Hidden from whom? The ongoing stigmatisation of home educators

[schoolhouseHEA]

Tick tock ... with thanks to miss00moo for flagging up the following offensive comments by Perth & Kinross Area CPC in this thread.

“We are particularly concerned about children and young people educated at home and we consider the current arrangements are inadequate, as evidenced in a number of recent high profile SCRs. Our own research into this entire area of hidden children is nearing completion and we plan to share that with the Scottish Government shortly. We feel that in terms of vulnerability, hidden children present a significant risk and are much broader than the four bullet points highlighted within the document.”

Hidden from whom? The ongoing stigmatisation of home educators

Schoolhouse has just submitted a Freedom of Information request to Perth & Kinross Council, whose Child Protection Committee has declared that home educated children are “hidden” and, what’s more, have had starring roles in “recent SCRs”.

Hidden from whom, we wonder? Jimmy Savile sorts, perhaps?

We are of course also itching to discover which Significant Case Reviews (or even Serious Case Reviews south of the border) they might be referring to so that we can compare our “evidence” bases. Shhhhurely they don’t mean any of the usual suspects ( the ones who weren’t actually home educated or those who were well known to be at risk and all the ‘services’ failed to act) as that would not only be dishonest, but also the very worst form of grave robbing.

After firing that off, we thought we’d go and look at our own Perth & Kinross Council page which was last checked in July 2012. Surprise surprise, the links to the council’s home education information were broken with no redirects in place (i.e.”hidden”). We did find them again by searching the site and will update the page as soon as possible to include details of this FOI request and the eventual response.

 

[Elaine Kirk]

After a googling session the monster seems to have no solid foundations and appears to have grown from the fact PKC now include home ed children within their definition of children missing from education .
.

PERTH AND KINROSS CHILD PROTECTION COMMITTEE
AREAS OF NATIONAL INTEREST POSITION STATEMENT
– CHILDREN MISSING FROM EDUCATION
Evaluative statement Within Perth & Kinross we have robust arrangements in place to identify, at an early stage, children and young people who are missing from education and/or absent from school. We have adopted a wide interpretation for the term “Children Missing From Education” to include children missing in education, children educated at home, children in part-time education, children missing from education due to poor attendance, children excluded from school and children occasionally missing from education because they are Gypsy travellers. Whilst we have in place reporting and monitoring procedures we have recognised the need to develop our management information systems further to inform service design and development

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Add that to the CPC being fed the theory that home ed puts children at risk and feed regularly with ignorance and a monster is born.
If yout pull up the minutes to this CPC meeting , pdf so unable to link it shows the general trend
PERTH AND KINROSSCHILD PROTECTION COMMITTEE
Meeting held on Tuesday 28 August 2012

 

[Admin]

Thanks for that, Elaine.

This is the link to their AREAS OF NATIONAL INTEREST POSITION STATEMENT – CHILDREN MISSING FROM EDUCATION

The Scottish Government couldn't even answer this basic FOI request about a document published on their own website which appears to have fabricated consultation with "home education bodies" in relation to Children Missing from Education. Any fool should know that home educated children are by definition not missing for education, but legitimately missing from de facto forced schooling. As an aside, I once went to a meeting (as the token home ed 'rep') where everyone else (about 25 taxpayer funded job titles) except me thought that under 5s who didn't attend nursery were missing from education. They didn't seem to appreciate that 'compulsory education age' is defined in the Ed Scotland Act 1980, whether they liked it or not. I gave up bothering with them when they were unable to understand the basics and still wonder why these people get paid for achieving nothing. At least I got my travelling expenses although it took a while to get the right form... The invitations have dried up a bit now. :hurt:

Here is the link to the June CPC meeting. Who's going to ask for a copy of the 'presentation'?

PERTH AND KINROSS CHILD PROTECTION COMMITTEE
Meeting held on Friday 29 June 2012

6.1 Children Educated at Home

A full and comprehensive presentation was provided to members of
the role and remit of Fran Ranaldi, which included the following
areas:
 Children Missing in Education
 Home Education
 Looked After Children
 SQA Exams and Assessment Arrangements
 ASN Training for Staff
 Dyslexia
 Virtual School
 Young Carers
 Gypsy Travellers
 Curriculum Network Link Officer
Discussion components comprised of:
 Concern about “hidden” children
 Inclusion of health at group meetings
 Health Visitor being the “named person”
 National picture unknown
 “Informal register” of Gypsy Travellers
 Joint work between J Flynn and F Ranaldi
 Children Missing in Education – process quite complex
 Home Education – open up debate through Children’s
Services Bill
 Positive destination – post 16
 Research
Members thoroughly debated points raised by F Ranaldi in her
presentation and appreciated the level of information provided.

A copy of the presentation will be made available.

Action 12 Education at Home Presentation: Consideration of the Health Visitor being the Named Person in respect of children who have never been in state education and are being educated at home by the National GIRFEC Group.

This is the August CPC meeting link. We're still popular with the protection racketeers who obviously have so much time and so little to do. Wonder where the voluntary sector rep comes from?

PERTH AND KINROSS CHILD PROTECTION COMMITTEE

4.3 Education at Home Presentation: Members noted the previous power point presentation by Fran Ranaldi (previously circulated).

Agreed that there was a role for Health Visitors being the Named
Person where child has not been in state education. Agreed that
process was required to support this joint working, involving Fran’s Team and Health Visitors. To be explored further.

Action 5 Julie Flynn and Fran Ranaldi to liaise further regarding Children Educated at Home and Health Visitors being the GIRFEC Named Person.

They seem doggedly determined to force their Jimmy Saviles on home educated children.

 

[Elaine Kirk]

The presentation offers no evidence of any cause for concern that I can see. I am unable to link to the pdf s on PKC site but this search pasted into Google should through it up.
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Fran Ranaldi sitekc.gov.uk
.
That smilies shouldn't be there take the spaces out of this
Fran ranaldi site : pkc.gov.uk
.

 

[Dad23]

The LMGTFY site is useful in instances like this.

Link

 

[Diane]

The link doesn't appear to work, Dad23.

Diane

 

[Dad23]

Sorry, I read it as kc.gov.uk from Elaine's post. It's pkc.gov.uk as she explains later.

Here's the corrected version.

 

[Dad23]

Also, you can convert Google's idiotic encrypted links here. So a direct link to the pdf would be this.

 

[Diane]

Thanks, Dad23.

Diane

 

[Elaine Kirk]

Thanks Dad23 I only use my phone so I do struggle .

 

[Admin]

Perth & Kinross Council: Getting It Wrong Again

Update from Schoolhouse has been posted:
Perth & Kinross Council: Getting It Wrong Again