Know Your Enemy

Home Educated children in Staffordshire are still hugeley outnumbered by schooled children however there is a steady increase in the number of chldren being home educated whilst the number of children in school is slowly decreasing.

Education of School Age Children in Staffordshire
Primary Age Secondary Age
School HE School HE
2004-2005 65502 82 61400 107
2005-2006 63925 117 60940 141
2006-2007 62761 135 59909 146
2007-2008 61919 155 58858 166
Note: The number of HE children are only those known to the LA.
FOI request for details of childrens educational provisionLink Icon.

Despite having such a small number of children to monitor Staffordshire LA employ a team of 6:- 1 co-ordinator, 3 'family liason' officers and 2 admin officers.

Profiles of the EHE Team can be found on the Staffordshire EHE Team websiteLink Icon. Collated below is additional information about the staff on the EHE team.

Photograph of Olaf Hindmarsh
Olaf Hindmarsh
Elective Home Education Co-Ordinator
Photograph of David Boyle
David Boyle
Family Liason Officer
Photograph of Denis Birdsall
Denis Birdsall
Family Liason Officer
Photograph of Anne Bird
Anne Bird
Family Liason Officer
Photograph of Carol Yeomans
Carol Yeomans
Admin Officer
Photograph of Dawn Lovell
Dawn Lovell
Admin Officer

Lies and Deceit

The literature sent to new home educating parents in Staffordshire, and published on the Staffordshire EHE website, is deeply misleading. It consistently states or implies that parents must accept visits from the Local Authority. This is not the case and parents should be made aware of this. Links to annotated versions of these documents can be found below.

In early January I wrote to Bill Dewar, head of School Improvement Division, to point out the misleading and factually incorrect information in their literature. Despite receiving a letter on 9 January 2009, acknowledging the issues I raised and assuring me that the literature would be reviewed, the literature has still not been amended.

Overpaid and Inexperienced

The 'The Team' page of the Staffordshire EHE website details the background, experience and interests of the team members. None of them have listed in their profiles anything about personal experience of home educating a child. All of them were previously school teachers. Experience of teaching in mainstream schools does not qualify you to judge the home education of others. Despite a Freedom Of Information Act request Staffordshire Local Authority will not acknowledge whether or not their team members have any direct, personal experience of home education.

Staffordshire LA is throwing money at employing inexperienced staff who do not have a clear understanding of their duties. Olaf Hindmarsh, the EHE co-ordinator, earns a minimum salary of £39,678.00. The Associate Officers who carry out the home visits earn a minimum of £284.00 a day. At those costs the Local Authority should expect experts, not amateurs.

The job descriptions for the 3 EHE roles were released through a Freedom of Information Act request. They give an indication as to the experience/skills the EHE team members should have. Even the job descriptions are way out of line.

The 'Job Purpose' of the 'School Improvement Officer for EHE role' is stated to be to:

'Lead and Co-ordinate a team of curriculum and associate officers to support all youngsters that are electively home educated, ensuring that the child receives a suitable education (through the minimum of an annual review) and effectively network with other stakeholders within C&LL, the voluntary sector and other partner agencies.'

The insistence of the minimum of an annual review is outside of the Local Authorities legal remit. The DCSF guidelines to Local Authorities on EHE clearly state that parents have no obligation to grant the LEA access to their home, or indeed meet with them at all (Paragraph 3.6). The guidelines state that 'Local authorities have no statutory duties in relation to monitoring the quality of home education on a routine basis.' (Paragraph 2.7). The guidelines also state that if parents elect not to meet with the LEA that this is not a ground for concern and that evidence of a suitable education may be provided in a number of different formats (Paragraph 3.6).

Once a Local Authority has this evidence, that would on a balance of probabilities convince any reasonable person, then its statutory duties are fulfilled. Unless there is an appearance of failure to provide a suitable education the Local Authority has no duty, or right, to insist on further evidence at any time in the future. A family declining an annual review does not constitute such an appearance. A Local Authority cannot simply make an assumption that parents are failing in their duty to provide a suitable education. As such this 'Job Purpose' is misleading and may cause the post holder to believe they have more responsibilities or powers than they in fact have.

The 'Job Purpose' of the role of 'EHE Associate Officer' is stated to be to:

'Ensure that children/young people (CYP) that are Electively Home Educated interests are safeguarded, and their welfare promoted: so that they are not at risk of significant harm (ECM).'

The role of an EHE Officer should be to establish, positive and supportive, relationships with families who choose to exercise their right to EHE their children. It is worrying then that the purpose of EHE Officers in Staffordshire is solely to ensure EHE children are not at risk of significant harm.

Winging It

Astoundingly Staffordshire Local Authority have no documentation detailing the procedures or guidelines they follow when they learn of a child who is being educated otherwise than at school.

Lack of Transparency

Staffordshire LA consistently drag their feet with the provision of information. Responses to Freedom Of Information Act requests are often not released until the 20 day deadline and often contain only a subset of the requested information.

A recent FOI Request for a copy of Staffordshire's response to the 2009 Home Education Review is a good example. Despite the fact that a number of other County Council's deemed it appropriate to release their responses to the review questionnaire Staffordshire's response has been claimed as being exempt from the Freedom Of Information Act.

There is no valid reason for it to be witheld, it should not contain any personal or sensitive information. The questionnaire simply asked for the LA's opinion on how successful they believe the current legislation is for monitoring children educated otherwise than at school. Claiming exemption raises the question of exactly what the response contains and why Staffordshire County Council and the DCSF are so concerned about the public being made aware of it's contents.

Their lack of openness and transparency does nothing to instill confidence in them.

Education or Welfare?

Staffordshire EHE Team appear to be far more interested in investigating welfare issues of home educated children than actually ensuring they are receiving a suitable education. This is reflected in the 'Exit Audit', a questionnaire which is sent to the previous School when a child is taken off roll. The questionnaire contains only questions relating to welfare, there are no questions asking for information regarding the childs interests, school attainment or perceived strengths and weaknesses etc.

I assumed that as they asked for no educational information the child's school records would be forwarded to the EHE Team. This does not appear to be the case, almost a year after Adrian was deregistered I wrote to his previous school requesting his school file and was promptly sent not a copy, but the original records.

Considering their apparent lack of interest in the child's education and over zealous investigations into possible abuse you would assume there was a significant number of welfare cases involving home educated children in Staffordshire. A recent Freedom Of Information request however reveals that Staffordshire has no record of any home educated children who are, or are suspected of being, involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude. It begs the question then why they are so more focused in welfare than education?

Incidentally the exit audit wasn't even written by Staffordshire, checking the document properties clearly show it to be a copy from Stoke County Council, which makes it highly likely this bad practice occurs in other Local Authorities.