Home educated children to get support from the government - DCSF press release

Schools Minister Diana Johnson has announced better access to qualifications and more support for home educated children with special educational needs (SEN), signalling the start of a new relationship between local authorities and families who choose to educate at home. Read the full press release here.

Key features of the new support package include:

1. More flexible access to public examinations and exam centres for home educated children, so their parents no longer have to rely on ad hoc arrangements with schools or colleges that can be a long way from home

2. More tailored support for home educated children with special educational needs

3. Better support for home educated young people who want to go to college

4. Improved access to music lessons, school libraries, work experience, sports and other specialist facilities in schools and colleges

5. A commitment from the Government to look at arrangements for flexi-schooling, so that home educated children can have the option to attend school on a part-time basis.

Chief Executive of National Children's Bureau Sir Paul Ennals said:

“Home educated children with special educational needs have long needed better support. I warmly welcome the measures announced today to improve the support available to these children".

A few months ago I stated that there is next to nothing that the LA can offer for my son that he needs or wants. Almost every service my son needs or wants can be obtained either from the AS and HE community, or it exists in the real world.

This entire support package looks suspicious and raises many questions.

1. Has the government really consulted HE families (especially those like mine with children who have SEN) to find out what services they want from local and national government?

2. Are there big catches with some of the services that will be offered?

3. Is it all part of a plan to try and return HE children to full time schooling by stealth?

4. Do government ministers realise that many of the problems that affect children with SEN magically vanish when children leave school and become HE?

I'm tempted to say that this announcement of a 'support' package has been deliberately timed to influence HE responses to the consultation. Some people in the AS community are quite positive about the 'support' package. A poster on another HE forum stated it is sugar coated poison.

There are several catches to it in practice. I will expose a few of them by clarifying what the key features of the new support package really mean.

More flexible access to public examinations and exam centres for home educated children, so their parents no longer have to rely on ad hoc arrangements with schools or colleges that can be a long way from home

Only the subjects and exams normally available to students who attend school full time will be available for HE children. Most GCSEs have a considerable coursework content which means that it is highly likely that HE children enrolled to take GCSEs at state schools will have to attend full time in Y11 in order to complete their coursework. Will schools allow HE children below Y11 to take GCSE exams or will that be unfair on those who attend full time?

It is highly unlikely that state schools will offer all examination IGCSEs to HE children unless they also offer them to students who attend full time. The main reason for this, apart from NC coursework requirements, is the extra admin duties and hassle involved with offering two types of exams.

More tailored support for home educated children with special educational needs

Exactly what support will be available for which types of SEN? Have any HE parents of children with SEN and the children themselves been asked by the LA what support and services they need AFTER embarking on HE? Are existing SEN support groups and sources of information outside of the school system and LA control insufficient in any way?

Better support for home educated young people who want to go to college

That will be useful in theory but it remains to be seen how it will pan out in practice? Concerns have circulated in the HE community that colleges might tighten admissions criteria for HE children - such as having to have 5 GCSEs if the facilities to take them at state schools becomes widespread, even if HE children effectively have to attend full time during Y11 to do the coursewok.

Improved access to music lessons, school libraries, work experience, sports and other specialist facilities in schools and colleges

Sounds very nice but what it really means are HE children attending the same lessons with students who attend school full time. See the flexi-schooling comment for more information. Another question is whether HE children will be allowed to participate in lessons for year groups above or below them that reflect their abilities, or will they only be allowed to participate in lessons for their year group? A more sensible move would be to allow HE children to access certain school facilities during evenings and weekends but this raises the issue of staff having to be employed (on overtime pay?) during these periods to offer services.

A commitment from the Government to look at arrangements for flexi-schooling, so that home educated children can have the option to attend school on a part-time basis.

The difficulties of imposing flexi-schooling are those associated with timetabling more than anything else. Flexi-schooled children who only attend lessons for a few subjects often have to go to school almost every day of the week even if it is just for an hour or so due to 'fragmented' timetables where the lessons they wish to attend are spread throughout the week rather than concentrated in a day. If a school has around 100 flexi-schooled children in different year groups who require lessons in different subjects then creating a timetable with a low degree of 'fragmentation' is next to impossible.