Opinion: In my view - Freedom from outcomes
Clare Sambrook, journalist, novelist (Hide & Seek, Canongate, 2005) and and home-educating mother (www.claresambrook.com)
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
You might wonder why home-educating families are so upset. Didn't Ed Balls say, during last month's second reading of his Children, Schools and Family Bill, not to worry?
'The only obligation in the Bill - it does not say what home-educated children are to learn, or set out detailed content - is to make sure that children are safe and are learning,' said Ed. One problem. That's not true.
Along with compulsory registration and home monitoring visits, Ed's Law would compel parents to submit annual advance plans for children's educational 'outcomes', the local authority deciding whether these were 'suitable' and being achieved. Failure to comply or achieve would bring a compulsory school attendance order.
My partner and I offer our children books, drawing materials, tools (sharp ones), cooking ingredients, the garden, and freedom to play with their friends for hours on end.
They enjoy lessons in music, dance, drama and sport, but mostly they work hard and happily under their own direction at what they call playing. We don't want to dictate their destination. We love to see where their imaginations carry them. Ed's Law threatens my children's freedom to learn through larking about.
It's striking fear into families such as Ruth Gray's. A home-educating mother of twins with Asperger's syndrome, Ruth says, 'B rarely shows me what he can do, so no way would he show a stranger, no matter how well trained they were. B would cry if pushed and D would shout. Do you see where this would lead? It is scary.'
The truth is that under the guise of 'safeguarding', the state is seizing control of yet another aspect of family life. Today the choice to educate children, free from the dictates of pre-ordained outcomes, is open to all of us. Soon, it will be gone.
