The biggest threat to home education that the UK has ever experienced...

On 19th January 2009 the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) launched a Review of Home Education and a short online consultation. This questionnaire includes unsubstantiated accusations that home educators are potential child abusers, and infers that Elective Home Education should be overseen by the very authorities that have caused harm to many families, causing them to reject the State school system.

You can read the Review of Home Education here, and the Press Release from the DCSF here.

The person who will be running the Review of Home Education is a Mr Graham Badman (like the name!!) who was previously responsible for running the Baby P enquiry.

This is the third review of home education in two years, and the fifth review in three years. Each time the government has refused to accept the answers they were given. Repeated consultations covering the same ground are vexatious and a waste of our time and public money. It is becoming difficult to deny that these consultations are a continual persecution / harassment of a law abiding minority group. Will the government keep issuing repeat reviews and consultations year after year until they finally get the answers they want, or until the home education community gives in through exhaustion?

Worst of all is that the DCSF did not even have the common decency to inform home education groups that this third review was even taking place. Education Otherwise found out because the press enquired and everyone else found out via the very active home education grapevine.

The DCSF has taken its gloves off and is once more trying to bring about the end of Home Education as we know it. If any other minority group were treated the way we have been there would be uproar. Enough is enough, let's do something about it!

What Dissident Congress would like to know is why does this consultation last only for a period of 4 weeks rather than the standard period of 12 weeks?

The DCSF complies with the Cabinet Office Code of Practice on Written Consultations which sets out the consultation criteria for Government Departments to follow. The standard period of a consultation is 12 weeks although the Code allows for shorter consultation periods in exceptional circumstances, such as where Departments need to respond quickly in the best interest of the public. Just what exactly are the exceptional circumstances surrounding this consultation?

Action for Home Education (AHEd) have responded to the Review of Home Education by publishing their own Press Release - "Parents Express Outrage and Disgust at Latest Government Attack on Families."

Facebook group press release - HE PARENTS WELCOME CHILDREN'S SOCIETY REPORT

Mike Fortune-Wood speaks about the latest UK attack on Home-Education in a video on YouTube.

The NSPCC are supporting this review. Are they hand in glove with the government?

The consultation questions

The public consultation comprised of 6 questions. It closed on Friday 20th February 2009.

The DCSF also invited Local Authorities to respond to a separate consultation comprising of 60 questions, some of which pre-supposes monitoring of home educated parents.

News

Baroness Delyth Morgan said home schooling could be masking a range of evils including sexual exploitation and domestic servitude - Mail on Sunday

Education Professionals Union Voice General Secretary believes that inspections by the local education authority should be compulsory, and parents should have to present the child and his or her work.

Association of School College Leaders (ASCL) has appealed to parents to welcome the development.

"Hitler outlawed home education for just that reason, he understood that to control the minds of the people you have to get children away from their parents as early as possible" - Comment by Firebird

When the Mail does a good story you might start to think the tide is turning - Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday

The Government is victimising parents who home educate - Telegraph

Home education 'demonised' by Government - Hunts Post

Letters

Examples of letters submitted to MPs about the consultation

A letter to Michael Gove MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

A letter to Childrens' Rights Alliance for England (CRAE)

A fantastic letter from a home educated teenager.