At the heart of any successful support for our children’s future wellbeing are consistent good relationships, not only for our children, but also when dealing with third parties
who have a legitimate interest in their welfare. ‘Regulation impacts on child wellbeing and…home educators take different motivational postures based on a range of factors, of which their relationship with the regulator is one.’ (Krogh and Liberto, 2021) Legislation provides public bodies with a measure of legitimate interest in the welfare of our children and relationships between home educating families and public bodies have been increasingly fraught over the last decade, with mutual distrust being evident. The recently published report from the Education Select Committee has not helped. At Education Otherwise we firmly reject adversarial approaches, the narrative must change. We must build a mutually trusting and respectful future for all home educating families. To do otherwise would not be in the interest of our children. Support is key; parents want to provide a suitable education for their children and education staff can and want to support those parents to do so. What has not been available to date, is information about what support parents would welcome and how providing that support would raise mutual trust and respectful engagement between education staff and home educating families. This report goes a long way to providing this information. We very much hope that public bodies will welcome this report and we in turn, welcome any opportunity to build positive relationships with those public bodies.
