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.

New incarnation of company concerned with home education

Puzzling over Alison Sauer's massive, and on the face of it inexplicable, irritation about my blog post on Welsh home education caused me to poke around a little and look at her business interests. I find that she is now running a new incarnation of the old Sauer Consultancy company. Details may be seen here:

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

The emphasis of this company seems to be flexi-schooling. See this group for a little more insight into Alison’s work in that field:




http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexischooling/message/5




Here are a few recommendations of Alison’s new company;



“Flexischooling has enabled us to develop true

partnerships with the parents. They contribute to the

curriculum and are involved in forward planning for

the school. There is no division between the children

in the playground. In fact, the only difference is that

the fl exischooling children want to fi nish their work

and not be restricted by the bell. I’d say that’s a good

thing.” Simon East, headteacher, Erpingham Primary

School, Norfolk


“Flexischooling has lead to us widening the horizons

for education provision. We even have one high

functioning autistic child on roll who will shortly

have a teaching assistant regularly attending

the home because we can fund it through the

fl exischooling model.” Janette Mountford-Lees,

headteacher, Hollingsclough School, Staffordshire




But hey, it’s not just head teachers who are so keen on Alison Sauer and her  company. Here is a ringing endorsement from a crony of Roland Meighan;



‘. Alison is doing amazing work across the country and working in close contact with the DfE‘





Working in close contact with the Department for Education? I bet she is! Readers might recall that a few weeks ago I drew attention to the draft of the new guidelines on home education, drawn up by a group led by Alison Sauer and including Mike Fortune-Wood. I noted that the members of this group were on first name terms with the MP who is currently chair of the Education Committee and had written on the draft various peremptory instructions to civil servants at the Department for Education. Things like;




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



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


Since Alison Sauer is ‘working in close contact with the DfE’, this is not at all surprising. Mike Fortune-Wood’s involvement is a little more curious and slightly suspicious, since for months he flatly denied having anything at all to do with the project. I am interested to find Alison Sauer, Mike Fortune-Wood and an organisation connected with Roland Meighan; all apparently on the best of terms with the Department for Education. I shall have more to say about this soon.

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.

The new EHE guidelines and special needs

Although we are told that the version of Alison Sauer’s new guidelines for local authorities now circulating is not the final one, I have been assured that the section on SEN is unchanged in the final draft which Graham Stuart now has. This was confirmed when somebody helpfully sent me some notes and handouts from a training session run by Sauer Consultancy Ltd for a local authority in the north of England.

My jaw dropped when I read what Alison wished to remind local authorities about in the new guidelines and I am not sure that the implications are yet clear to most parents. She says on page 20:

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.
Where such a child comes to the attention of the Local Authority, the Local Authority has a duty to establish whether the child has SENs that are not currently being met.

Now this, although surprising to many home educating parents of children with special needs, is perfectly true. If you are home educating a child and somebody rings up your local authority and says that she believes your child to be dyslectic or have Asperger’s, then the Local Authority have a legal duty to assess your child and see if you are providing for these needs; which may or may not exist. This is a power of which very few LAs are really aware or ever consider exercising. Most home educators are glad about this; they do not want their local authority knocking on the door to ask questions and carry out assessments unless they the parents invite them to do so. This section from the 1996 Education Act makes the situation clear. It is s321 (3):

(1) A local education authority shall exercise their powers with a view to securing that, of
the children for whom they are responsible, they identify those to whom subsection (2)
below applies.
(2) This subsection applies to a child if—
(a) he has special educational needs, and
(b) it is necessary for the authority to determine the special educational provision
which any learning difficulty he may have calls for.
(3) For the purposes of this Part a local education authority are responsible for a child if
he is in their area and—

.....................................
(d) he is not a registered pupil at a school but is not under the age of two or over
compulsory school age and has been brought to their attention as having (or
probably having) special educational needs.

