Are Home Educators *Secretive*?

Apparently this is one of our *problems*, we are too secretive.

What does *secretive* mean?

one definition says: "inclined to secrecy or reticence about divulging information"

Why would many home educators be reticent about divulging information I wonder?

Apart from the fact that we are just getting on with our lives; happily and lawfully, and the minutiae of people's everyday lives is really nothing to do with anyone else, there are a multitude of reasons for being reticent about divulging information.

I'll blog some of my thoughts, but would be grateful if others would add theirs in the comments box.

The old postcode lottery cliché. Yes this is definitely in play across the country. Some LAs are understanding and even respectful, but many are anything but. They can and do make people's lives a never ending battle over the course of many years, and so quite understandably people who live in such an LA would be quite sensible to avoid contact. I have heard some really horrible tales over the years from families who are horribly bullied by LA officials, many of these families have fled to other counties to get away from the stress they are put under by officious officials. What is so frustrating is that these cases aren't rare, and if the Badman recommendations become law, these same officious LA folk will be in seventh heaven with the legal right to lord it over families who are doing nothing wrong.

The problem is that many people who take on the HE *inspector* roles come from school backgrounds. Often they are former headteachers - just like Mr Badman. I don't know what the headteachers were like when you were at school, but the ones I knew were mainly very authoritarian, and brooked no dissent. The problem with people like this is that they take this attitude into all other areas of their work, and many treat HEing parents as recalcitrant children who must be broken to fit their mold.

As their only experience of education is the school model, they simply cannot (and often will not) understand that there are other models of education that are equally (I might say more) successful and far more sustainable than the school one. Many see it as a personal affront to a lifetime's professional position to find that unqualified parents can and do as good (or better) a job than they ever did for all their years of chasing academic qualifications.

Then there are the *inspectors* who allow personal prejudices to influence the treatment of individual families. Some don't like religious families, some don't like single parent or same sex families, some don't like coloured families, some don't like those who live in council houses, some don't like those who don't use computers, some don't like those who paint their toe nails pink. Ok, the last one was me being flippant, but you get my point. They make personal value judgements about families that can have far reaching effects. This happens even in *good* authorities, and is more likely to happen when the family loses control of the information they provide - for instance by allowing home visits.

Now that last sentence might bring out the *if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear* brigade, but just stop and think before trotting that one out. Do you have a disapproving mother in law who will find fault and criticise every little thing about your home? (Thankfully mine isn't like that, in case she's reading!) If you do then take the thought of how that feels and give it the power of a local authority employee who can bring the threat of social services to your door. Then you might be some of the way to understanding why we wouldn't want someone coming into our homes making judgements about us and the way we as a family live.

Right now i need to go and enjoy the sunshine with my children, so I will stop there and hope that others will put forward their reasoning in the comments box.

The Geezer's Got Previous Mate

No we haven't turned into a bad episode of the Sweeney.

An interesting little exchange occurs:

"Graham Badman: When you have a strong partnership between schools, authorities should not be afraid to use their powers of direction. We can direct admissions where there are special educational needs or looked-after children, and I do. That applies to Academies as well.

Q179 Paul Holmes: Surely you cannot direct admissions to Academies. You can ask them to take the children; you cannot direct them.

Graham Badman: Under the new code, they would find it very hard to refuse the admission of a looked-after child, for example.

Q180 Paul Holmes: None the less, even under the new code, you cannot direct Academies. You can ask but not direct, whereas you can direct mainstream schools.

Graham Badman: Well, please do not tell them in that case."

February 2008 - giving evidence to the Select Committee

Fast forward to October 2009 and we find Mr Badman writing to the Select Committee to apologise for providing them with incorrect information.

Hmm, is it just me, or is this providing of incorrect information becoming something of a habit? Rather like his habit of creating expensive and unnecessary schemes.

Incidentally, I wonder when Home Educators can expect their apology for all the slanderous and misleading statistics and comments Mr Badman has made. My feeling is that it will be a very snowy day in hell, but I'm happy to be mistaken.

Clutching at Straws

From an old proverb: *Drowning men will grasp at straws"

Definition: "depend on something that is useless; to make a futile attempt at something."

That's what this sorry shower have been doing don't you think? Shall we count some of the ways?

1. Call people you don't like rude names[1] in the press and before the select committee and hope that some of the mud sticks[2].

2. Fall back on tried and tested[3] methods from your past[4], and accuse people you don't like of being mentally ill[5].

