For my son and a few other homeschool students, I have designed a Monday through Saturday crash course in the history of music with parallel studies in worldview developments. It can be downloaded HERE and might be of use to other homeschoolers.
I would welcome input from those who know a bit more about music than I do.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Consultations Relevent to UK Homeschoolers
I’ve been trying to achieve some clarity in my mind about the different consultations affecting UK homeschoolers, for the purpose of an article I am writing for the Christian Voice newsletter. With the help of Norman Wells and Ferris Lindsay, I can vouch that the information below is correct.
Homeschoolers in Britain may come under stricter control under new guidelines promised by the Department for Education and Skills.
Concerned that home educators are not being monitored enough, the DfES is also giving consideration to issuing a consultation to focus on compulsory registration of home educators, standards defining ‘suitable’ education, and ongoing monitoring of home educators.
As a spokesperson for the UK group Education Otherwise said, "There is a grave danger that the proposals in this consultation seek to extend the universal curriculum of school to home educators."
If it goes ahead, the consultation will run for 12 weeks and focus on possible changes to the legislation effecting home education. Developments are being closely watched by the international homeschool community.
Changes to legislation would not directly affect Scotland and Northern Ireland, which have separate laws governing education. The DfES have not stated clearly whether legislative changes would also apply to Wales.
FOUR CONSULTATIONS
Basically, there are four consultations affecting home educators – two of which have happened, and two which may or may not happen.
(i) In Spring 2005, the DfES engaged in a limited consultation exercise with a few local authorities and home education organisations (but not individual home educators) on draft local authority guidelines. Since then, everything has gone very quiet and the finalised guidelines have not been published.
(ii) In November 2006, the Department launched a full 12-week consultation on the definition of full-time education in independent schools. The consultation period closed at the end of February and the Department is due to publish its response in May.
(iii) In December 2006, the DfES was proposing to consult on proposed legislation (NB legislation, not guidance) covering
(a) compulsory registration
(b) monitoring arrangements, and
(c) a statutory definition of ‘suitable education’
At that point, it was planned to launch the consultation early in the New Year – i.e. January, or February at the latest. Since then the Department has said that the consultation may or may not go ahead. It is currently with Ministers to make a decision one way or the other.
(iv) Also in December 2006, the DfES was saying that the long awaited guidance (NB guidance, not legislation) would be published by the end of February without any further consultation. The Department's present position is that the guidance will be published “later this year”, but that there may be a consultation on further draft guidance before the final version appears.
WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT
My concern is that the DfES may be trying to gradually move UK policy closer to continental practices. Austria permits homeschooling provided as it is done with a state-approved curriculum and as long as a state-approved school periodically supervises testing. Switzerland allows families to homeschool children as long as an official checks that the sate school plan is being followed. If you also share my concerns, here is what you can do.
Sign the petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Herights/ which asks the Prime Minister ‘to allow home educators to be free from the interference of Local Education Authorities.’
Write to your MP to express your concerns. The consultation which took place in 2005 sought feedback from major home education groups in the UK. Since then home educators have not been invited to comment on the guidelines nor received any feedback about the formal consultation stage. Point out to your MP that this lack of feedback and further involvement (over a period of nearly two years) clearly breaks the government’s own good practice guidelines on consultations. These guidelines say that where a consultation may have significant impact on a community, they should be kept informed and their input sensitively handled.
Ask your MP to contact Rt. Hon Alan Johnson, secretary of state for Education and Skills. Make the point that the DfES needs to provide more information about their policy development intentions.
Point out that the right of parents to determine the form of their children’s education has been included in the European Convention on Human Rights for over 50 years. Parents, and not the state, have the primary responsibility for their children’s wellbeing and education. This principle is clearly stated in the European Convention on Human Rights, 1ST (Paris) Protocol, Article 2: ‘No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.’
Also make the point that when the National Foundation for Education Research and other consultants produced reports for the DfES, the alleged grounds for state interventions, none of these reports offered substantial evidence that home education is failing children. In fact, the most substantial studies conducted in the UK, by Dr Paula Rothermel of Durham University, found that the outcomes for home education were, on average, higher than those for school provision.
