Home educated children have often been subjected to ‘horrendous trauma’ in the school system - and we need to end the witch hunt against them, according to one leading expert.
Dr Harriet Pattison is a home education specialist and Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Studies at Liverpool Hope University.
She’s worried the government continues to plough ahead with a proposed mandatory register of home educated children despite fierce opposition from home educating families.
Dr Pattison fears the register will demonise home educating parents and also put them at risk of being prosecuted and harassed by local authorities if they don’t sign up.
And she says authorities are forgetting the fact that many home educated children have been left with no other option because of the nightmares they’ve endured in classrooms.
Dr Pattison, co-author of the book How Children Learn at Home, argues: “Home educated children need proper support, not persecution.
“Many home educated children have had some experience of being in school - and they’ve been taken out of that school because it has gone really badly wrong for them.
“I’ve spoken with so many families and parents who say that things had become so desperate in school that the children were left completely traumatised and it sometimes takes months, or years, to get them to fully engage in education again.
“For me, there’s just no official recognition of the fact that some children are not safe in school and how they’ve had these terrible experiences.”
The academic, who is also author of the 2016 book Rethinking Learning to Read, adds: “The things that some families go through are absolutely horrific. They often spend years trying to get resources, or support, or a SEND (special educational needs or a disability) diagnosis.
“These parents get up every morning, with their child being physically ill with the stress of going to school. They don’t want to get in the car, they don’t want to go, they are deeply unhappy and not learning. It’s constant and it has a huge impact on the rest of the family.
“We’re talking about horrendous difficulties - bullying, significant mental health needs, sometimes ongoing physical health problems - but there’s no proper acknowledgement of what some families have to face.”
Dr Pattison was responding to recent comments from Charlotte Ramsden, President of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services.
During an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Ramsden argued that there might be some home educated children who are not receiving a suitable education however Dr Pattison points out that Local authorities already have the wherewithal to investigate these cases. However, she argues there is a much wider context. “We need to shift the narrative. Charlotte Ramsden said that we have to handle the possibility that there may be children and young people who may feel that home education wasn’t the right thing for them. But she’s saying this at the same time that, year on year, around 20 per cent of children come out of the traditional school education system without even the most basic qualifications.
“While that situation is ongoing, it doesn’t stack up that we are making home education harder. Most of the time, home education is the only place to go for children failed by schools. We have to question Ramsden’s default position that children are safe, happy and learning in school - sometimes, that is simply not the case.”
Dr Pattison says that if the proposed register goes ahead as is, a ‘destructive trajectory’ continues, and a rocky relationship between home educated families and local authorities will deteriorate further.
She states: “For this dialogue about a mandatory register to be more constructive, there has to be a recognition that school does not suit everybody. And when it doesn’t suit people, then you need to understand why families need to do something about it, and why they home educate.
“We need to be realistic about the situation.”
One of the solutions for Dr Pattison is a simple one - allow home educated children the flexibility of being able to spend just a couple of days a week in school, if they wish, while improving access to exams.
She says: “Post-Covid, we’ve learned the value of more flexible policies. We ought to be striving towards more flexible education, with more possibilities.
“If we could normalise just coming into school for a couple of days a week, for example, it might be enormously beneficial to home educating families.
“If someone who has been home educated but wants to take their GCSEs, let them join classes or revision groups in schools - to improve the synergy between schools and home educating families.”
Access to exams could also be a way of enticing families to join the register - rather than compelling them with the threat of legal action.
She says: “Let’s see local authorities say, ‘This is what we’re going to offer you if you sign up to the register - we’ll help you with access to exams, we’ll help you with funding. If there’s another disruption to the exam system, we’ll consider your needs when shaping policy’.
“People would come forward voluntarily to do that. It’s the carrot and not the stick.
“There’s a long history now of bad relationships between home educating families and local authorities - of local authorities breaking the law in terms of their demands, doorstepping people and imposing their will on them. Home educated families don’t feel listened to - despite all of these so-called consultations.
“Let’s acknowledge that bad history and start to turn things in a new direction. It’s not good enough to ignore the fact that bridges have been burned.”
Proponents of the mandatory register argue that it is needed in response to home educated children being seen as ‘off the grid’. There are also concerns about child abuse and radicalisation.
Heralded by former Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, it follows an Education Committee inquiry which examined the need for ‘accountability’ and ‘monitoring’ of families who opt out of the school system.
There is, as yet, no date for the register’s roll-out.