3. Tell children[6] that they have to do something because you are from the government and you say so.

1. "However, there are concerns that some children are not receiving the education they need. And in some extreme cases, home education could be used as a cover for abuse. We cannot allow this to happen and are committed to doing all we can to help ensure children are safe, wherever they are educated."

2. 'Khyra Ishaq was electively home educated and withdrawn from the roll of her school in Birmingham, and within 10 weeks she had starved to death. ''

3. "While in Buckinghamshire there were only 540 initial assessments, in Kent the number was 12,510. Even allowing for differences in their populations, parents in Kent were 10 times more likely to be investigated over child protection issues. The report argues this discrepancy may be explained by some areas disregarding the MSBP hypothesis, “whereas in others it is taken as gospel and applied with zeal”"

4. Graham Badman was until recently Managing Director of the Children, Families and Education Directorate for Kent County Council.

5."At our first interview Mr Badman was interested in what I had to say. His opening question was to ask me if home educating mothers suffered from Munchhausen's by Proxy. I thought this to be a curious starting point - that of questioning whether home education is a symptom of mental illness. I am not medically qualified, but I was able to inform Mr Badman that there is no research evidence available that I am aware of, which makes this link."

6. JONATHAN PRIOR: I want to read you a section of annex C: “The review will look in particular at if and how far home educated children have access to the five Every Child Matters outcomes.”

PENNY JONES: Ahh, I see, okay.
GARETT ROSS: I don’t want them.
PENNY JONES: Well, want or not, I am a government official, and these five outcomes are government policy."

Some great blogs about covering these issues:

Crystal Balls for Badman

Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy?!

Graham Badman, King of Projection

Go Against the Government? Mentally Ill.

so home-educating mothers have Münchhausens by proxy badman actually asked

Now I have Munchhausen's Syndrome by Proxy

I'm sure there will be many more to follow.

Thanks to JD for the graphic.

Nektus and Badman

DCSF has now released the evidence submitted to the Select Committee Inquiry

This is mine

1. In a letter to the information commissioner just released under the freedom of information act,

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/communications_with_information#comment-5064

the DCSF use several examples to show why they are not releasing certain requested information to Home Educators. The first example used is the one I would particularly like to bring to your attention.

"http://www.facebook.com/wall.php?id=4545... &page=2&hash-Of2a77932b0633fb20f23cc27b7aOb09 The post of 13 June 23.45 suggests that Mr Badman will have a child's blood on his hands."

2. I am the creator/owner of the Facebook group in question, and was astonished to see this discussion being used in this way. This particular comment was made by a Home Educator who has been instrumental in the development of good relations between Home Educators and North Yorkshire County Council's Elective Home Education team. It was in this capacity that she was invited by NYCC to meet with Mr Badman, on two occasions, to talk to him about her experiences. Having met with Mr Badman, and having spent some not inconsiderable time telling him about her own personal experiences of removing a child from school, she was horrified when she read the report recommendations. She left a message on the group wall to the effect that if the recommendations become law, Mr Badman would at some point have a child's blood on his hands. Sally Devlin queried what was meant by this comment, and several people explained that, with the recommendations contained within the report, children who were, or had previously been, unhappy in school would no longer have the same safety net that they currently do, and that in turn could lead to more child suicides. I have used the same phrase myself in a recent blog post about the report.

http://freedomineducationunderthreat.blogspot.com/2009/09/life-line_13.html

3. Conversations on Facebook group walls are very short lived and quickly get pushed out of view. It is therefore curious that such a brief comment in a short lived conversation made it to the notice of the DCSF, as *evidence* of the danger posed to Mr Badman. Until you consider that Sally Devlin is the daughter of Graham Badman. Not once in her time on the group did she disclose her connections, but in her parting comment to the group she admits that she was there to collect information.

4. This in itself might not be of any great interest to the committee; however, further investigation reveals some rather disturbing information which potentially has a bearing on the review report.

5. In his report Mr Badman puts forward Somerset Council as an example of best practice with regard to their Home Education policies and procedures. Many Home Educators were surprised by this, as Somerset is not an authority that has historically been put forward by home educators or the DCSF as either good or bad. Indeed, a consultancy firm specialising in the training of Local Authorities in Elective Home Education law and policy, who Mr Badman met during the course of the review process, was also surprised to see Somerset put forward in this manner.

6. It came to light that Mr Badman's daughter is a SEN Case Work Officer for Somerset Council. During the course of discussions on the Facebook group (hastily deleted when she realised we knew who she was) Mrs Devlin made some quite worrying comments about the home educating clients she has had dealings with. One has to wonder how much weight was given to her opinions by her father, particularly with regard to the considerable sections of the report that deal with HE and SEN, and whether the surprising choice of Somerset as an example of best practice, had anything to do with his daughter's professional position within this authority.

