TEACHERS called for tighter controls on home education yesterday with figures showing that parents were increasingly rejecting formal schooling and teaching children themselves.

Up to 170,000 children are being taught by their parents in England and Wales. While it is “in the main very successful”, some children are being denied a proper schooling and are in danger of being exploited, said a former teacher who monitors home-schooled children for her local education authority.

Kim Tomsett, a member of the Professional Association of Teachers, told delegates at its conference in Bournemouth that there was an urgent need for a change in the law to make it compulsory for home-educating parents to submit to external checks and monitoring.

“These are the only group of children who have no consistent level of monitoring or inspection yet are the only group taught in the main by those with no qualifications,” said Mrs Tomsett, a teacher of 44 years, who now checks that children are getting the education that their families claim to be providing.

Parents have the right to teach their children at home. Unless a child has been removed from school, parents are not obliged to tell the local education authority. However, while the authority may monitor the children who have been deregistered from school, parents also have a right to refuse them access to the child.

Mrs Tomsett said that bullying and exam-related stress were the most common reasons for parents removing children from school and teaching them at home. They may also do so for religious reasons. Increasingly parents were exercising their right to choose. Mrs Tomsett, an advisory teacher in Worthing, West Sussex, who was backed by the 35,000-member teaching union, admitted that home education was often a “brilliant opportunity” for many children and families “but it is the hidden minority that I am concerned about. I think the Government needs to make sure the law is accurate so that monitors can do their duty”.

She added: “In the main, families are succeeding but those who aren’t are desperate for help.”

Mrs Tomsett said that the £100 spot fines for truancy, which can climb to £1,000 if a case reaches court and three months in prison, were driving some parents wrongly to pursue home education.

Education Otherwise, a charity that supports parents who educate their children at home, said that its membership had almost doubled to 6,000 in the past two years and that 100 families a month were signing up.

Belinda Harris-Reid, 40, a member of the charity, said of her sons Barnaby and Gus: “I never sat down and taught them anything at all. I just supported them in whatever they wanted to do, whether that was watching The Simpsons on TV all day or going to the Natural History Museum.”

She said that she was concerned about introducing tighter controls on parents. “Families don’t take on home education lightly. They either do it from the onset or because it is a cry for help. I am worried because I fear it will undermine a parent’s authority.” While Barnaby, 13, is pursuing his interests in the theatre at home, Gus, 17, has opted to study A levels at a college before going to university.

Education Otherwise takes its name from the 1944 Education Act which states that parents are responsible for their children’s education “either by regular attendance at school or otherwise”.

Last week the Department for Education and Skills met the charity to discuss developing national guidelines for local authorities to monitor children better. The DfES has also asked the former schools inspector Arthur Ivatts to look at the situation of traveller children this autumn. Paula Rothermel, a Fellow at Durham University’s school of education, who has studied thousands of home-educated children, said that although home education used to be dismissed as the pursuit of “hippy rebels”, it had become much more accepted.

“About half of the parents decide to educate their children from birth saying they want the freedom and flexibility to teach their children. With so many home educators it’s difficult to be isolated as in any one town you will find at least 100 families doing the same.”

In 2002 Dr Rothermel interviewed more than 100 families and found that 64 per cent of the home-educated four to five-year-olds scored more than 75 per cent in tests known as PIPS Baseline Assessments as opposed to 5.1 per cent of children nationally. Among those aged seven, 80.4 per cent of home-educated children scored within the top 16 per cent band.

“Academically the children did very well even though a very small minority sat down to lessons and psychologically they seemed quite healthy,” she said.

“It seemed a legitimate alternative to school and a better alternative to some schools.”

IN A CLASS OF THEIR OWN

If a child is removed from a school register, the local authority must be informed. Parents can deny the authority access to the child if they can provide samples of work to show that they are teaching the child appropriately.

DEBATE

Can home teaching ever replace schools?

Send your e-mails to debate@thetimes.co.uk

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Everyone will get vaccine against swine flu
• Artificial sperm and the race to build a baby
• BBC staff lavished with trips to lobby for awards