School nurses are not just for schools and Education Otherwise has been working with two superb school nurses to ensure that home educating families can learn about the service and how it operates. Jenni and Lily work in Warwickshire, but all school, nursing services should offer the same services and the same level of data […]
Relationships between Portsmouth City Council and home educating families broke down in 2020 to the point that a Judicial review was brought by a home educating parent. This report examines relationships between those parents and the Council, finding that home educating families considered their relationships with the council to be founded on fear and intimidation. […]
Despite home educated children being at no greater safeguarding risk than other children, this research finds that media rhetoric is fueling calls for strict monitoring of those children, whilst self-perpetuating concerns in respect of their safeguarding. This in turn leads to unwarranted pressure on children’s social services resources and on home educating families, who face […]
Reports often describes home educated children as “invisible and isolated”, leading to safeguarding risks. This research finds home educated children to be disproportionately scrutinised, being approximately twice as likely to be referred to Social Services than school children and children under 5 years old. Despite this higher referral rate, this scrutiny is significantly less likely […]
What is ‘Kit’ The ‘kit’ award is based on an education officer we call ‘Kit’, because we believe that every education officer who comes into contact with home educating parents should be like Kit. Kit could be any man or woman in the role, but what makes Kit stand out, is that home educating families […]
Naughty Auty is a delightful short story of an autistic little boy who could not cope with nursery school and who then finds happiness and contentment in home education. Naughty Auty is beautifully, but simplistically presented. The illustrations based on figures consistent with a young child’s first attempts at drawing people are charmingly attractive. This […]
UPDATE: Applications close on Friday 2nd July at 4pm Dear member, It would be difficult to overlook the fact that the number of children who have been and continue to experience some form of home education has increased significantly over the past 18 months. This has meant that the demands on Education Otherwise have increased […]
At its starkest, many people don’t understand home education, don’t understand why parents would not send the child to school, and some just do not know it is a legal and valid option. Increasingly, the narrative is that the home educated child is at increased educational or welfare risk. Increasingly, the societal message from […]
Extracts from the full report Background The Education Act 1996 s7 places a duty upon a parent of a child of compulsory school age to ‘cause their child’ to receive suitable education. ‘Suitable education’ means ‘efficient full-time education suitable to (the child’s) age, ability and aptitude and to any special educational needs (the […]
Today, a home educating mum in Portsmouth has taken one step further toward challenging Portsmouth City Council’s (PCC) draconian and unlawful attitude toward home educating families. What is this about? PCC has the highest number of S437 notices (in proportion to home educated children) issued of any local authority in England […]
