Victory for home educators!!

Clause 26 of the CSF bill was thrown out in the House of Lords today during the wash-up period.

Badman's proposals to impose compulsory registration of home educators; having to plan a curriculum in advance for the next year; and the inspection and monitoring of home educated children, will NOT become law now. Home education as we know it is safe, for the time being.

Ed Balls expressed immense disappointment that his plans had been defeated. He said that he "will be campaigning to ensure that this Government is returned and that these measures do make it on the statute book in the first session of the new Parliament," so we really need Labour to LOSE the General Election.

Read the full news report here.

http://www.aspergersupport.org.uk/news/a23.html

Tonight we celebrate!

Absolutely magnificent. I only found out yesterday that we had won this battle. We're celebrating this weekend. The weather is lovely for a change.

Excellent news for home educating families A bloody nose for Badman and Balls

We're celebrating winning this battle. Only a few months ago I thought we wouldn't win as the government would deliberately try to somehow fast track the bill to ensure it became law before the general election because they knew that opposition was strong.

The AS side of things is very quiet about this landmark victory.

The silence is deafening!

I mentioned that HE families are celebrating the defeat of Badman and Balls over on the ASD forum but it doesn't appear to have made much impression. I used to be active on this forum a few years ago but I practically gave up last year due to problems at school being the main theme of most discussions and the excessively heavy handed behaviour of the moderators. I'm doubtful that the AS community, apart from a handful of tuned in individuals, really understood or appreciated the dangers of Clause 26.

There was a time when I used to read that forum. I gave up after realising that most discussions revolve around problems at school and it wasn't the place to find information and advice about HE. Do you have any idea who runs this forum? Is it in any way connected to the NAS?



You're probably right. Badman and the CSF bill appear to be under the radar of the AS community. Last August I met up with the parents of an 11 year old with AS who was going to be HE from September. When I introduced the Badman report into the conversion the parents didn't have a clue what I was talking about. They replied that nobody in their local AS group had ever mentioned Badman or the compulsory registration and monitoring proposals.

A whois search reveals that the domain is registered to Nigel Woodley. I have no idea who he is or whether he participates in the forum discussions. I don't think the forum is officially connected to the NAS. It appears to be an independent effort although its owners and moderators could be members of the NAS or sympathetic towards the aims of the NAS.

Thanks for this info.

There's another forum called ASD Friendly that has some active users who are very hostile towards HE.