7. During the review process, Home Educators have obviously been very interested in finding out what professional interests Mr Badman holds, especially given that we have been told time and again that he, and therefore his review, are *independent*. Many home educators were surprised to find that an independent review into Home Education could be carried out by a former teacher, former head of children's services, and current chair of BECTA. Whilst looking into Mr Badman's professional interests, it was discovered that he was listed as the director of an Education Management company by the name of Nektus.

8. The company information is readily available from Companies House: Nektus was first registered as a company in October 2008. The directors of the company are Mr and Mrs Badman and Mr and Mrs Devlin. Sally Devlin is listed as company secretary.

9. When the report was made public, a discussion thread was started on the Facebook group asking the question *What happens next?* Sally Devlin got involved in the discussion, and seemed quite eager to convince us that the law would change very quickly, and that we would be best just accepting it. Again, these comments were deleted by Mrs Devlin, but they were cached, and are available to view should you deem it necessary.

10. This eagerness, together with her involvement in Nektus, lead a Home Educator to put in a FOI request for all communications between Nektus and DCSF between October 2008 and June 2009.http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/communications_with_nektus#outgoing-30153

The request was refused under sections 38 and 40 of the FOI Act.

11. What is curious about this is that in the original request, no mention was made of Mr Badman, or of any link to Home Education, and yet the response does. This suggests that the person responding to the request had information that the requester did not give. The responder appeared to know that Graham Badman had a connection to the private company Nektus. So either this is common knowledge at the DCSF or the responders have been given some particular "red flags" to watch for in FOI requests, Nektus being one. Either way, again, it raises questions. Was Nektus involved in the preparation of the Review or the Report? Was there any financial gain to be made by Mr Badman or his daughter from involvement with the review and its outcome?

12. It seems that, regardless of the truth of the allegation that "attempts have been made to vilify and harass the author of the Review of Elective Home Education," the best way to combat such "attempts" would be to tell the truth. If the interactions between the DCSF and Nektus have been completely above board, then it would seem to be in the best interest of everyone to disclose all interactions between the two entities. Not to do so merely raises the question that there might be something the either the DCSF or Nektus does not wish to be disclosed for public scrutiny. Simply complying with the FOI request would have defused the situation and eliminated any question of conflict of interest. Not to comply with the request simply raises these questions again.

13. When all the other issues Home Educators have with this review are taken into consideration, alongside the above information, and the fact that Graham Badman and the DCSF are now, 3 months after the report was published and accepted in its entirety by government, asking Local Authorities to provide evidence to back up the Report's *evidence*, it seems to me not only that the validity of the entire report must surely be called into serious question (and the resulting consultation consigned to the shredder) but also that Mr Badman has questions to answer about the extent to which his family's commercial interests may have influenced the development of his recommendations and the role his daughter's opinions - which are no more impartial than they are independent - may have played in the formation of his own views.

September 2009

Uprising

Paranoia is in bloom,
The PR transmissions will resume,
They'll try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed down,
And hope that we will never see the truth around
(So come on)
Another promise, another scene,
Another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed,
And all the green belts wrapped around our minds,
And endless red tape to keep the truth confined
(So come on)

They will not force us,
They will stop degrading us,
They will not control us,
We will be victorious
(So come on)

Interchanging mind control,
Come let the revolution take it's toll,
If you could flick a switch and open your third eye,
You'd see that
We should never be afraid to die
(So come on)

Rise up and take the power back,
It's time the fat cats had a heart attack,
You know that their time's coming to an end,
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend

They will not force us,
They will stop degrading us,
They will not control us,
We will be victorious
So come on

They will not force us,
They will stop degrading us,
They will not control us,
We will be victorious




Just say NO!

Home Education and Religion

Last week at the second select committee hearing, one Peter Traves of Staffordshire LA made a most incredible public faux pas. Or was it?

Mr Traves said:

"There are also parents who withdraw their children, I have to say, for particular religious view and wanted that religious view incultcating that child. It isn’t just about the rights of parents, it’s also about the rights of children…”

The implication being that to choose to home educate your child for religious reasons is wrong, and must not be allowed.

It seems it's hunting season for religious home educators, as even dear old Aunty have been getting in on the act too.

I don't suppose it would interest the likes of Mr Traves to know that in a recent diversity survey I conducted, of the 3.4% of home educators who said they did NOT include any information about other religions/life philosophies in their child's home education, 50% were atheists and 37% were agnostics!

