Why do they need to know?

In this article the schools minister said “We believe the introduction of compulsory, light-touch registration for home-educated children is an important element of the way forward. It is only if all home-educated children are registered that local authorities will get the information they need to make accurate assessments about the numbers of home educated children in their areas.”

This begs the question, why do they need to assess how many HE families there are?  They do not need to know.  They do not do anything for them, therefore it will be for the sake of statistics, which unless they are going to do something good with them for HE families, then I do not want to play.

Earlier in the same article Mr Sheerman (Chair of the Select Committee) said “The Government needs to build a stronger relationship with home educators, and we believe our approach of voluntary registration – a carrot rather than a stick approach – that will provide all of the benefits and support to home educators is the best way.”  In theory I like this statement, it falls in line with my personal views, however there is still the worry than this may be the thin edge of a nasty wedge.  But the principle of a Carrot rather than a stick approach is certainly my favoured option.

Finally, again from the same article, Mr Sheerman said “I admire Ed Balls’ passion for getting things done, but sometimes he wants to act so quickly he can push things too far and is forced to row back. He did it with the vetting and barring of adults working with children and he has done it with other things.”   That is exactly our point.  Mr Balls is playing with real families and real children, this is important and needs to be done properly and thoroughly, not just pushed on to suit his own political ends.

Lightning “strokes” twice

This article in our local paper is pretty impressive.

Given the reputation of the “youf” of today, it also shows that a little bit of knowledge and the ability to act upon it can save lives.

Well done Matt, a good story for those times when you have to say “something interesting” about yourself

Residents Association in the Citizen

I had the interesting experience of being interviewed by David Thomas of the Citizen newspaper, on two topics, but the first has hit the press today.

I do normally shy away from the press, but someone else pointed out that if you don’t engage them then they can just make it up.  Coupled with the fact that the Citizen has given us such bad press, I felt that a “cease fire” was in order.  We had a good chat and the resulting article was a fairly accurate representation of my feelings.

What is depressing though is the comments that you get on the online version.  To highlight one in particular:

“Barry you done this once and all you wanted was parties and not to help us with the every day things…… im starting to think that it a power trip for u and all you wont is your name in lights…. Kingsway will become a community once the site is finish and then it we be a great place to live.. so give up or let some one else have a go…. V”

It just shows how far people can miss the mark.  Yes I want social events in order to get people to meet each other and create a community spirit, in reality I never have been able to do this and spent a lot of time on “every day things”, look at the post box, the pedestrian access to the Park and Ride road, as well as numerous other smaller things.

If I wanted my name in lights then I wouldn’t be doing this, and to have a power trip, you have to have power to trip on.  Not wanting to put anyone off the job, but being the “punch bag” for the community is not my idea of power.

As for Kingsway becoming a community when its finished, what? in 4/5 years time?  Im not willing to wait that long.  I want to enjoy my community now!

As for the Give up or let someone else have a go, well I did stand down to let others who told me they could do better, but then it all collapsed because the same people who are willing to criticise me and tell me they can do better, suddenly vanished.  And I don’t like giving up, anyone can do that…..

While I realise its only one person, it does make one think about the point of trying……

Home Ed Christmas Party

Its often the first thing thats said, when you tell people that you home educate – “what about the social aspects?”

I wish I could have invited everybody who made that comment to the Christmas Party on Friday night.  It was a really good evening with a number of  DJs, a band, a choir and a Pianist, as well as food and drinks.  The good thing about this was that all the entertainment was provided by the children.  It was really quite enjoyable to listen to the band play not only some of the “classics” but also to hear the songs they had written themselves and the reasons behind the songs.  The choir had a good repertoire of Christmas songs with their own twist and this was followed by a young lady who gave a impromptu solo piano performance.  This was all interspersed with the lads who were DJ’ing the evening and not to mention the street dancing solos.

All in all a very enjoyable evening.  However the highlight was being able to watch Eloise and her new found dancing ability.  I need to post the video on YouTube!

Wow – Mass Petition to Parliament for Home Education

I have done something new tonight – I watched BBC Parliament on BBC IPlayer.

Tonight was the opportunity for MPs over the UK to submit the petitions on behalf of their constituents and what a turnout there was.  The Deputy Speaker had to determine how to get them presented in an expeditious manner.

Edit – To  see the event itself, have a look at here

It was such an electric moment to know I had been a part of such an event, which is the largest mass petition in history.

My MP, Parmjit Dhanda, submitted my petition yesterday (7th Dec) which has been recorded on Hansard and if you look at the previous records, then there have been submissions for a number of days.  The total so far is over 250 constituancies.

It is true that the internet played a large part of what we have been able to achieve in terms of coordination and expediency.  When I found out about this, I had a week to get sorted out, get signatures and meet with Parmjit to discuss the issues and gain his support.

All in all, well done everybody involved and it is now in the Governments hands to respond to this in an appropriate way.

Advanced Driving Day

I did an advanced driving course today, provided through work as I drive so many miles on company business.

