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.

The task of Sisyphus

Readers with a smattering of erudition will no doubt catch the above allusion, which is to an ancient king condemned by the gods for his hubris. He was doomed to spend eternity rolling a heavy boulder up a hill each day; only to see it roll down again at nightfall, leaving him to attempt the task anew each morning. I know the feeling!

I set out a few weeks ago to explore the rationale behind the Welsh Assembly’s efforts to enforce compulsory registration and monitoring of home educated children. I hoped to do this by looking at a new aspect of the case each day and in this way gradually building up an understanding of what was going on. I need not have bothered. Even establishing the simplest and least controversial of facts proved too much and so I  have abandoned the attempt. Perhaps this was the intention of some of those commenting here?

To give an example of what I mean, I took two things for granted recently; two things connected with home education which are absolutely and incontrovertibly true and about which there cannot be the slightest doubt. Even with these simple facts, I found myself bombarded with objections and argument. No wonder we never got past the initial stages of considering the proposed Welsh legislation!

Here are the two, very basic and obvious statements which caused such debate;



The five outcomes of the Every Child Matters agenda were incorporated into the 2004 Children Act and are now the law of England



There has for years been a concerted campaign by some home education organisations and academics against the concept of a ‘broad and balanced curriculum’



Now I was not inviting readers to decide whether a couple of propositions from Russell’s Principia Mathematica were veridical. I was presenting two pieces of information, both of which had a bearing on discussions about the new Welsh law, and using them as givens so that we could look more closely at what is going on in the minds of those both in Wales and England who are demanding further powers with regard to home education.

It was a hopeless endeavour and  I shall according leave the topic of the Welsh legislation alone for the foreseeable future and concentrate more upon my own idiosyncratic views and opinions of things relating to home education in England. There is also, incidentally, the fact that I am currently writing three non-fiction books and a novel simultaneously and this is taxing even my powers,  to the extent that I have less time to engage in debate with those commenting here. Since it is discourteous to ignore comments, it seems better to limit myself for a while to posts such as this, to which nobody could really take exception.

More about changing the law on home education

I feel a little sorry for the Welsh home educator who commented here yesterday, saying what a pleasure it was to find a place where home education could be discussed without the quarrelsome and ill -mannered antics of those on some of the home education lists and forums. No sooner had she said this, than some of the more aggressive types zoomed in and showed her that this blog was not a safe space after all! It would be interesting, incidentally, to know how many of those commenting here are, like her, Welsh and so likely to be affected by the laws being proposed by the Welsh Assembly. Anyway, back to the desirability or otherwise of changing the law.


When the Children Schools and Families Bill was about to be passed a couple of years ago, with its provision for the compulsory registration of home education, the assertion was made that such registration and monitoring would harm home educated children. The same suggestion is now being made about the proposed measures in Wales. Commenting here yesterday, somebody claimed that this sort of thing was bad because:



less confident home-educators, who are, nevertheless, doing a better job than schools, may be harmed, along with their children.



This is the sort of thing home educators often say whenever anybody wants to change the law.  I was myself mentioned in the blog Dare to Know, as somebody who would have 'blood on his hands'  if the parts of the CSF Bill relating to home education were to be passed! Statements like this are a bit true, but wholly misleading. For example, I might say that black people are lazy. Well, this is true as far as it goes; after all there are lazy black people. It is misleading though, because of course not all black people are lazy. So suggesting that home educated children will be harmed by this or that new regulation or law may be true, but misleading because not all children will be harmed. Some may be harmed, but others will benefit. So in a sense, both the local authorities and the more militant home educators are both right. The LAs say that registration and monitoring will benefit some home educated children and home educators say that some children will be harmed. This is what it is like in the real world; nothing is black and white and whatever you do, there will be bad consequences for somebody!

Let us draw a comparison with the introduction of compulsory seat belts some years ago. If at the time, I had campaigned against the proposed legislation by claiming that children would be killed and injured as a direct result of this law, I would have appeared to be a bit of a crank. Still, that is probably what has happened. Because drivers feel safer when they and their passengers are wearing seatbelts, they tend to drive faster. This is bad news for pedestrians in built up areas and is likely to end in more pedestrian casualties than when the cars were travelling more slowly. This of course has led to campaigns to reduce the speed limit in certain places. However, those actually in cars are far less likely to be killed and injured when they are wearing seatbelts, so on balance it was a good idea. This is because lots of children travel in cars and there are fewer on bicycles or foot; the net result is fewer children being injured in road accidents.

