More about making money from home education

A couple of days ago I posted about a local authority which is trying to get home educating parents to pay for courses at a further education college and suggested that it was an attempt to make money from home education. Commenting there, somebody has objected to the choice of the witnesses who gave evidence to the select committee on the same grounds; that they stand to make money from home education and should therefore have declared an interest in the proceedings from the start.

Now I must choose my words very carefully here and even so I shall probably be accused of being as stupid or mad as Peter Williams! After all, when I made the completely truthful and wholly unexceptionable remark that the majority of the eight witnesses were not technically home educators, it caused considerable annoyance. Since five of the eight do not have children aged between five and sixteen, that is to say of ‘compulsory school age, I cannot see how anybody can fail to agree that this forms a majority, but we shall let that pass for now. What of the suggestion that has been made to the effect that some also have a financial interest in home education, in particular  being paid by local authorities for various services? Did they form a majority of the witnesses? Did five of the eight witnesses have such interests? This is a curious point and one which did not occur to me before the anonymous comments on my last post. Let us consider the matter.

Since the object of this session of the select committee was to examine the support offered by local authorities to home educators, its form and extent, then it is probably true that anybody being paid to provide such support should have stated the fact clearly at the beginning. Such people are partial and we are entitled to weigh their evidence more carefully than those who do not stand to make anything from the recommendations of the committee.

Two of the witnesses, Ann Brown and Hannah Flowers, certainly have no financial interest in home education. What of the others? Julie Barker makes no secret of her work with and for a local authority. She is open about this. So too is Alison Sauer, who with her husband runs a consultancy which charges local authorities for providing services. Fiona Nicholson also runs a consultancy and is pretty active in attending meetings and running a website. I have no idea if she ever receives payment for any of this, but I am pretty sure that she hopes to; she wants to make home education her career. Zena Hodges is a trustee and ‘support adviser’ for the Home Education Centre in South West England. I have a suspicion that she is paid for her services, at any rate the constitution of the Home Education Centre specifically allows for this. It says that the committee members may make payments to themselves, provided that the payment is for skills and experience needed by the group. This is so neatly worded that I would be very surprised indeed if Zena is not receiving money in this way, although I am of course open to correction on this point. Jane Lowe has written a book on home education and is a trustee and also apparently a teacher with the Home Education Advisory Service.

It is fairly plain that at least half and probably the majority of the  witnesses called to give evidence to the select committee have or hope in the future to have some financial benefit from their association with a local authority in connection with home education. This was not obvious to the members of the committee and means that they probably did not realise that most of the people apparently speaking objectively about the relationship between home educators and local authorities stood to gain financially in some way if local authorities were advised to provide further services in this field. This does not of course mean that those who gave evidence were on the make! I don’t believe this for a moment. It does mean though that the proceedings were misleading and not transparent.

Another unfortunate circumstance was that the Chair of the select committee, Graham Stuart, has a close relationship with one of the witnesses, Alison Sauer. I do not, I hasten to add, mean a close personal relationship; this thought is almost unbearable! No, I mean that they have for several years been on first name terms and have collaborated in the past on a project which aimed to alter the relationship of home educating parents with local authorities. This was not made clear at the beginning of the session either.

The end result of all this is that anybody watching the evidence being given to the committee on September 5th would not know that the Chair of the select committee and most of the witnesses had various interests in either maintaining or overturning the status quo. This is not a good state of affairs; it does not make for openness.

A man of influence

For several years, the idea floated around some sections of the British home educating community that I was a man of great and malign influence; that I had the ear of Graham Badman, was able to muscle my way into giving evidence to select committees and I don’t know what else. Such rumours were sedulously spread by the likes of Maire Stafford and Mike Fortune-Wood. Somebody commented here to this effect only a few days ago. Alas, it is not true, but today I want to look at a man who really does have such influence, somebody able to send civil servants at the Department for Education scuttling off to do his bidding. He is a modest man, too modest and retiring perhaps, and I feel that his role in manipulating things behind the scenes has not been sufficiently celebrated. Step forward our very own Mike Fortune-Wood. What? You laugh? You doubt my word? Mike Fortune-Wood, the scourge of the educational establishment, playing kiss-in-the-ring with the Department for Education? Let us see.

When the ‘new guidelines’ for home education were being drawn up in 2010 and 2011, nobody would admit to being involved. One story was that they were a solo production of Alison Sauer’s; no more than a money making dodge by her. Mike Fortune-Wood in particular, denied flatly that he had anything at all to do with them. He said this several times on the HE-UK list. In fact of course, as he has recently admitted, he was  up to his ears in the business. He and a group of other well known home educators, both here and abroad, were busily engaged in trying to frame a document which would have had a profound effect on every home educating parent in the country. Mike Fortune-Wood’s reticence was understandable. He wished to run with the fox and hunt with the hounds. If the enterprise was favourably received, he would bashfully step forward and receive the plaudits. In the event, it was roundly condemned by most home educators and so he was able to disown it and pretend he had had no part in it. This is known as ‘plausible deniability’; a way of oiling out of responsibility for one’s actions.