It was an all day thing, starting at 9am with an evaluation drive to see what I can improve, then a session of improving those elements, then a motorway session and finally a “review” drive to see if i had learned the lessons.

I did get a couple of tips which was good and some alternative ways of doing things, but at the end of it, I was very tired after driving all day.

Was it worth it?  If I was paying for it, then no, I would feel like it was a waste of money as I don’t think I learned anything new, but as the Company insisted I do it, then it was a good oppotunity to have my skill evaluated and to get constructive criticicm.

Residents association formed – Citizen

While we got the committee and stuff up and running, I didn’t expect to make the local paper doing it.

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/gloucestershireheadlines/Residents-association-set-Gloucester/article-1564956-detail/article.html

So much for just keeping my head down and getting on with the job.  The first commenter doesn’t seem to enamoured with me either….

A Chilled Weekend

What a nice weekend this has been.  We realised it will be the last quiet weekend before Christmas, therefore we tried to make to most of the time to chill.

It’s the first time in ages that I had a lie in on the Saturday and did not get up until 1030am, I’m so not used to it!  Then we watched TV and got into tidying up the house, I spent a lot of time trying to gut the kitchen. All quite therapeutic.

Sunday is just as chilled.  Rubbish weather, so made some winter soup and been watching DVDs and stuff.  Star wars followed by Happy Feet, interesting mix.

Downside is that Talk Talk have messed up our internet order so will be a while before we are connected up

Have started talking about Camping Trips for next year and we hope to revisit one that we did last year.  If everyone can make it then it should be a good giggle.

EHE in the Lords

Our friend Claire sent me this link to Hansard and a speech given in the Lords by Lord Lucas.  It raises many good points and articulates them much more concisely than I have done.  I would encourage everyone to read it.  However I have extracted a couple of points below which I had not fully considered before.

“We are considering a section of the Bill which will cost £20 million per annum, which is about £1,000 per home-educated child. These children receive no money to help pay the costs of examinations; no money to buy textbooks; no money to buy materials; no money and no tuition to help them over difficulties in education. Now the Government can find £1,000 for each of these children—and will spend it on auditing them. Not one penny will go to help the children; it will all go on auditing them. What have these people done to deserve that?”

This is a very good point.  I have often wondered (and written to Parmjit Dhanda about it) where the Money that was allocated to our daughter to be in school went to when we took her out.  Some education slush fund?

“Most damagingly of all, it has been said in the impact assessment that 0.4 per cent of home-educated children are subject to a child protection plan, compared with only 0.2 per cent of the general population. That is a vicious untruth. Yes, 0.4 per cent of the home-educated children are subject to a child protection plan, but the figures for the general population are 0.26 per cent with a child protection plan and 0.34 per cent who have actually been taken into care. We cannot find a single instance of a home-educated child who has been taken into care“

This just shows that statistics can be manipulated to suit the cause.  While, as discussed in the previous post, any child being abused is bad, there are more children being abused which are known to the system than being Home Educated.  If there was more time and money spent sorting out the current social welfare system and making it better, it would have a more positive impact on helping vulnerable children than picking on a minority group who have no record of being an issue and are just being persecuted through ignorance.

Meeting with Parmjit Dhanda MP and the HE Petition

To be honest, I went to the meeting not quite knowing what to expect.  Parmjit Dhanda is a Labour MP and asking him to present this could be considered a bit much.

As soon as I walked in the room, it was apparent that he had done his homework.  He had read my blog and other comments through Twitter and Facebook.  He had read the report and could discuss it easily.  Considering the reception some others have got from their MPs, this was a really good start.  It meant we could have a proper discussion about it, rather than me acting like a campaigner.  It also meant that we were talking about the report itself and not all the hype around it.

Main issue was child safety and the associated registration.   As a previous education minister, he could cite experiences of having received reports of children having fallen through the system.  I think we both agreed that the idea of registration is not a bad thing in Gloucester as the Gloucester LA is actually very good towards Home Educators.  The main problem in the UK is that not every LA takes the same approach.

He raised very good points around the fact that the people campaigning were generally responsible etc, it’s the ones that hide, that are not known about that are the problem.  I did put forward the argument that the issue of child abuse is much less of a problem in the HE community that it is in the community of “schooled children”.  But I couldn’t argue with the point that any child that can be saved from abuse is a good thing.  He was very receptive to the fact that a lot of HE families, while concerned about the issues within this report, are also very concerned that this is the thin end of a wedge that could get a lot thicker in future.

He accepted the petition and agreed to submit it to the house.  He also said he wished to join the Cross Parliamentary group which Graham Stuart MP has organised and currently Chairs.  I thought this was a really proactive role to take.

It was a shame in many ways that we only had a 15 minute session as there was a more I wanted to put forward, such as incentivizing registration and how to use the Gloucester Model to the advantage of other HE communities in the UK.  But the outcome was much better than expected, so I hope that others within the UK have had a similar result.  It seems that Graham Stuart will be coordinating the petition submissions for the 8^th December, so we will see what happens!