Introducing a law to regulate home education would be very similar to this situation. Some children would suffer harm, but others would benefit. In order to work out if it is a good plan or not, we have to consider a number of factors. For example, some home educated children are already suffering harm, although others are benefiting enormously from being home educated. A new law would change the balance, with perhaps more children benefiting and fewer suffering harm. Or perhaps it would be the other way round!

Simply stating that home educated children would suffer harm if new legislation were to be passed is utterly meaningless. Of course some will suffer harm, just as some are already suffering. What we must do, and it is not at all an easy proposition, is discover the relative proportions of the increase or decrease in those likely to suffer harm and those who will probably benefit. Then we must somehow calculate the proportions of those being benefited and harmed under the current arrangements. We also need to define just what we mean by 'harm' and 'benefit'.

None of this is straightforward and many of the suggested benefits and much of the supposed harm is pretty vague and intangible. In a sense, there is no fundamental difference between the views of home educating parents and those of most local authorities. Both sides know that some home educated children benefit from the education they receive. Both know also that some children are harmed by being withdrawn from school and educated at home. The debate hinges around the exact proportions involved and this is where the crux of the matter lies.

There is no such thing as a perfect human system or institution. Always, there are victims and winners. This is true of home education, just as it is with schools. I do not see this as grounds for doing nothing and declaring that no change should ever be undertaken. I can see ways that I think that schools could be improved and I can also see scope for new ways of organising home education. My suspicion is that those who oppose any change in the field of education are probably the sort of reactionaries who just do not like new ideas and new ways of doing things. I can understand this; the older I get, the less fond I am of change myself! However, there is a powerful reason for changing the law and this is that the present legal situation is not at all clear. This ambiguity leads to conflict, because sometimes local authorities overstep the mark because they genuinely believe that they have powers which they do not possess. If the precise duties of both parents and local authorities were to be set out in plain language, then I think it likely that there would be less antagonism and confrontation as a consequence, because everybody would know where they stood.

The real reasons for the opposition to the Welsh proposals for the registration and monitoring of home education

The Welsh Assembly hope to introduce a scheme to register and monitor home educators and their children, to ensure that an education is actually being delivered. Most ordinary people see nothing wrong with this, but a small number of militant home educators are fighting the proposals ferociously. Many of these are the same people who fought against the attempt to change the law in England in 2009 and 2010. There are not many of them, perhaps a couple of hundred at most, but they are very vociferous.

One of the things that I would like to know about these people is whether or not they really believe what they say. Let me explain. Although there are some home educating parents who are grateful for the help of their local authority, I am guessing that the vast majority just want to be left alone. This is the case with the whole spectrum of home educators; ranging from radical unschoolers at one end to the fanatically structured at the other. It is obvious why this should be the case. If you practice autonomous education, then the very act of examining and asking probing questions about the education could have the effect of altering its style or direction. If on the other hand, like me, you are an extremely structured educator, then you are just as likely to be unwelcoming to inspection. This is because those investigating the education that you are providing will not understand what you are up to and the hour or so spent in a visit will just disrupt the smooth running of the day’s work. This is why I did not register with either of the local authorities where we lived while I was educating my child; there would have been no point.

So far, so good. Up to this point I am in complete accord with all the other parents who do not wish to be registered or monitored. Where I perhaps differ is that I have not the least doubt that a regimen of national monitoring of this sort would have an effect, a generally beneficial effect, upon home education. To understand why I think this, it is necessary to look at the supposed beliefs of those home educators who are opposed to the proposals currently under consideration in Wales.

Militant home educators are a tricksy bunch. They will say anything at all in support of their cause if they think that it will play well with those who know nothing about home education. For example, during the Badman business, the focus was upon ‘rights’. There was much talk of the ‘rights’ of parents and, to a lesser extent, those of the children themselves. You will not hear much about this during the present campaign, because it has rightly been gauged that popular opinion is in favour of monitoring and talk of ‘rights’ will not sway most parents whose children are at school. Instead, the emphasis is on the cost of registration and monitoring and the pointlessness of it.