Statutory provisions already exist for interventions in situations where there is evidence of either lack of educational provision or significant welfare concerns, so there seems little needed for further legislation.
Also contact Elaine Haste at the Elective Home Education, DfES, Mowden Hal, Darlington, DL3 9BG or email her at Elaine.HASTE@dfes.gsi.gov.uk. Express the above concerns and also asked to be kept informed of developments. This is important, because if they know lots of people are closely watching their moves, they will think twice before proposing controversial changes.
FURTHER RESOURCES
For more information, see the Freedom For Children to Grow website for a range of resources and links relating to homeschool law in the UK and possible changes. Go HERE to see Education Otherwise’s thorough catalogue of information and resources about the Government’s consultations. In particular, see THIS PAGE for a description of the organisation’s meeting with DfES on 19th December, 2007. Visit Ferris’ website to see an intelligent response to the second consultation. For misc. resources for Christian homeschoolers in the UK, including homeschooling mailing lists and e-groups where you can discuss possible changes in the law, see HERE.
To receive automatic notification every time new material is added to this blog, send a blank email to largerhope @ tiscali.co.uk with “Blog Me” in the subject heading. (Note: for anti-spam purposes, this email address has had spaced inserted before and after the @ sign. The address will only work after deleting these spaces).
Homeschoolers in Britain may come under stricter control under new guidelines promised by the Department for Education and Skills.
Concerned that home educators are not being monitored enough, the DfES is also giving consideration to issuing a consultation to focus on compulsory registration of home educators, standards defining ‘suitable’ education, and ongoing monitoring of home educators.
As a spokesperson for the UK group Education Otherwise said, "There is a grave danger that the proposals in this consultation seek to extend the universal curriculum of school to home educators."
If it goes ahead, the consultation will run for 12 weeks and focus on possible changes to the legislation effecting home education. Developments are being closely watched by the international homeschool community.
Changes to legislation would not directly affect Scotland and Northern Ireland, which have separate laws governing education. The DfES have not stated clearly whether legislative changes would also apply to Wales.
FOUR CONSULTATIONS
Basically, there are four consultations affecting home educators – two of which have happened, and two which may or may not happen.
(i) In Spring 2005, the DfES engaged in a limited consultation exercise with a few local authorities and home education organisations (but not individual home educators) on draft local authority guidelines. Since then, everything has gone very quiet and the finalised guidelines have not been published.
(ii) In November 2006, the Department launched a full 12-week consultation on the definition of full-time education in independent schools. The consultation period closed at the end of February and the Department is due to publish its response in May.
(iii) In December 2006, the DfES was proposing to consult on proposed legislation (NB legislation, not guidance) covering
(a) compulsory registration
(b) monitoring arrangements, and
(c) a statutory definition of ‘suitable education’
At that point, it was planned to launch the consultation early in the New Year – i.e. January, or February at the latest. Since then the Department has said that the consultation may or may not go ahead. It is currently with Ministers to make a decision one way or the other.
(iv) Also in December 2006, the DfES was saying that the long awaited guidance (NB guidance, not legislation) would be published by the end of February without any further consultation. The Department's present position is that the guidance will be published “later this year”, but that there may be a consultation on further draft guidance before the final version appears.
WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT
My concern is that the DfES may be trying to gradually move UK policy closer to continental practices. Austria permits homeschooling provided as it is done with a state-approved curriculum and as long as a state-approved school periodically supervises testing. Switzerland allows families to homeschool children as long as an official checks that the sate school plan is being followed. If you also share my concerns, here is what you can do.
Sign the petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Herights/ which asks the Prime Minister ‘to allow home educators to be free from the interference of Local Education Authorities.’
Write to your MP to express your concerns. The consultation which took place in 2005 sought feedback from major home education groups in the UK. Since then home educators have not been invited to comment on the guidelines nor received any feedback about the formal consultation stage. Point out to your MP that this lack of feedback and further involvement (over a period of nearly two years) clearly breaks the government’s own good practice guidelines on consultations. These guidelines say that where a consultation may have significant impact on a community, they should be kept informed and their input sensitively handled.