Now the question is, why on earth would Alison Sauer wish to remind local authorities that they are responsible in this way for all home educated children who have, or might appear to have , special educational needs? Do most home educating parents of such children really want their local authorities to assume responsibility in this way for their children? Or have they taken their kids from school precisely because they no longer wish the local authority to be responsible in this way, because they wish to take over that responsibility themselves? I wonder if anybody can imagine the effect that reading the bits quoted above would have upon an overly zealous Educational Welfare Officer investigating a home educated child whom she thought might have special needs? After all, the local authority is responsible for this child and has a duty in law to check that his needs are being met.

I must emphasise that this part of the act is not only concerned with statemented children, but with any child, whether or not at school, who somebody tells the council might have special needs. As I say, few local authorities currently assume this duty, but they still have it legally. The question is, why on earth would anybody involved with home education wish to remind them about this and urge them to start knocking on the doors of all home educated children with special needs so that they can take over responsibility in this way? The 2007 guidelines for local authorities, by comparison, limited themselves to a few words about children with statements and said nothing at all about this general duty. Are the new guidelines an improvement in this respect?

The new EHE guidelines for local authorities

When Alison Sauer began writing extensive new guidance for local authorities, telling them how they should deal with home educating parents, it was not hard to foresee that it would all end in tears. For one thing, she had no clear mandate to undertake this work on behalf of other home educators and for another, there was an obvious conflict of interest in that she runs a company which trains local authorities in how to deal with home educating parents. In other words, the whole thing looked to many like a job creation scheme for the Sauer Consultancy; the company which she and her husband Ralph set up. A further complication which raised eyebrows was that the job of writing these guidelines had not been put out to tender, but apparently awarded to the Sauer Consultancy under a nod and a wink from the chair of a Commons select committee.
Something which has raised the liveliest suspicions about those involved in this project is that it has all been done on the quiet, with Alison Sauer refusing even to confirm that she is involved in the business at all. This is frankly odd. The story went round that various people were helping with this, including Tania Berlow, who said last year:

I am the only person who has stuck their head above the parapet and has said publicly that I have become one of many who are now inputting into a draft process which will be opened to all HErs once it is drafted.

The allegation is now being made that Alison Sauer alone wrote these guidelines single-handedly and ignored anybody else’s suggestions.
The Sauer Consultancy does not just advise local authorities on home education, but covers a wide range of ’cultural services’, whatever they might be! They provide:

Project Management
Export and Cultural Consultancy
Tenders and Contract Management
Training in Tenders and Contract Management

Their clients include private companies both in this country and abroad; it is not some little outfit just concerned with home education. Just why a commercial enterprise like this was given the job of writing new guidelines for local authorities is something of a mystery. Were any other companies approached and offered the job? Will the Sauer Consultancy benefit if the guidelines are adopted, for example by training local authorities in their application and interpretation? Did Graham Stuart, Chair of the relevant Commons select committee, offer this commission officially or is it just some private project of his? What is his connection, if any, with the Sauer Consultancy? Until these questions are answered, I think that we might all be a little cautious of the new EHE guidelines, regardless of their actual content. The conflict of interest when a business is asked in this way to produce statutory guidelines regarding a field of work in which it is involved is enough to raise cause grave concern.

There is one final problem, one which nobody seems yet to have noticed. The Children Schools and Families Bill 2009 was examined by the Commons Children Schools and Families select committee. This was an impartial examination of the parts of the bill which worried home educators. I know; I was one of the witnesses who gave evidence to the select committee. The job of the select committee is to examine such things. What will happen if questions are asked about these new guidelines? Suppose that some sections of the home educating community cuts up rough about them as they did with the Badman report? The Children, Schools and Families select committee can hardly be expected now to view the matter objectively, because its Chair, Graham Stuart, was intimately involved with producing them in the first place. He could hardly offer an impartial opinion on something for which he was himself responsible. quis custodiet ipsos custodes?