Who wrote the briefing paper which Education Otherwise is circulating to Welsh Assembly Members?

In September, a series of documents began to be put up on the Home Education UK site about the new legislation being discussed in Wales; that relating to the regulation of home education. Eventually, they were all melded together into one document, which bore the name of Wendy Charles-Warner. It may be found here:

http://www.home-education.org.uk/articles/wc/wc-wa-brief.pdf





On October 13th, Alison Sauer introduced this briefing paper to the Education Otherwise site, uploading it to their files. She said:

This is the Briefing Document from the Wales Facebook Group with Welsh intro and summary added. Most is in English.



It was at once greeted as her own work. Edwina Theunissen, a trustee of Education Otherwise living in Wales, said;





Thanks Alison, for this. It's the most impressive doc I've seen so far and should be a great help to home edders in Wales. It must have taken a great deal of time and effort so congrats to you and whomsoever your collaborators are.





Alison Sauer did not react by disclaiming responsibility for writing the thing, merely accepted the congratulations as her due. At this point, most people assumed that Alison Sauer was the prime mover behind the briefing paper. A day or two later of course, she initiated a campaign of harassment against me via Facebook; getting people to bombard me with silly emails and publicising my address and urging people to arrange for nuisance deliveries to be made to it. Her supposed grounds for doing this were that she did not feel it right that Wendy Charles-Warner, the supposed author of the briefing paper, should be mentioned publicly in connection with it. It is interesting to see what Alison was saying at this time. In emails to me she uses the expression ‘we’ a lot, which suggests strongly that she was something to do with both the briefing paper and also Mrs Charles-Warner. For example, speaking of Wendy Charles-Warner, she said;



we do try to keep her whereabouts confidential



The newspaper and BBC articles were not supposed to be published online and we do not draw attention to them on purpose.


Whom do readers suppose that Alison Sauer means by this mysterious ‘we’? We, as in ‘me and Wendy Charles-Warner’? Or perhaps, in light of later developments, 'me and Education Otherwise'?  In any case, it is clear that Alison has a stake in the briefing paper and is in some way very involved in it. As we have seen, trustees at Education Otherwise thought that she had written it and were dealing with it on that basis.

Four days later, on October 18th, Education Otherwise made a surprising announcement. This may be found here:



http://www.educationotherwise.net/ndex.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=334






It will be observed that the briefing paper is now being unambiguously attributed to Wendy Charles-Warner and that she has been appointed Education Otherwise’s official representative in Wales, a role previously held, incidentally, by Edwina Theunnisen. The briefing paper has been officially adopted and is now being printed and sent to all Welsh Assembly Members.

I have not room in this post for a detailed criticism of the paper. It is pretty dreadful and contains many errors and inaccuracies. That is nothing to the purpose here, except to mention that the style is unmistakably Alison Sauer’s. We have seen that it was accepted as such when first it appeared and also that she was using the term ‘we’ when referring, apparently,  to she and Mrs Charles-Warner.

What would Education Otherwise’s motive have been for misleading people in this way as to the authorship? There are two good reasons for concealing publicly the fact that Alison Sauer had a hand in this document. For one thing, her name on the cover would have discredited it at once as far as many home educators were concerned. After the fiasco of the abortive attempt to introduce new guidelines for local authorities about home education, anything with ‘Alison Sauer’ on the cover would be damned in the eyes of many. There is a more serious objection to using her name openly in connection with the briefing paper. Welsh Assembly Members are likely to look more favourably upon such a document if supposedly written by a Welsh home educator than they would if it had been produced by an English businesswoman. Some of them are already getting a little ticked off at the fact that most of the opposition to the proposed Bill is coming from England, rather than Wales.

As if that is not enough, there would be a horrible suspicion, were Alison Sauer to be seen as involved with the briefing document, that she was not completely unbiased and that there was a clear conflict of interest. As readers know, Alison runs an outfit known as SC Education:



http://www.sc-education.co.uk/home/






This company is working hard to encourage the spread of the flexischooling model of education. Indeed, according to her company website, Alison Sauer is  ' currently liaising with the DfE to promote flexischooling as a recognised and credible system.'  One of the alternatives advocated by the briefing document, instead of the compulsory registration and monitoring of home education,  is of course an expansion of flexischooling. If shown to be the author of this document, the unfortunate impression might be created that a commercial opportunity was being exploited here by Alison Sauer; that by pushing for an increase in flexischooling in Wales, she would be creating future work for her own company.  Another benefit of the system that the briefing paper recommends is, ' Investment in training for LA staff in the law and their duties'. By an uncanny coincidence, training LA staff in the law and their duties  is something else which Alison Sauer provides.