Ask your MP to contact Rt. Hon Alan Johnson, secretary of state for Education and Skills. Make the point that the DfES needs to provide more information about their policy development intentions.
Point out that the right of parents to determine the form of their children’s education has been included in the European Convention on Human Rights for over 50 years. Parents, and not the state, have the primary responsibility for their children’s wellbeing and education. This principle is clearly stated in the European Convention on Human Rights, 1ST (Paris) Protocol, Article 2: ‘No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.’
Also make the point that when the National Foundation for Education Research and other consultants produced reports for the DfES, the alleged grounds for state interventions, none of these reports offered substantial evidence that home education is failing children. In fact, the most substantial studies conducted in the UK, by Dr Paula Rothermel of Durham University, found that the outcomes for home education were, on average, higher than those for school provision.
Statutory provisions already exist for interventions in situations where there is evidence of either lack of educational provision or significant welfare concerns, so there seems little needed for further legislation.
Also contact Elaine Haste at the Elective Home Education, DfES, Mowden Hal, Darlington, DL3 9BG or email her at Elaine.HASTE@dfes.gsi.gov.uk. Express the above concerns and also asked to be kept informed of developments. This is important, because if they know lots of people are closely watching their moves, they will think twice before proposing controversial changes.
FURTHER RESOURCES
For more information, see the Freedom For Children to Grow website for a range of resources and links relating to homeschool law in the UK and possible changes. Go HERE to see Education Otherwise’s thorough catalogue of information and resources about the Government’s consultations. In particular, see THIS PAGE for a description of the organisation’s meeting with DfES on 19th December, 2007. Visit Ferris’ website to see an intelligent response to the second consultation. For misc. resources for Christian homeschoolers in the UK, including homeschooling mailing lists and e-groups where you can discuss possible changes in the law, see HERE.
To receive automatic notification every time new material is added to this blog, send a blank email to largerhope @ tiscali.co.uk with “Blog Me” in the subject heading. (Note: for anti-spam purposes, this email address has had spaced inserted before and after the @ sign. The address will only work after deleting these spaces).
15-Year Old Homeschool Girl Sentence to Child Psychiatry Unit
On 1 February, Melissa Busekros’ was torn from her Christian family by force, following a judge’s ruling. The 15 year old was immediately placed in a psychiatric clinic as a result of her parents’ decision to homeschool.‘Last week, a court affirmed that Melissa has to remain in the Child Psychiatry Unit because she is suffering from “school phobia”, reported the Washington Times on 28 February.
The situation arose after Melissa, the Busekros’ eldest daughter, failed 7 grade at the local state school, due to bad grades in Maths and Latin. Because she achieved good scores in all other subjects, Melissa’s parents had decided that she would be tutored at home in those subjects instead of doing the entire year over again. Melissa continued to attend the school for music and choir. All the Busekros’ other children attended the state school.
School officials responded by kicking Melissa out of the school and allocating her to the local Hauptschule (the lowest in Germany’s three-tier high school system). Mr. and Mrs. Busekros responded to the decision by homeschooling Melissa full time.
At the end of the school year 2005/2006, Melissa was 15 and no longer subject to full time compulsory schooling. However, the authorities were still not happy. On 30 January, 2007, social workers and police officers suddenly showed up at the Busekros’ home and forcibly took Melissa to the Nuremberg Child Psychiatry Unit. After being questioned for three and a half hours, Melissa was released and allowed to return to her parents and five younger siblings.
The Busekros family thought everything was fine until, two days later, 15 police officers showed up to take Melissa to the clinic again and officially removing her from her parents’ custody. The decision was justified on the grounds that the psychiatrist that had interviewed Melissa two days earlier, claimed to have discovered developmental delays of one year and along with a condition of ‘school phobia.’
"…the official approach in cases of “school phobia” is to completely prevent the 'patient' from having any contact with those closest to him or her, as such contact supposedly enables the phobia" reported the Netzwerk Bildungsfreilheit in a press release.
Melissa’s parents were not informed of her whereabouts until a hearing on 16 February. They are now allowed to visit her, although Melissa is not allowed to return home to live with her parents and siblings.
