Labour’s assault on home education

And how they’re failing the children who need them most.

I have a piece in The Critic this morning about some of the many problems with the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill:

Readers will be familiar with the government’s efforts to clamp down on educational freedom in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. But while Katharine Birbalsingh is fighting the good fight for academies, less attention has been paid to how the Bill will affect the 100,000+ children currently being educated at home. And if Bridget Phillipson doesn’t like academies being able to choose who to hire or what to pay them, you can guess how she feels about parents side-stepping the school system altogether and taking their child’s education into their own hands.

For home educators like me, the main change that will be ushered in by the Bill is the requirement to register with the local authority any school-age child who is not in school. We are told that the creation of a register, at no small cost to the taxpayer, is essential to ensuring child safety and educational standards for all. Like many home educators, I would not object to being on such a register if it achieved these worthy aims.

But the creation of a register of children not in school is an expensive sop, a mere gesture, which will, unforgivably, make no difference to the lives of children who most need the state’s support.

Read the whole thing here.

From The Critic

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