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Post by jo70mo on Sept 30, 2011 11:14:21 GMT 1
4. The Lancashire Context and EHE
The EHE team is a small team within the School Attendance Service which is part of the Quality and Continuous Improvement group within Universal and Early Support Services within the Directorate for Children and Young People.
Overall responsibility for the team sits with the School Attendance Lead, and the team consists of a Business Support Officer and a number of part time EHE Support Workers and EHE Support Officers. Enhanced CRB clearance is mandatory for all EHE Support Workers/Officers and specific EHE training will be delivered in addition to LCC standard training including Induction, Safeguarding, Common Assessment Framework, Equality and Diversity, Health & Safety including lone worker arrangements.
The EHE team will explore the options for access/signposting to other LA services and facilities, within available resources, and will also seek to ensure EHE children have access to services and facilities from other agencies that would generally be delivered via school.
The EHE team maintains a database of all children resident in Lancashire known to the LA to be electively home educated. That data will not generally be shared with other teams/agencies without consent except under the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998.
In appropriate instances, on request from any such service or agency (eg Health, Young People's Service) we will contact all home educating families on our database with children in the appropriate target group to advise of the services on offer and to seek approval for details to be shared. Where consent is not given we will advise home educating families of the services that would be on offer and provide information on how to contact those agencies in the future should their services subsequently be required.
Other teams/agencies may become aware of children of compulsory school age who are not on a school roll. In such cases they may have information to suggest the family are home educating in which case they can contact the EHE team to ascertain whether the children are included in the LA's database of children known to be home educating. If the children are not listed on the database their names will be added and standard EHE procedures will be followed. Where the other team/agency is unclear whether the family are home educating, they should refer to the CME team who would then make enquiries to determine whether the family are home educating and thus should be added to the LA's EHE database, or whether alternative CME interventions are required.
The EHE team will maintain all relevant notes and reports relating to families who are known to be educating at home.
The EHE team will work in partnership with other teams/agencies such as schools, the Children Missing Education team, the Pupil Attendance Support Team, the safeguarding team (in respect of children in employment and entertainment), social care, police, youth justice etc to improve the work of the EHE team for the benefit of EHE children/young people. The EHE team also works with the LA's Inclusion and Disability Support Service (IDSS) in respect of children with statements who are being electively home educated (see section on Special Educational Needs below). The EHE team works closely with the LA's Gypsy, Roma and Traveller team and some of the EHE Support Workers/Officers may be co-located with staff from those teams, and will share information to facilitate joint working arrangements to support EHE families within those communities.
The EHE team will collect and analyse data relating to EHE to improve understanding and responsiveness to any emerging patterns and to follow up any concerns identified through the gathering of such information. The data will be used for inclusion in reports for elected members, senior officers and the Local Safeguarding Children Board
The key data collected and fed back to the LA will be: The number of children and young people who are electively educated at home by their parents The number of new referrals The reasons why parents elect to home educate The number of children and young people who have returned to school The Key Stage at which education at home started The number of children from different ethnic backgrounds. The number of "Children Looked After" being home educated. The numbers of boys compared to the numbers of girls being home educated. The number of children and young people who have received a visit/report The number of children who are electively educated at home and have a statement of special education needs that is reviewed annually The number of referrals to the CME officer for provision which was considered unsuitable
The EHE team will make arrangements for EHE Network Support Meetings on a rolling programme around the county, involving the various groups within the LA who can offer services or support to home educating families, e.g. Lancashire Library Service, the Lancashire Schools Young People's Service, Health Services etc. In addition, consultation will take place on an annual basis to allow for input from home educators regarding issues relating to the EHE protocol and procedures and in respect of EHE as a whole.
The EHE team is part of the Lancashire School Attendance Service and is subject to all the policies of the Service/LA and to LA procedures including Complaints Procedures Personal Safety procedures Safeguarding procedures
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Post by jo70mo on Oct 1, 2011 19:00:24 GMT 1
"The EHE team will explore the options for access/signposting to other LA services and facilities, within available resources, and will also seek to ensure EHE children have access to services and facilities from other agencies that would generally be delivered via school."
As Tricia pointed out in a different correspondence - this is very wishy washy. They are not required to try hard to do any of this just to EXPLORE and SEEK to ensure.
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Post by jo70mo on Oct 1, 2011 19:04:10 GMT 1
"In appropriate instances, on request from any such service or agency (eg Health, Young People's Service) we will contact all home educating families on our database with children in the appropriate target group to advise of the services on offer and to seek approval for details to be shared. Where consent is not given we will advise home educating families of the services that would be on offer and provide information on how to contact those agencies in the future should their services subsequently be required."
Could be useful - was this included before? May be safer to just pass on details so that parents can contact themselves rather than offer to pass on details of those who consent. Less room for mistakes and passing on of details of those who haven't consented.