The thing that I am unable to figure out is whether or not the home educators opposed to the idea of monitoring really believe that it would have no effect or only a bad effect upon home education? I somehow doubt that do. At the moment, one withdraws a child from school or fails to send her and there is an end to the matter. Parents can avoid meeting with or speaking to local authority officers and fob them off for years at a time with copied ‘philosophies’ or threats of legal action. Some of the children of such parents are probably being educated; others are probably not. Does anybody really doubt that if they knew that they would be expected to give some account of the education that their children were receiving, then many of those parents would put their shoulders to the wheel and provide some structured teaching and get their children to read, write, study history and do sums? I would say that this is a racing certainty. Of course, most autonomous educators do believe this; but unlike me, they think that it would be a bad thing if this were to happen.

Diverting the debate to various states in America or other countries, such as New Zealand is very neatly done, but does not alter the fact that compulsory registration and monitoring would have a great effect on home education either in England or in Wales. One of those effects would be that more parents would be undertaking structured work with their children; that is to say actually teaching them. I think that this would be a good thing and so, I suspect, would almost all non-home educators. The militant home educators who are opposing any such move tend to be autonomous educators who think that for parents to feel obliged to teach their children regularly would be a bad thing. Because this sounds pretty mad to most people whose children attend school, they find it necessary to dissemble and claim instead that they are worried about the waste of money that such a scheme would entail. This is not an honest way to carry on. I think that it would be interesting to hear what those who do not approve of the idea of registration and monitoring think the actual results would be. Do they, like me, think that the natural consequence would be more parents teaching their children in a  structured way? If so, is this at the heart of their opposition?

Why the Welsh proposals make logical and legal sense

I shall probably regret doing this, but I think that the time has come to consider the proposed legislation in Wales which would require parents to register home educated children and allow their education to be monitored. I fully appreciate the opposition of some to the idea, but even so, the people fighting against the idea of registration and monitoring are almost certainly wrong and labouring under a fundamental misapprehension. The misapprehension is the very same one which gripped many of those who also campaigned against Graham Badman and his ideas.

The law makes certain assumptions about ordinary people. It assumes, for instance, that the default setting of normal citizens is not to be stealing, murdering or torturing their children to death. This means that unless evidence emerges, the police will not come knocking on your door to check that you have not harmed your child or are storing stolen goods on the premises. We have a general duty to avoid doing these things and so it is taken for granted that unless there is reason to think otherwise, we are not doing them. Society could hardly function if the police and authorities were constantly fretting that we were breaking the law in some way; it has to be assumed that we are not. This general assumption has been mistakenly thought by many home educators to include the fact that we are causing our children to receive a suitable education. In other words, if the police are not checking our homes regularly for stolen goods, why should the local authority check our children regularly to ensure that we are educating them? It is an ingenious idea, but unfortunately it is quite wrong-headed and confused.

We all have a general duty to avoid breaking the law. This largely consists of refraining from doing things. We must restrain ourselves if we feel like stealing, we must avoid starving or mistreating our children. In the case of children, the law takes it as given that parents voluntarily undertake to ensure the wellbeing of their children. Unless evidence of cruelty or neglect comes to light, we believe that parents look after their children and protect them from harm.

We have been talking so far of various assumptions made about citizens by the law; that they will not rob, rape or murder, that they will look after their children and so on. There are however additional and positive duties which are from time to time laid upon us. These are things which the law does not just expect us to refrain from doing as a matter of course, such as stealing or mistreating our children, but activities in which we must participate. These are things that we are compelled to do; not merely refrain from doing. One of these is jury service. If I am summoned for jury service, society is calling upon me to do something, to fulfil a duty. Because this is something thrust upon us, some of us will try to evade this duty. We will pretend to be deaf or have various commitments which prevent us undertaking this active duty. This happens with all duties which are pushed on us without our volunteering for them; some will try to get out of them. Another case is if a constable calls for our assistance while making an arrest. We have a legal duty to go to his aid. Some will not want to and try to evade this duty. From time to time, prosecutions result from this reluctance to undertake such duties.

Now the law might assume that in general people will avoid evildoing and obey the law by not going out of their way to commit crimes, but this is not at all the case with duties which are pressed upon them. In these cases it makes perfect sense to assume that some people called upon to perform a duty will try to get out of it. They have not freely chosen to undertake the duty; why should they do so? I am sure we all know the efforts that some people go to avoid jury service! In this case, enquiries may be routinely made into the reasons people claim to have for not accomplishing whatever the duty requires of them. We know that some people will wriggle out of undertaking a duty and since this is a very small section of the population, it is quite in order to look into the case closely, to make sure that not too many of us are evading our duty.

