MP’s to hold enquiry into Badman Home Education review

Back already…can’t seem to leave this blogging thing alone…see this important piece in Children and Young people now…

Happy New Year…EYFS parliamentary e-petition

I’m going to sign off from this blog over Christmas. Back in the new year with renewed vigour (I hope)…

Don’t forget to sign the parliamentary e-petition  (see the link on the right)…

Home Education Petition Record

Yesterday’s home education petition handover was a record. To read the Sky News report click here. According to Sky News: Mr Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) told MPs: “If enacted, the Government’s proposals will for the first time in our history tear away from parents and give to the state the responsibility for a child’s education.”

These issues are clearly a matter of concern for all of us, whether or not we home educate.

Jemmo contacted this blog via the comments box and said:

 ”Someone has done some counting:117 Petitions were presented tonight, of which 55 presenting MPs gave the total signature count

The grand total was 2052 signatures from just those 55 petitions. And there are plenty more to come!”

Home Education Petition Handover

According to the web site of Graham Stuart M.P. :

“A total of 74 MPs from across the three main parties are set to present more than 120 petitions containing thousands of signatures to Parliament tonight (Tuesday) opposing Government plans to bring in strict registration and monitoring of home educated children, thanks to Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart”.

For updates click here.

Historic Home Education Petition and EYFS

There are some simple yet important links between grass roots home education movements and movements which oppose the compulsory sixty-nine EYFS learning and development targets. These are practical and philosophical.

 Firstly, home educators may sometimes choose to place one or more of their children (part-time perhaps) in the care of a childminder. Since childminders are obliged to conform to the EYFS targets (unless that is they have secured an exemption, a process which is difficult and lengthy) the learning and development requirements would have an impact on them.  

Secondly, I’ve heard from some parents whose children have started mainstream school that they would like to stay in touch with home education networks in case school doesn’t work out for them. “To hit the ground running” as it were. Regardless of whether our children attend mainsteam school or not it seems the issue of  freedom in education affects all of us.

This week I became aware of a historically important home education petition. Here is some background information about it which is also available at this link. Graham Stuart M.P is due to hand over the petition next Tuesday on the floor of the House at 8.p.m. See this link to access Graham Stuart’s website.

Freedom for Family Education – Because Families Raise Children

More information about the Petition to Parliament

A Bill with a clause about changing the law on home education is expected to be introduced to Parliament via the Queen’s Speech on November 18th. Parliamentary debates on the Bill after the Second Reading could be in early December.

In response, Graham Stuart MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Home Education has offered to organise a Petition to Parliament opposing the Badman recommendations which Members of Parliament will take to Westminster in early December.

A number of MPs have told us that Petitions to Parliament are much more effective than Downing Street online petitions. The Petitions to Parliament are taken by MPs to Westminster and are recorded in Hansard.

The key thing is the number of constituencies where a Petition to Parliament is signed, rather than getting a huge number of signatories from any one constituency. The people who sign the Petition have to live in the local constituency (though they do not have to be UK or EU citizens) and put their names and addresses, but they do not necessarily have to be home educators. There are no age restrictions on who can sign.

The Petition of Persons resident in x constituency…declares that they are concerned about the recommendations of the Badman Report, which suggests closer monitoring of home educators, including a compulsory annual registration scheme and right of access to people’s homes for local authority officials; further declares that the petitioners believe the recommendations are based on a review that was extremely rushed, failed to give due consideration to the evidence, failed to ensure that the data it collected were sufficiently robust, and failed to take proper account of the existing legislative framework.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families either not to bring forward, or to withdraw, proposed legislative measures providing for tighter registration and monitoring of children educated at home in the absence of a thorough independent inquiry into the condition and future of elective home education in England; but instead to take the steps necessary to ensure that the existing Elective Home Education Guidelines for Local Authorities are properly implemented, learning from current best practice, in all local authorities in England.

Head’s propose alternative to Sats

I’m including this link on Sats here. Some of the parents I’ve talked to have older children and I hope will be interested in this piece. Click here.

Will your child meet the Early Years Foundation Stage 69 Learning and Development Targets?

This short post doesn’t fit in to any particular category – but it’s something I wanted to put on record and share with other parents who might be reading this blog (and indeed teachers, F/friends and anyone else who may be interested in early years education). By now, I know that with a growing readership several parents at our own school will be taking in this information too. Thanks for your time everyone.

I’ve been to a few public gatherings recently where I’ve had the opportunity to speak about the sixty-nine early years foundation stage framework learning and development targets and the fact that we are the first parents in the U.K. (I believe) to have applied (and been refused) an exemption for these.

