE at AS group meetings but converts have been few in number.

I could be totally wrong but in my years of HE I have not found many HE parents of children with SEN who withdrew their children from school because of failure to meet their SEN who have entered the 'higher echelons' of the HE movement. I don't think it is directly due to their children's SEN taking up all of their free time. Most HE parents of children with SEN who withdrew their children from school are in a similar position to myself. They are simply middle class individuals concerned about their children's welfare and education who have little prior experience of political campaigning and are more interested in providing a good education for their children above and beyond anything else. If there were far fewer problems with their children at school then it is highly likely that they would not be involved in the HE movement at all.