Showing posts with label home education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home education. Show all posts

Wednesday 21 November 2018

Numbers of home-educated children in Brent falls


The number of children home educated in Brent has fallen by 100 since last year an FoI request shows. The fall in the first four years of primary school may reflect the easing of the primary places shortage with parents being offered places in their chosen school when children move out of the area. Despite the fall compared with last year, figures are well up on those of 2006.

Apart from parents keeping children at home, rather than taking up a place in a school they do not like, some parents opt to home educate their children because they reject the high-stakes testing of primary pupils LINK or because they feel their children's special needs are not addressed in mainstream schools.

Informing the Local Authority occurs when a child is withdrawn from school. There are other children who have never been registered at a school who may not have been counted. Once a child is registered at a school attendance is compulsory.

The legal position is that education is compulsory but schoooling is not. Read more HERE

After the recent death of a home-educated child, the Government is currently look at introducing a compulsory register of home-educated children with increased monitoring and support from local authorities. LINK

 Many home educators are resisting this as a threat to their rights as parents to educate their children in their own way without interference from the state.  They point out that home-educated children are less likely to be harmed than those at school.

There are several groups of home educators in Brent who come together to provide activities for their children and enable them to socialise.


In 2016 the ethnicity of home educated children was as follows with the number of Somalis particularly high. The table is rendered less useful due to the large number of 'unknowns':

Ethnicity description Number of students

Afghan 2
African Asian 1
Any Other Black Background 3
Any Other Mixed Background 10
Bangladeshi 1
Black - Nigerian 2
Black - Somali 29
Black Caribbean 7
Indian 5
Iraqi 4
Italian 2
Other Asian 3
Other Black African 5
Other Ethnic Group 2
Pakistani 11
Portuguese 1
Refused 1
Traveller of Irish Heritage 2
Unknown 111
White - British 6
White - Irish 1
White / Any Other Asian Background 2
White / Black African 1
White / Pakistani 1
White Eastern European 2
White Other 1
Grand Total 216

I would be pleased to publish any comments  about the issue from home educators, or home educated children.

Thursday 8 September 2016

The growth of home education in Brent

Readers may have been intrigued by a short piece in the Kilburn Times today about the growth of home education in Brent. This resulted from FoI requests by Oxford Home Schooling.

This is the pattern for the whole of London:

The boroughs that have experienced most growth in the last 10 years are:
  1. Newham (686% increase)
  2. Hackney(323% increase)
  3. Ealing (304% increase)
  4. Brent (214% increase)
  5. Lewisham (212% increase)
A separate FoI request in June 2016 elicited the following figures from Brent Council. The total across all year groups is equivalent to about 10 classes or slightly bigger than a one form entry primary school but the increase is significant.
 
FOI 5758896: Elective Home Education
School year
Year
2006
2011
2016
Reception
10
14
2
1
4
11
22
2
6
8
23
3
3
16
26
4
5
8
30
5
9
14
32
6
9
14
29
7
6
10
34
8
8
12
27
9
20
9
25
10
12
9
23
11
0
2
16
Total
92
127
289








Home educators I have spoken to have varying reasons for educating their children at home ranging from children with special needs who cannot cope with a school environment to parents who disagree with the current stress on high stakes testing and the narrowing of the curriculum.

The legal position is that education is compulsory but schoooling is not. Read more HERE

Once your child is registered at a school attendance is compulsory.