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Post by jo70mo on Oct 1, 2011 19:12:01 GMT 1
"Other teams/agencies may become aware of children of compulsory school age who are not on a school roll. In such cases they may have information to suggest the family are home educating in which case they can contact the EHE team to ascertain whether the children are included in the LA's database of children known to be home educating. If the children are not listed on the database their names will be added and standard EHE procedures will be followed. Where the other team/agency is unclear whether the family are home educating, they should refer to the CME team who would then make enquiries to determine whether the family are home educating and thus should be added to the LA's EHE database, or whether alternative CME interventions are required. "
There is no need for other agencies to contact the EHE team unless they have specific concerns that an education is not taking place. This should be made clear to services such as libraries. There is no need to check up on families without clear concerns. If a family say they home educate there is no need to doubt this unless there are clear concerns that they are not actually providing an education.
If CME make enquiries it should only be asking place of education and once a family states EHE they should be passed on to the EHE team without having to satisfy the CME team about their EHE provision.
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Post by jo70mo on Oct 1, 2011 19:54:27 GMT 1
"The number of referrals to the CME officer for provision which was considered unsuitable "
This is really revealing. There are clear routes for the EHE staff to take if they have concerns about educational provision. These are set out in EHE legislation and guidelines. There is no role for referring families to CME. They do not clarify when and why they would refer to CME.
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elizm
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Post by elizm on Oct 2, 2011 20:24:50 GMT 1
"Other teams/agencies may become aware of children of compulsory school age who are not on a school roll. In such cases they may have information to suggest the family are home educating in which case they can contact the EHE team to ascertain whether the children are included in the LA's database of children known to be home educating. If the children are not listed on the database their names will be added and standard EHE procedures will be followed. Where the other team/agency is unclear whether the family are home educating, they should refer to the CME team who would then make enquiries to determine whether the family are home educating and thus should be added to the LA's EHE database, or whether alternative CME interventions are required. " There is no need for other agencies to contact the EHE team unless they have specific concerns that an education is not taking place. This should be made clear to services such as libraries. There is no need to check up on families without clear concerns. If a family say they home educate there is no need to doubt this unless there are clear concerns that they are not actually providing an education. If CME make enquiries it should only be asking place of education and once a family states EHE they should be passed on to the EHE team without having to satisfy the CME team about their EHE provision. This is a potential nightmare, if every public servant and charity worker we come into contact sends a note to the EHE dept that we are a HE family. The HE families that the LA are most concerned about are those who they already know about, those who haven't chosen to HE but have been pushed into HE due to unsuitable school provision. That failing is the fault of the LA not of home educators who are fulfilling their duty to educate their children and who don't need to hassle of justifying their lives to an LA inspector on a regular basis. Anyway, I rant. It is legal to HE, we are under no obligation to register, to threaten that we can't engage with public services without being registered without our consent is astonishing. This paragraph incites people to harrass us for being Home Educators. Asking people to search us out and report us implies that there is something wrong/illegal with our educational choice. I think that the Government Amendments to the Anti Stalking law might be of use here: "The government slipped in a further clause, redefining harassment as representing to "another individual" (ie anyone) "in the vicinity" of his or anyone else's home (ie anywhere) "that he should not do something that he is entitled or required to do; or that he should do something that he is not under any obligation to do"." This is from an Article by George Monbiot. www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/05/anti-stalking-liberty-centralIt refers to this law www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1997/40/contentsWe're quite happy to help the LA carry out their genuinely statutory duties but when they start hindering our interaction with other public services in this way we'd need to look at a way to prevent them from doing so.
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fran
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Post by fran on Oct 3, 2011 18:14:56 GMT 1
Have we any way of finding out if they check with children's services when a child changes school?
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elizm
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Post by elizm on Oct 5, 2011 19:59:07 GMT 1
I guess we can ask them in the general list, but I think its fair to assume that they don't.
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Post by archelaus on Oct 13, 2011 23:40:38 GMT 1
Hopefully this will include the reasons why it was considered unsuitable to allow for emerging patterns such as malicious referrals or a large number of referrals from the same officer to be addressed ?
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Post by tricia on Oct 13, 2011 23:45:34 GMT 1
The audit highlighted several other procedural documents including flowcharts which EHE officers use. Several of them covered referral to CME.
If the LA is following statutory guidance correctly, home educated children should not be classed as CME so there is no reason to refer them. If the education is unsuitable there are clear procedures in the EHE guidelines which the CME statutory guidance instructs LA to follow.
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Post by archelaus on Oct 21, 2011 17:19:35 GMT 1
This needs clarifying as this current so-called consultation has highlighted the LA's view of a consultation doesn't match the normally accepted view which includes meetings and discussions.
The CC's Task Group said: '6. Regular meetings should take place between LEIS and home educators in order to facilitate a positive relationship and exchange of information within a group forum setting.'
Just how are annual 'consultations' going to improve the relationship between the LA and home educators ? I can't find anything in this document about developing a relationship or working in partnership with parents despite S10 of the Children Act 2004 placing a duty on the LA to 'promote co-operation' and to 'have regard to the importance of parents'.
Even smaller LAs like Sheffield, which already has a better relationship with local HEers, sees the need for several meetings each year for open discussions.
What is Lancashire LA afraid of ?
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