Of course after you’ve spoken about this – it’s important to be around to listen to what others have to say and engage with the reactions that people have and to answer questions.  You often learn a lot from what other people are saying. Many people (particularly grandparents I’ve met who remember some of the freedoms children used to have) are very supportive. With others it takes time to reach an understanding.

One kindly person  I met asked me with a sympathetic and genuinely caring expression on their face: “Was I concerned about my child’s ability to meet the sixty-nine targets?”. It is fair to say I didn’t understand this person’s question and I think I said that our child is a “complete star” at home and at school. And that’s really true. My sympathetic ‘friend’ in response didn’t understand my reaction in the first instance either…

After some reflection and conversation with other friends I realised that some people might actually be thinking I am an overly anxious parent (that’s a terrible label to use, I feel – but I hope readers understand it is a kind of shorthand which helps me express something important).

At the risk of being accused of too much navel-gazing -  I can honestly say I worry too much about many things (climate change, what the government is doing to education, the recession …to name just a few examples) – but I don’t worry about my child and her achievements. The reason for this is, quite simply – I have (a mother’s?) complete faith in her.

I honestly don’t care if my child wants to be a carpenter(an honourable and I believe potentially lucrative profession nowadays) or strives towards several PhD’s in later life. The main thing to me  is that my child grows up happy, loved, safe, and secure. A certain amount of money and skills will be necessary for my child to do this,  that is true. But you can’t buy true friends with money anyway, you can only buy ‘hangers-on’ as someone said to me recently.

So, I’m writing this post because it suddenly occurred to me that some people  might have gained the wrong impression from our exemptions process. Nope, as I said, there are many things that I am overly anxious about in life – the effects of the compulsory sixty-nine learning and development targets on ALL children being one of them.

  But my ‘upset’ and sorrow about the continuing existence of these targets arises from the potential damage which I believe these compulsory targets are in danger of doing to ALL children. It is true that I often encounter this sense of sorrow at my child’s school. But that’s because I have done my absolute utmost to fight the imposition of these targets and I wish there were two of me to do more. I am convinced that in just a few years politicians will be openly admitting that what they have done was ill-advised. In the meantime though, parents and children like mine have to deal with the consequences of their mistakes every single day.

It is this concern which prompts me to continue to make a stand here with this blog. The exemption application was part of that process.

  I am not alone in my concern as many early years practitioners hold similar views. The record set straight…? This is not about one particular child, this is about all children.

Please consider signing the parliamentary petition. Click on the link at the top of the page on the right.

The Archbishop of Canterbury on children’s lives today

I can’t remember the last time I sat down and read a whole book (many of us with small children will be in a similar space, I’m sure). 

Dr. Richard House (Professor of Roehampton University and author of many dozens of publications on child psychology and therapeutic approaches) was the first person to sign my parliamentary petition. 

The least I can do is to sit down with his latest missive and digest it. His latest  book is called Childhood, Well-being and a Therapeutic Ethos…and I ordered it yesterday. The blurb says:

“All is clearly not well with children’s well-being in the Anglo-Saxon West, as witnessed by a steady stream of research reports that place children’s well-being in the UK and the USA very near, if not at, the bottom of international tables. This mounting cultural and political concern for children’s well-being has been buttressed by high-profile media interest in the “toxic childhood” theme popularized by author Sue Palmer, and highlighted in the Open Letter published by the Daily Telegraph; and the chapters in this important new
book arose directly from the addresses given by prominent Open Letter signatories to an expert seminar organized by Roehampton University’s Research Centre for Therapeutic Education in December 2006.

The Archbishop of Canterbury wrote the forward to the book. Rowan Williams describes what is currently happening in our culture:

‘No-one can now ignore the fact that a serious debate about the welfare of children has at last begun in our society. And, appropriately, it has started to open up a wider debate about the nature of learning and even the nature of human maturity. The essays in this collection are significant not only for what they say about childhood but for what they invite us to think about human growth and wellbeing in general.’

- Dr Rowan Williams, The Archbishop of Canterbury

Response from Sarah in the comments box (Early Years Foundation Stage Learning and Development Requirements)

I’ve lifted Sarah’s response out of the comments box. (Comments are not always easily visible – look for the word Comments in bold after the headline of each post) Thanks very much Sarah. Here it is:

“Keep at it!  Your refusal to lie down and let things happen without a fight is an inspiration.  Loved your responses to that questionnaire.”

Thanks very much for the feedback.

Best

Frances  (Laing)

First parent applies for parental exemption to the Early Years Foundation Stage Learning and Development Requirements for their child

Just caught up with a link to this interview I gave to James Tweed Childcare journalist about our experiences as the first parents in the U.K. to apply for a parental exemption. Follow this link:

For our statement on the refusal, click here.