The situation which I have described above with respect to duties which some people will try and evade is precisely what is happening with the duty to cause our children to receive an education. The law may very well, and indeed does, take it for granted that we are not starving or torturing our children; it does not and should not assume that everybody is cheerfully undertaking the extra legal duty laid down by statute to provide the child with an education. Just as with any other duty imposed upon us, there will be those who seek to shirk it. This is simply human nature and it would be odd if this were not to happen. Because of this, it makes perfect sense to check that the duty is in fact being performed; that is to say that the parents are providing their children with a suitable education.

The ideas currently under discussion in Wales, amount to no more than this; that society will check that parents are fulfilling a duty which has been forced upon them. It is entirely possible that most of them are already doing so. Inevitably, there will be some who are not and the aim is to identify these and get them to realise that they must either provide an education for their children themselves or delegate the task to others.

The fight for children’s rights

The struggle to provide children with rights and end their status as mere chattels or belongings of their parents has been a long and bitter one. At every stage, the cry by parents has been the same; ‘The state has no business intruding in family life and is harming the rights of parents by doing so.’

In the 19th Century, many children were forced to work down mines and up chimneys from an unbelievably early age. They had no rights in the matter at all. Each time some piece of legislation prevented, for example, children under the age of ten from going down coal mines; there was outrage, principally from parents. How dare the state dictate to mothers and fathers what their children should or should not do? This was an assault upon the rights of parents and indeed the very institution of the family. If a father could sell his eight year-old son to a chimney sweep for £5, what on earth business was it of anybody else?

Nowhere was this outrage more indignantly expressed than when the government tried to secure the right of children to receive an education. The 1861 Newcastle Report into the State of Popular Education in England summed the case up neatly. It said:



Any universal compulsory system appears to us neither attainable nor desirable. An attempt to replace an independent system of education by a compulsory system, managed by the government, would be met by objections, both political and religious.



Wiser counsels prevailed and in 1870 the Elementary Education Act was passed, popularly known as Forster’s Act. A decade later, education was made compulsory for all children between the ages of five and ten and there was a huge uproar. Parents led the complaints, comparing the British government with that of Prussia; a grave insult indeed! The crux of the matter was that this was an erosion of parents’ rights to raise their children as they saw fit. Compulsory education was an attack on the family. In the ten years following the making of education compulsory for children, prosecutions of parents for the non-attendance at school of their children were running at over a hundred thousand a year. It was the commonest offence in England, apart from drunkenness.

Every single attempt to increase the rights of children, which of course means giving greater duties to their parents, has been met by strong opposition by parents. The governments of the day have had to lead the way, fighting apathy, sloth and reactionary parents in order to furnish children with more legal rights and protection under the law.

In recent years, we have seen two examples of this tendency. One has been the efforts of the legislature to make it a criminal offence to strike children. This has met with only limited success. Parents have fought ferociously to retain their right to beat children. Incredibly, even now in the 21st Century, there are those in this country who feel that they should enjoy the ’right’ to hit their kids! Any attempt to abolish this ’right’ is met by howls of protest and the familiar claim that the state is intruding where it has no business to be; that is to say into family life.

The other recent example of this reactionary and backward-looking trend is of course the campaign by some parents a few years ago to force the state not to enquire to closely into whether or not children were receiving a suitable education. Again, parental ’rights’ were cited and the government was told that any move to check up if children not attending school were actually being educated was an attack on the family by the state. Just as when the 1870 Elementary Education Act was being planned, the case of Germany was brandished by parents fighting against any diminution of their supposed rights. That this was essentially about the rights of parents and not of children can easily be seen by the language being used. The right of children to an education was scarcely mentioned, it was all about the ’right’ of parents to home educate.

Although the calling of a general election in 2010 ended the hopes for this latest extension of children’s rights, the cause is not entirely lost. A first step would be at the very least the registration of all children who are not attending school. Such a move is now planned by Wales and there are signs that Scotland too has such a scheme in mind. If this happens in those two countries, then introducing such registration in England would be merely an exercise in bringing this country into line with what is happening elsewhere in the United Kingdom. As has always happened throughout history, the reactionaries will howl their protests, but we must hope that this time they do not get their own way and that one more step is taken in ensuring that the most vulnerable members of society are properly protected and furnished with the rights that they deserve.

Wales introducing registratation of home educators

Just on the offchance that nobody else has noticed, I thought that I would mention that next month a bill will be introduced in Wales which will require home educators to register with their local authority.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2012/07/17/carwyn-jones-sets-out-welsh-government-s-law-making-plans-91466-31414898/