The legend arose that only rough drafts were made and that the document would have been put out to consultation with all home educating parents before it was finalised. This was untrue. Have a look again at what it has been alleged was merely a rough draft:



https://www.box.com/shared/6lk1826muy




Clearly, it is nothing of the sort. Alison Sauer, Mike Fortune-Wood and so on put a good deal of work into this and the fact that it was regarded not as a rough draft but a finished product may readily be seen by looking at the notes in red on pages 69, 70 and 87.  These notes indicate the only sections on which work still needed to be done.

The comments are addressed to Graham Stuart, Chair of the Education Committee, and they are staggering in their implications. On page 69, we read:



This section needs completing by someone in the DfE with more knowledge than I have of the process



So the members of the group producing these guidelines felt confident enough to direct that civil servants should work on this draft and follow their instructions? On page 87, we see that Alison Sauer, Tania Berlow, Kelly Green and Mike Fortune-Wood have run out of energy and hope to pass the final stages on to others; again to civil servants from the Department for Education. We read:



I’m sure you can find someone to do this one Graham!



Someone? A friend of Graham Stuart’s? A member of his family? No, a civil servant of course, you fool!

It is not to be wondered at that Mike Fortune-Wood was not overly keen to have all this come to light. For years he represented himself as the mortal foe of local authorities and government departments dealing with education and now we find him on perfectly amiable terms with them and expecting civil servants to do his research for him! I have been fortunate enough to be forwarded an archive of the work undertaken on the so-called ‘new guidelines’, which show in detail the involvement of all concerned. I may, in the public interest, put this up here in the future. In the meantime, a big round of applause for Mike Fortune-Wood; a true man of influence in the places that really matter, such as the Department for Education.

'School-at-Home'

Yesterday I posted a light-hearted and purely personal account of my daughter’s early childhood. This was in response to several requests from people commenting here, that it would be nice to get away from ideology and talk about my own methods of home education. Almost incredibly, this innocent tale of visiting zoos and going down mines was interpreted by one reader as a coded attack on the idea of autonomous education! Perhaps I should abandon the idea of a chatty and non-confrontational approach here and resume the normal, endless and sterile  debates on ideology? We shall see.


It is often suggested that those not enamoured of autonomous home education are in the habit of misrepresenting this pedagogic technique. Some readers, principally those who have just arrived on planet Earth or who have been in a coma since 2009, might be surprised to learn that I have myself been accused of this! This topic has been pretty well worked to death and so I want today to look at how structured and methodical home education is caricatured and mocked by those unable or unwilling to undertake it.

When it became known that Graham Stuart, Chair of the Education Committee, was involved in drawing up new guidelines in elective home education, there was great unease among many home educating parents in this country. So vociferous was the opposition, that the idea was eventually dropped. Still, looking at the guidelines which were produced gives us an insight into the thought processes of many high profile autonomous home educators, both in this country and abroad. The guidelines may be found here:



https://www.box.com/shared/6lk1826muy
                                                                                                                                                                       



Now there was at first an attempt in some quarters to portray this document as being produced solely by Alison Sauer. It gradually came to light that many other well known home educators had also had a hand in it, people like Tania Berlow, Mike Fortune-Wood, Imran Shah and Kelly Green in Canada. That being so, it gives us an insight into the prejudices which afflict quite a few home educators in this country; especially with regard to structured home education.

Let us look at page 64 of this document. We find a section headed School-at-Home. The very fact that this ludicrous expression is used in what it was hoped would become an official  document tells us much about the mentality of some home educators. It is perfectly fair to talk of ‘autonomous educators’ because this is actually an expression used and accepted by them. People call themselves autonomous home educators. I have never in my life and nor I suspect has anybody else, ever heard anybody call themselves ‘school-at-home educators‘. This is because ‘school-at-home’ is a pejorative phrase dreamed up by those who are opposed to the  structured teaching of home educated children. ‘Autonomous home educator’ is a neutral term; ;school-at-home’ is a sneering and disapproving expression coined by those who think that this is the best way to describe structured home education. That this is so can easily be tested. Google around a bit and you will soon find people who are happy to call themselves ‘autonomous’ or ‘autonomous educators’. Now try and find anybody who calls themselves ‘a school-at-home type” or claims to do ‘school-at-home’. You will find nobody, because this is not a real description of any kind of home education. It is always used by those opposed to an type of home education which they do not themselves practice.

