School Gate: Learning without school

Thousands of children supposedly educated at home by their parents are at risk of abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude, the Government said yesterday.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin, the Children's Minister, has ordered a review of the rules covering the estimated 20,000 home-educated children in England and the 20,000 or so labelled as “missing from education”, who have dropped out of school before the age of 16.

The review follows mounting concern from local authorities that their overarching duty to promote and protect child welfare is undermined by the present rules, under which responsibility for a child's education rests squarely with the parents. The role of local authorities is to compile a list of children not attending school and to take appropriate action if a child is not getting a “suitable” education.

Councils have no statutory duty to monitor the quality of education that children are receiving at home, there is no legal duty on parents to answer any question that the council might ask them about their child's schooling and there is no definition of what constitutes a suitable education.

In a recent consultation on home education guidance, 89 per cent of respondents, who included councils, parents, schools and youth workers, said that it was unclear how local authorities, given their limited powers, were supposed to fulfil their duties with regard to home-educated children. Most said that the guidance was “confusing and open to misinterpretation”.

Lady Morgan said she was convinced that most parents choosing to educate their children at home did a good job but there were concerns that some children were not receiving the education they needed.

“In some extreme cases, home education could be used as a cover for abuse. We cannot allow this to happen and are committed to doing all we can to help ensure children are safe, wherever they are educated,” she said.

Some parents were suspected of pulling their children out of school to make them look after younger siblings or to go to work to earn money for the family. In other cases, children were simply neglected and left to their own devices. Home education was also used as a cover for forced marriages, Lady Morgan suggested.

The review, which will report in May, is being conducted by Graham Badman, former director of children's services with Kent County Council. Among the measures he will consider is whether all children who are home educated should be registered with the local authority.

At present only those who are pulled out of school need to register. Those never entered on a school roll do not, making it very difficult for councils to keep track of total numbers. Children permanently excluded from school, for example, whose families then move to a different local authority area, are often not known to the new authority.

A Times survey of 35 local authorities found vast differences in the number of home-educated children counted by local authorities, ranging from 10 in Hartlepool to 430 in Norfolk.

Mr Badman's review will also consider whether local authorities should have greater powers to enter a home to check on the quality of the education a child is receiving.

Out of school

Number of children taught at home

Norfolk 430

Cornwall 328

E Sussex 323

Derbyshire 277

Somerset 240

Gloucestershire 250

Cambridgeshire 230

Worcestershire 194

Leicestershire 177

Wiltshire 152

Shropshire 137

Hull City 112

Darlington 100

Haringey, London 99

Wolverhampton 93

Luton 80

Southampton 79

Hillingdon, London 70

York 67

Southwark, London 65

NE Lincolnshire 55

Barnet 52

Northumberland 51

Newham, London 50

Southend 46

Stockport 46

Wokingham, Surrey 46

Poole, Dorset 40

Newcastle upon Tyne 40

Tameside 39

Kensington & Chelsea 37

Stockton-on-Tees 31

Kingston upon Thames 24

Halton, Cheshire 23

Hartlepool 10

Source: Times research

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