Freedom for Children to Grow

Second Round of DCSF Regional Events March 8th 2008

Ministers Ed Balls, Jim Knight, Lord Adonis, Beverley Hughes attended the events and talked to home educating parents. Top civil servants from the DCSFwere also present at the events, including the Permanent Secretary, the Director General of Schools, the Director General of Children and Families and the Director General for Young People. The 4 regional members of EO worked hard throughout the day promoting understanding and awareness of home education to the Government policy makers. This was a rare chance to challenge Ministers' and civil servants' assumptions about education and about families.

We are not under any illusions about these regional events. They are stage-managed by Government contractors primarily in order to provide endorsement for plans which are already formulated. However, EO believes that any Government discussion with parents about children or young people or families or education should take account of home education, which is why EO will continue to press for our members to be invited to these meetings.

At the first round of Time to Talk events in September 2007 there was a total of a hundred parents, professionals and young people invited to each events and Education Otherwise were able to send two parents and one young person to each event. In the second round, the numbers were whittled down to 40 and this also included 10 new professionals working in the field of youth, social work and healthcare. Effectively this meant that less than a third of the original participants from September received an invitation to attend Round Two in March. Initially home educating parents were not invited, but this was later rectified.

This link gives some information about the civil service arm of the Department for Children, Schools and Families. The Permanent Secretary David Bell attended the London event as did the Director General of the DCSF, Tom Jeffery, who spent over an hour at the table sharing the discussion with Ann Newstead of EO Government Policy Group who is also EO Media spokesperson. After the discussion, the Director General invited Ann to sign up for the Parents' Panel. All 4 EO representatives put their names down for the follow-up Parents' Panels in London and Manchester.

Ann also had the opportunity to challenge Ann Keen, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Health Services on the issue of access. If schools are to be "the heart of the community", with many other children's services located in schools, will home educators end up with a second class system? Ann is following this up on behalf of EO Government Policy Group. Ann also told Lord Adonis that whilst the first stated aim of the Government's Children's Plan was that government should support parents and that it is parents' job to raise children, she saw nothing in the detail of the Plan that reflected this aim and she was unconvinced that Government can walk the fine line between offering support, and policing. She asked whether parents who chose not to access services would be treated with suspicion and whether "support" would be forced upon them. This was echoed by home educators at the other 3 regional events.

At the Leeds event, Ed Balls recognised Annette from previous encounters (DCSF Time to Talk Round One, Leeds, September 2007 and the launch of the new policy document on raising the school leaving age at the Fabian Society in London in November 2007).

Lesley Longstone, DCSF Director General for Young People spoke to the Leeds meeting about the research base for the Government's 10 Year Children's Plan. In group discussion, Annette raised the topic of the loss of Child Benefit disks and concerns over the electronic Common Assessment Framework. In common with other EO members at these events, Annette also made the point that the previous discussions on the Children's Plan had talked about non-judgemental support ("more support, less policing") but that this was not reflected in the published plan. Annette quizzed Ed Balls about reform of the school testing system, where the Government pilots appear to show that children are achieving less. Tests in schools on individual pupils can't be both diagnostic on personal level and at the same time a measure of the schools' standing in the League Tables. This debate also provided yet another opportunity to bang the drum for home education as as a way of delivering true personalised learning.

At several of the events, the organisers wanted participants to talk about young people, particularly with regard to positive leisure activities and new Government guidance on alcohol. Home educating parents objected to a mandatory list of activities and said we should start by asking young people what they themselves wanted. The Government appears to want positive leisure activities entitlement a/ to be based around schools and b/ to be offered solely or primarily to young people who are at risk of offending or to young people from low-income families. All four regional events objected to the location and targeting of these services and said that this is not what young people themselves would want.

Parents at the events said they felt the Government wanted them to vote to make parents responsible for a total ban on alcohol, but parents themselves felt this was unrealistic and instead advocated that parents talked more to children. Obviously, this gave home educating parents the opportunity to point out once more how much home educating families value the chances we all get to talk to each other and to spend time together. The parents at the events were against the national children's database whenever this topic was raised by home educators. They wanted more front line staff and less spent on IT. There was also a great mistrust of Government's ability to look after our data, following the scandalous loss of Child Benefit Disks.

In Portsmouth, the EO member spent a lot of time talking to Ralph Tabberer, the Director General of the Schools Standards Directorate. Among the topics raised were: dyslexia support, young people attending college part time, difficulty of exam centre access, benefits of home education delivering one to one personalised learning at the child's own pace especially for children and young people with SEN and learning difficulties. The same themes were also raised by EO with civil service Directors in Birmingham.

LIST OF PARTICIPATING MINISTERS AND CIVIL SERVANTS

LEEDS

Ed Balls DCSF Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families
Lesley Longstone DCSF Director General for Young People

BIRMINGHAM

Beverley Hughes DCSF Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families
Stephen Meek DCSF Director of Strategy, Performance & Analysis
Andrew McCully DCSF Director for Supporting Children and Young People Group

LONDON

Lord Adonis DCSF Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Schools and Learners
Ann Keen Department of Health Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Health Services
David Bell DCSF Permanent Secretary
Tom Jeffery DCSF Director General for Children and Families

PORTSMOUTH

Jim Knight DCSF Minister of State for Schools and Learners
Ralph Tabberer DCSF Director General Schools

Food for Thought: Home Education for Teenagers In the News The DCSF thinks school is the best place for children. Here at Education Otherwise Campaign Website, we beg to differ Iris Harrison's HE Diary Press Enquiries

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