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!

Another ‘briefing paper’ about the Welsh plans for regulating home education

Perhaps I have unfairly focused upon the ‘briefing paper’ produced by Wendy Charles-Warner. After all, she is not the only player in town. Let’s look at the one produced by Fiona Nicholson up in Sheffield. It is to be hoped that I am not casting either the charming Ms Nicholson or her son into hazard by mentioning their general location, as I inadvertently did with Mrs Charles-Warner a fortnight ago. Here is the document produced by Fiona:



http://edyourself.org/walesbriefingpaper.pdf




 

I have observed before that in contrast to the campaign against Graham Badman’s proposals, the current agitation against the ideas being mooted in Wales are not concerned with abstract ideas about rights, duties or matters of conscience. Instead, objections to the proposed new law is stated in terms which are calculated to appeal to those who are not themselves home educators; the aim being to make others feel sympathetic to the cause. It is being very cleverly done. For instance the cost of the scheme and the fact that it might draw resources away from other vulnerable children is a popular debating tactic being used.

Fiona, in a pretty deft and cunning piece of sophistry, manages unfortunately to pander to homophobes. I am sure that this was not intentional, but never the less, that is what has happened. In an attempt to alarm Christians and get them on the side of home educators, she says this:



Sex Education

Concerns have been raised over the requirement for home education to "prepare [children] for the responsibilities of adulthood" [67] interpreted as meaning that the parent has to teach children about sex and contraception by a particular age. Some parents who are home educating because of particular religious or philosophical convictions would find themselves unable to comply and would not wish their children to be asked about sex education during the mandatory interview.





Now most of us, when we talk of ‘preparing children for the responsibilities of adulthood’ might well think in terms of things like teaching about income tax and mortgages; Fiona thinks, or purports to think, that it means that home educated children will have to be taught about contraception by a certain age. Worse still, a man from the council will be coming round and checking our children’s knowledge of contraceptive methods, in order to make sure that we have been fulfilling out duty around sex education. It is a chilling prospect! Well, it would be, if there was any truth in it.

Where does the homophobia come into this? Take a look at this piece about the new Welsh proposals on a Christian website:



http://www.christian.org.uk/news/wales-considers-forced-registration-for-home-schoolers/




Now look to the right and check out Related Articles. See the one about ‘compulsory Sex Education ‘undermines’ free society? This was a hot topic among many Christians at the same time that some home educators were fighting against certain parts of the Children, Schools and Families Bill in 2009 and 2010. One of the reasons for this is that quite a few Christians are bitterly opposed to their children being taught about homosexuality; in particular the notion that gay relationships can in any way be regarded as being as valid as heterosexual marriages. In fact, any sort of sex education, of the kind likely to be approved by a local authority,  is regarded by many Christians as a wicked plot which will end up with their children being taught how to commit sodomy or obtain abortions. Sex education, from this perspective, is designed to persuade innocent, God-fearing children that unnatural, same-sex unions are as holy as Christian marriage and that promiscuity is normal.  What about contraception? Why has Fiona mentioned that specifically? Are you a Catholic and so opposed to artificial birth control? You fool, the council will force you to teach your child about the use of contraception!   It is perhaps no coincidence that the campaign against the Welsh proposals has now attracted the favourable attention of the American Home School Legal Defense Association; a notoriously reactionary,  homophobic and right-wing group.

I suppose the real question to ask is whether Fiona Nicholson or anybody else has the least particle of evidence that local authorities really will be interrogating children about their knowledge of contraception and sex if this bill goes through. How will it work? Will it be like having the man round to read the gas meter? One imagines somebody from the council knocking on the door with a clipboard, saying, ‘Morning madam, I’ve come to check your daughter’s knowledge of contraception.' He is shown the poor little mite of eleven or whatever age it is by which Fiona thinks that children will have to be taught about sex and contraception. ‘Now Mary, can you give me three reasons why withdrawal is not a safe method of contraception? Do you know about the Dutch Cap?’

Is this really what any sane person imagines will be happening if the registration and monitoring of home education in Wales becomes law? If so, could we be given some evidence for this belief? Otherwise, it will look to many as though this is just one more of the ridiculous scare stories being put about to enlist the support of even the most unsavoury types in the campaign against the proposed legislation.

A minor mystery

Since the recent unpleasantness with Alison Sauer, I have been puzzling something over in my mind and it is this. As soon as I came across reference to the Welsh Assembly Government’s plans for the compulsory registration and monitoring of home education, I felt that I should alert others to what was in the wind. I read about the plans on the night of August 4th and then posted about them the following morning. At that time, there had been no mention of this on any of the lists such as HE-UK or EO. Even Fiona Nicholson seemed to have missed it. As soon as I mentioned it here, on the morning of August 5th, others picked it up and started spreading the word to various lists and forums. I found this deliciously ironic, that I, who am viewed by some as the arch-enemy of home education, should be the one to tip people the wink about this development!

Once I had mentioned it, the news spread like wildfire and is of course now being talked about everywhere. I dare say that this would have happened soon anough, even without my intervention; I am not taking credit for that! Here is the mystery though. Soon after I had posted about this, Alison Sauer came on here and commented scathingly about several minor errors in what I had said. She seemed very tetchy with me and, I thought, annoyed to see the Welsh proposals being talked about. Judging from her comments, she knew all about the thing, certainly she knew far more about it than I did. Yet she had not said a word about this on any of the lists to which she belongs and if it had not been for my mentioning it, I gained the impression that Alison Sauer would have sat on the news herself. Why should this be? Why did it take me to alert home educators to what was going on, when Alison Sauer already knew all about it? I am puzzled by this and would be interested to hear of any theories.