We are told, also on page 64,  that these ‘school-at-home’ parents use a curriculum to cater for the whole of their children’s education. This is a ridiculous idea. I would be very keen to hear of such a parent. No home educating parent relies on a curriculum to cater for the whole of a child’s education; the very idea is a nonsense. Perhaps readers could tell us of any such parent? As God he knows, I was a fanatically structured home educator who worked his child hard, but the curriculum occupied only 10% or 20% of my daughter’s education. As the post yesterday showed, most of her education was not via any curriculum but was derived from real-life experiences. The same is true of all other structured home educators whom I have known.

What about the idea that, ‘Families maintain a clear distinction between education and leisure, and often keep the school rhythm of terms and holidays’. Who does this? Has anybody ever known a home educating parent who says to her child, ‘Oh, we won’t be learning anything next week, Jimmy; the schools have a half-term holiday.’ Completely grotesque. Of course many home educating families whose children have friends at school might make opportunities for their children to meet up with those on holiday from school, but this has nothing to do with a particular type of home education.

I find it fascinating to see how the term ‘school-at-home’ has become used by those who do not in general favour the regular and systematic teaching of children. It sounds like a neutral description, but is in fact designed to display contempt for other home educators. I think that autonomous home educators using the phrase would do well to think twice before accusing others of misrepresenting a type of home education.

The Education Committee considers support for home educators

As most readers will be aware, the Education  Committee, a select committee,  has launched an enquiry into the support available for home education in this country. It seems to me inevitable that this enquiry will lead eventually to more involvement by local authorities into the lives of many home educators. One of the problems that some home educators face is that they would like their children to take GCSEs and other examinations, but lack both the expertise and money to arrange them. It is manifestly unjust that a home educated child whose parents have perhaps been paying taxes for years should have to pay again to access GCSEs. It is also to the benefit of society in general that more of the fifty thousand or so children currently being educated at home should gain GCSEs. This would help them to progress into further and higher education and also make them more attractive to potential employers. I have an idea that this is one area of support where the select committee might make a definite recommendation.


This is all well and good, but the implications for both those who do want their children to take exams and also those who do not, are profound. Let us look first at those parents who do wish their children to sit GCSEs. Children at school typically sit eight or ten GCSEs; obviously, if you are going to provide finance and other assistance for home educated children to sit them and the local authorities will be receiving the Age Weighted Pupil Units for each child, then some parents will want their children to sit the same number as pupils in schools. My own daughter took eight IGCSEs and if the local authority had been offering financial help, then I would have expected them to pay for  those GCSEs that I wanted my child to sit. Now all this will mean spending public money. You can’t just chuck it around willy nilly and so we hit the first difficulty. How will local authorities know whether or not they are simply wasting the money by entering some child for ten GCSEs? They would be unlikely to take my word for it that my daughter knew enough about physics to get an A*; they would want to make sure that they weren’t wasting time and money arranging for her to sit physics. For all they know, she might be barely literate, the whole thing might really be a pointless enterprise for all concerned. Perhaps she should just sit one or two, in perhaps English and maths, rather than physics, chemistry, history and geography as well? Even then, if they did enter her for maths, should she be entered for foundation or higher? How can they find out what level she is at in the various subjects?

Already, before the scheme is even off the ground, testing of the academic achievements of home educated children by local authority officers has appeared. Indeed, it is an inevitable development if once you concede that the local authority will be assessing the amount of money to be spent on arranging for these children to take examinations. Still, it might be argued, this is all voluntary. Only those parents who wish their children to take GCSEs will be involved. Just because I want my daughter to sit GCSEs, that does not mean that an autonomously educating parent in the next street would have to do the same. Nobody would have to submit to this testing and all these questions. This is ingenuous. If once local authorities begin regularly testing the abilities of home educated children, it will create an entirely new situation. This testing is bound to spread to parents whom the local authority will talk into it and encourage to become involved for the sake of their children, who would do so much better if they were to have a few GCSEs.

Now as it happens, I do not think that this would be a bad thing at all. Speaking personally, I would like local authorities to ask more questions of parents and to see how their children were doing; whether they really were being provided with a suitable education and so on. I would be glad if local authority officers were to start pressing parents to think about GCSEs and doing their best to see that the children studied for and took them. Not everybody feels this way though.

The point I am making is this. What sounds like a perfectly innocuous and well-meaning idea, making it easier for those who want to enter their children for examinations, has serious implications for the future of all home educating parents. It has the potential to create conflict a few years down the line, if taking GCSEs became the aim of local authorities for home educated children in their area, rather than simply an optional service which they provided. I think that people need to think about this a little before championing one side or the other in this question. They need particularly to think carefully before expressing too vehemently these views before select committees or to local authorities.

