In a detailed response to the Scottish Executive’s consultation which closes this week, the national home education support organisation Schoolhouse has outlined a series of recommendations which it believes would ensure more effective implementation of the statutory guidance on the circumstances in which parents my choose to educated their children at home. (1)

Issued in March 2004 under section 14 of the Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc 2000, the guidance recognises home education as a key aspect of parental choice and aims to encourage good practice in relationships between local authorities and home educators. (2) However, nearly three years later, Schoolhouse has expressed disappointment that a significant number of local authorities have failed to revise policies and information materials in accordance with its recommendations and believes that the Scottish Executive must now unequivocally restate the requirement for all local authorities to act intra vires and within the terms of the guidance.

Schoolhouse further believes that those local authorities, whose policies, procedures and information for parents have not been updated since March 2004 to fully reflect the guidance, have demonstrated a lack of commitment to building relationships and developing partnerships with home educating families and are therefore unlikely to be in a position to make informed comment on the effectiveness or otherwise of its implementation.

Commenting on the Schoolhouse response, Alison Preuss said:
“Schoolhouse welcomed the issue of the home education guidance, which was designed to help address many of the problems highlighted in the Scottish Consumer Council’s Homeworks report published in 2000. (3) However, in order for it to achieve what it set out to achieve, it necessitated a commitment to its aims from all parties. While the home education community sought to make it work, and Schoolhouse’s work programme was planned accordingly, it has met with significant resistance from a number of local authorities. There are, however, some notable exceptions, including Orkney Islands Council which topped the list of councils whose officers consistently provided accurate information to home educating families.

“Schoolhouse’s formal response to the Scottish Executive, which includes 20 case studies from families who agreed to share their experiences of dealing with their local authorities, outlines our post guidance research findings and the main issues for home educators, from which it has  drawn a series of recommendations for improvements. In particular Schoolhouse argues that the consent anomaly, whereby parents are  required to obtain formal consent from their local authority to withdraw their children from a council school in Scotland (but not a private one), should be removed in order to harmonise the law with that of England and Wales. The different legislation south of the border has been identified  by Schoolhouse as a specific concern since some home educating families, acting on information or advice from England-based organisations or websites which wrongly assume that the legal situation is the same in Scotland, remove their children from school prior to obtaining consent.

“Given there are no plans to amend the primary legislation (4) in early course, Schoolhouse has urged the Executive to recommend that consent should be granted immediately upon written notification where no contraindicators exist, and that, in the meantime, a timescale of two weeks for consent to be granted or refused should be specified in the guidance, with a ‘presumption of consent’ in cases of undue delay. Furthermore, schoolhouse believes that bullying and other school-related problems should be formally recognised as a ‘reasonable excuse’ for children’s failure to attend school while parents are awaiting consent for withdrawal.”

Schoolhouse has recently participated in a research project in co-operation with the Scottish Consumer Council, as a follow-up to Homeworks, the findings of which are due to be reported later this week and which should further inform the review of the guidance. (5)

ENDS

For further information contact Alison Preuss on 0772 962 3532 or media@schoolhouse.org.uk

NOTES FOR EDITORS
(1) The current Scottish Executive guidance can be found here:
http://www.Scotland.gov.uk/library5/education/gcech.pdf (pdf)
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/education/gcech-00.asp (online)

(2) Schoolhouse’s response to the Scottish Executive home education
guidance review may be viewed here:
http://www.schoolhouse.org.uk/news/he_in_news.html

(3) See http://www.scotconsumer.org.uk/publications/reports/reports00/rp07home.pdf

(4) Education (Scotland) Act 1980, s35(1)

(5) See http://www.scotconsumer.org.uk/education/currentw.htm