As it happens, I am not a religious person. Indeed, having spent 3 years in a Catholic boarding school as a non baptised person, I have always been rather anti-religion. However, I have found myself in the position of defending people of faith in the last year or so, as they have come under ever greater attack from the system. This is particularly true for religious home educators. It seems that it is fine for a child to be *inculcated* with a state *religion* but absolutely unforgivable for a parent to want to pass on it's religious views and morals to their child.

This reminds me so very much of the DDR.

"While the DDR didn`t officially ban religion, it adopted social policies that had a devestating impact on religion. DDR policies hindered the free exercise of religion. East Germans who wanted to be profesionally successful didn't attend church. And the children in school, of course, were also observed what the parents wre doing. If a teenager wanted to attend university and persue a professional career, he could not be a Church member or attend Church."

We here in the UK seem to think that our history of freedom means we are immune from the encroachment of an authoritarian, fascist state. We wax lyrical about our grandfathers who fought against such outrages, as though their ghosts offer us protection.

We think that human rights acts will protect us against such outrages.

We think human decency will protect against such outrages.

The only thing that will protect us is people, ordinary people, such as our grandfathers were, standing up and saying enough is enough, and refusing to accept these outrages. If we are employed by government departments we must not fall into saying *but I was just doing my job*, because make no mistake, if allowed, history does repeat itself. Just because we are British doesn't mean we cannot fall under the jackboot of totalitarianism - read the newspapers, we're further along the road than you might like to believe. Where is your line in the sand?

Armed police on the streets?
Children removed from their families because they are *too fat*?
Your 5 year old being taught about masturbation in sex ed lessons?

the Fabian Society have plans for your children, regardless of what you or your child have planned for themselves.

What has this got to do with religion? It's simple really, and I know it's become something of a cliché but things become clichés for a good reason.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.

ETA: The unesco document incase the Fox News link is too biased go to pages 48 and 49.

DCSF are just embarrassing themselves now.

Media Release from Action for Home Education

Media release from Action for Home Education, 20 October 2009

DCSF "just embarrassing themselves now"

Moments before the deadline, a home-educating parent reported that their submission to the latest consultation on home education had received the number 5340, an unusually large public response with the previous record for DCSF being only in the hundreds.

One of the respondents, JK, a fifteen year old supporter of Action for Home Education, declared today that Ed Balls and the DCSF are "just embarrassing themselves now" as he battled to understand how the government can be so short sighted about the opposition to the recommendations in the Badman Report on home education.

This rather gives the lie to Graham Badman's assertion to the Children, Schools and Families Committee (12 October 2009, Q2) that the opposition to his report comes from "a vociferous minority" that he can actually count. But "why", asks JK, "are they still not listening?"

Diana Johnson (to Children, Schools and Families Select Committee hearing 12 October 2009,) promised that consultation responses will be carefully scrutinised and taken into account before policy is made.

"But Ed Balls accepted the widely criticised Badman review in full immediately and dismissed out of hand the Cambridge Review, a long term academic study of education that suggested children should start school at six and sit fewer tests", said Barbara Stark, Chair of the AHEd group.

"We are watching to see if even the large number of responses is going to be taken seriously by Ed Balls who, so far, has ridden rough shod over the wishes and needs of home educated children to push forward his own ideas. We think that the review was not really independent and was used by Ed Balls to make up policy-based evidence biased towards a predetermined agenda to bully us and our children."

AHEd believes most of the consultation responses will have been from ordinary families who see big government threatening their way of life and their family choices.

Supporter Clare Murton said, "This government has lost sight of the distinction between public and private to the point where even our youngsters are mystified at their ignorance and arrogance.

"Many parents will recognise the frustration home educators feel with the shortcomings of the state schools, but not many will realise that, if they chose to decline the state's humble offerings in any sphere of life, not just education, they may be forced to expose their homes and children to close scrutiny."

Recently there have been attempts to screen, control, tax and register mums and dads who choose to share their child care arrangements, but things are now thought to be going too far. AHEd believes that Ed Balls and the DCSF have to be made to understand that normally peaceful home educators who just want to get on with their lives are drawing a line in the sand.

Ms Stark said, "The British public are fed up with such interference and we will tolerate it no longer. We will not comply with this disgusting agenda for us and our children. If necessary, many of us will choose to go before the courts to fight any criminal sanctions that government may introduce.

"Does New Labour really want to be remembered as the government that persecuted law-abiding parents doing their best for their families?"

ENDS

For further information, contact AHEd.