 I shall in another post examine the briefing paper itself in detail, but for now I wonder if Education Otherwise would like to explain in a little more detail the precise provenance of the thing? For some, it is beginning to look rather as though Alison Sauer now has her feet firmly under the table at Education Otherwise; a development which is unlikely to be universally welcomed!

Bumping into an old friend

Wherever I go on the Internet lately, I seem to keep bumping into the same person. It’s just like real life, really. You know how it is when you see  someone you know slightly while visiting the shops and then come across her the following day at the cinema and then a few days later,  find yourself sitting next to her in a coffee shop? Sometimes it almost seems as though you’re being stalked. This is how I am beginning to feel about Alison Sauer. Whether I am reading the online version of the Times Educational Supplement, browsing some forum or even reading my daily paper, there she is; touting for business. The woman is indefatigable and one wonders if she prowls the streets of Barnoldswick wearing sandwich-boards and crying, ‘Get your personalised education here! Flexi-schooling, special rates!’


I most recently came across Alison while reading an article in the Daily Telegraph which was published online. It may be seen here and Alison’s comment is the twelfth down:



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9553764/Ofsted-mixed-ability-classes-a-curse-on-bright-pupils.html




I followed the link to her company to see how things are developing there lately and two things struck me. The first was the testimonials from satisfied customers. The London Borough of Newham, for example, find her courses, ‘Very well facilitated - interesting, informative and food for thought’ I’m not entirely sure what they mean by ‘facilitated’, but at any rate they seem pleased with her. These recommendations put me in mind of the sort of things you see in advertisements for patent medicines or lucky charms on the back pages of certain magazines. You know the sort of thing, ‘Mrs BD of Giggleswick says, “Since I have followed Alison’s system, I am no longer troubled by litigious home educators and my health is a million times better. Thank you Alison and SC Education, you have been a life saver!”’

The other thing that struck me about the website, and I find this truly extraordinary, is Alison’s personal account of herself. She says:



Born in Yorkshire and educated in the North of England, Alison Sauer has worked for herself providing training and consultancy services to business, local authorities, educators and charities for over 20 years.
Alison is a director of The Sauer Consultancy Limited, a company which has been providing training and consultancy in home education to local authorities for more than eight years.
She has been involved in a number of consultations on home education including the consultations for the Scottish Guidance on Home Education, Children Missing from Education and most recently, the Badman Review and its subsequent analysis by the House of Commons Education Select Committee. In addition, she has advised and participated in a number of home education research projects and studies.
Alison is a member of the Centre for Personalised Education Trust (CPE-PEN), a think-tank organisation whose members include academics and teachers from both state and private schools. Working alongside CPE-PEN, one of Alison's current projects aims to improve the availability of flexischooling in state schools. This project involves networking with flexischooling headteachers, parents and local authorities, raising awareness of flexischooling, and analysing the flexischooling schemes currently operating.
In the past, she has represented voluntary organisations and been called upon as a home education expert for newspapers, radio and television. She has also written for ACE (Advisory Centre for Education) on home education issues.
Alison is a passionate believer in good organisation, communication and networking and endeavours through offering professional development workshops and courses to improve the skills of many organisations in both the public and the private sector.



What’s missing from this picture, boys and girls? Yes, that’s right; no mention at of the fact that she is herself a home educator! This is an odd omission. Of all the things that I have done in my life, I am proudest of all of having educated my daughter. When I wrote an academic book on the subject of home education, I made sure that this was mentioned in the blurb. I cannot imagine airbrushing it from my personal history in the way that Alison has done; anybody would think that she is ashamed of being a home educator! I think the explanation lies in the fact that, as I have remarked before, she likes to run with the fox and hunt with the hounds. Many local authorities are a little suspicious of home educators and if she represented herself as one, it might put the punters off. So when talking to other parents, she is happy to admit to not sending young Johannes to school. Dealing with local authorities though, he becomes an embarrassment; something to be hidden away metaphorically, like the kids in Flowers in the Attic.

Home education conference

Somebody remarked wryly that this conference in Wales on home education has only one Welsh home educating parent speaking. The rest are either professionals or people from outside Wales.

http://bridgendhomeeducators.org/blog/october-18th-2012-home-education-conference/


Interesting to note that while both Fiona Nicholson and  Louisa Haywood-Samuel are happy to acknowledge that they are home educating parents, Alison Sauer carefully avoids mentioning this; the reason being that she wishes to present herself as a professional and not a parent. Precisely why she is taking part in this conference when she does not live in Wales is a question which several people have raised in emails to me! I am beginning to see why she was irritated at my mentioning home education in Wales on this blog; she thought that I was poaching on her preserves.