Funding college places for home educated children

Graham Stuart and Nick Gibb do a double act and reveal that local authorities can allow home educated children to attend college and then claim the cost back from central government:


http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2011-07-18a.66262.h&s=home+education#g66262.r0

Who actually produced the new guidelines on elective home education?

One of the most curious and disturbing things about the new EHE guidelines is that not one person has so far come forward and admitted to having written any part of them. This is odd. Even Alison Sauer will not confirm that she wrote a single word of this document. Since this might have an enormous effect on how local authorities deal with home educating parents in the future and in view of the controversial nature of the sections on special needs, perhaps it might be worth trying to work out who was involved in the thing.
We know that one member of the team who produced the guidelines was a woman called Rainbow-Leaf Lovejoy. (Stop sniggering at the back; that’s her real name. I have an idea that she is known to Allie who comments here pretty regularly).Tania Berlow was also mixed up in the business, but to what extent is unknown. A woman called Jacqui also worked on the guidelines although, according to her own account, only to find out what was going on.

The secrecy surrounding the guidelines is not accidental. I have been contacted by a number of people who emailed Graham Stuart MP about their concerns. He passed their details on to Alison Sauer, who then got in touch with them. Several people were invited to become involved, but it was made plain that the whole thing was top secret and that they must agree not to tell anybody that they were involved or reveal the names of any others who they got to hear of who were working on the guidelines. This secrecy is alarming, considering that this is a project which might affect many thousands of parents.

I think it is almost certain that Kelly Green, an American living in Canada who writes a blog called Kelly Green and Gold, was also a member of this group. The problem here is that she is a very ignorant woman who claimed on her blog that Graham Badman was a civil servant at the Department for Children, Schools and Families and that I was an adviser to the Department. She knows nothing about British law and I cannot really see how she became involved in the matter. Alison Sauer’s husband Ralph helped to produce an earlier document about the so-called ultra vires practices of some local authorities and so it is possible that he was also involved with the guidelines.

I am very puzzled as to why Alison does not simply release the final draft of the EHE guidelines. She commented on here, telling us that the version at which everybody is currently looking is not the final one, but I don’t know why she does not simply let us see the one which she sent to Graham Stuart. I have a suspicion that when this does emerge, there will be even more irritation and outright anger than was caused by the draft which is currently in the public domain. Otherwise, why not simply show it to us?

A final, but exceedingly serious, problem with the new EHE guidelines produced by Sauer Consultancy Ltd

I have over the last few days pointed out one or two difficulties which are likely to arise with the new guidelines which have been produced by Alison Sauer. Still, perhaps they won’t be adopted in the end? Even so, a considerable amount of damage has already been done. Influential MPs such as Graham Stuart, Chair of the CSF select committee, and Lord Lucas have learned a lot about home education from their dealings with Alison Sauer. They evidently believe that she has given them an objective view of home education in Britain and they have now passed her views on to Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister. The thing is, they have been given a weird and distorted view of home education and unless somebody sets them straight, the home educating community in this country could be heading for trouble.

I want to look today at how Alison Sauer thinks that home education works in this country. She explains that it is a spectrum with autonomous or child-led education at one end. This is fair enough, although there might be a problem with her understanding of this concept. Still, it is true that some home educators call themselves ’autonomous’ or 'child-led’; it is a genuine trend in British home education. At the other end of the spectrum is, according to these guidelines, ’school-at-home’. Now I have never in my life heard anybody say that they are a ’school-at-home’ educator. That's because this is a pejorative expression coined not by those who follow a structured education, but by unstructured educators who wish to be derogatory about structured home education. Many structured home educating parents are really irritated by being described as doing ’school-at-home’. To use this phrase to describe home educators who actually teach is a little offensive. Has anybody ever heard of a home educator who says, ’We do school at home’?

According to Alison, such parents use a curriculum to cater for the whole of their children’s education. Has anybody ever met such a parent? Even more bizarrely, she claims that such families:

‘maintain a clear distinction between education and leisure, and often keep the school rhythm of terms and holidays’

This is such nonsense that it made me laugh out loud! Has anybody here ever heard a structured home educating parent say, ’No more education for Jimmy for the next few weeks; the local schools broke up for Easter yesterday’?

I can imagine that at this point some autonomous educators are chortling with glee at the idea of structured education being misrepresented in this way. Perhaps before they fall off their chairs laughing, they should read Alison’s description of autonomous education, where they will learn that ’learning takes place without teaching’

The strange ideas contained in this document may well have been accepted by people like Graham Stuart and very possibly Nick Gibb as being the standard model of home education in this country. It is not; it is one person’s idea on the subject. When that person believes that, ‘A Local Authority is responsible for any child of compulsory school age that has been brought to their attention as having, or probably having, special educational needs’, you are in serious trouble. Even if these guidelines end up in the bin, the damage has been done and some in parliament have now a strange and distorted view of what home education in this country is actually about.