The psychiatrist’s report cited Mr. Busekros’ antagonism to further standard schooling of Melissa and his insistence that she is ready to begin university in summer 2008 as a reason why ‘a basic reorientation in a special education facility / group home is urgently required in order to avoid danger to the further development.’
Melissa’s father said he and his lawyer were offered a compromise that they could not accept. The Home School Legal Defense Association reported that ‘The authorities wanted the Busekros's to give up custody of their other five children in order to resolve this situation. Hubert said the authorities are considering doing psychiatric exams on the other five children in order to implicate Hubert and his wife as unfit parents and thereby break up the family.’
WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT
Write to your MP and ask them to forward your comments to the Rt. Hon Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Say that our Government needs to be making representations to the German Ambassador. Also contact
Youth welfare OfficeDirector: Edeltraud Höllerer RathausRathausplatz 191052 ErlangenTel. +49 (0) 9131 86-2844Fax +49 (0) 9131 86-2438
For more addresses of people you can contact to protest about this matter, see THIS LIST. (Note, although email addresses are being given, it appears that they are being routinely erased instead of being read, so you are best off writing a letter in the post.)
Melissa’s father is asking people to write to her offering encouragement during this difficult time of separation. Her address is:
Melissa BusekrosKlinikum Nürnberg-NordHaus 48 BProf.-Ernst-Nathan-Str. 1 D-90419 NürnbergGermany/Deutschland
To complain generally about the German antagonism to homeschoolers, contact the following people whom the German Government has given the power to make relevant decisions on such matters:
· Mr. Steffen Flath, The Free State of Saxony, via e-mail at: Steffen.Flath@smk.sachsen.de or by mail at: Saechsisches Staatsministerium für Kultus, Carolaplatz 1, 01097 Dresden, Letter post: Postfach 100 910 01079 Dresden or via telephone at: +49 351-564-0.
· Helmut Rau, Baden-Württemberg, via e-mail at: Helmut.Rau@km.kv.bwl.de or by mail at: Ministerium für Kultus, Jugend und Sport Schlossplatz 4 70173 Stuttgart or via telephone at: +49 711/279-2531.
· Barbara Sommer, North Rhine-Westphalia, via e-mail at: barbara.sommer@msw.nrw.de or by mail at: Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung, des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 40190 Düsseldorf or via telephone at: +49 211/5867-3535 or 3536.
Visit THIS BLOG to keep updated on the latest in this story. To read the CBN news report, click HERE. To read the WorldNetDaily report, click HERE. To find out about the international response to Melissa’s situation, see THIS ARTICLE. For background information about the educational situation in Germany, and some of the implications, see the articles HERE and HERE. To see a moving video clip of the family, click HERE.
FURTHER HOMESCHOOL HORROR STORIES
‘Last March, a judge in Hamburg sentenced a home-schooling father of six to a week in prison and a fine of $2,000.’ (Paul Belien, ‘2007 German horror tale’, Wasshington Times)
In October 2006, police officers arrived at the home of the Romeike family (homeschoolers) to forcibly escort the children to school. (‘Updates from Germany--War on homeschooling’)
Last year the German police arrested Katharina Plett, a homeschooling mother of twelve. The rest of the family managed to escape when her husband fled to Austria with the children. (Read the Brussels Journal Report)
German parents are routinely imprisoned for not paying the fines they receive for educating their children at home. One religious organization was fined 130,000 Euros for homeschooling their children. In October 2004, seven dads spent several days in jail for refusing to pay fines that were imposed on them for failing to send their children to government schools. (Read report HERE.)
On Friday 20 October 2006 at around 7:30 a.m. the children of a homeschooling family were picked up by the police and escorted to school in Baden-Wurttemberg and told that this would happen again next week. (See the World Net Daily’s report German Homeschoolers Under Fire.)
On 11 September 2006, the European Court of Human Rights dismissed an appeal against a ban on homeschooling introduced by the Nazis. Although home education has been illegal in Germany ever since Hitler outlawed it in 1938, Fritz and Marianna Konrad sought to challenge the law by appealing to the EU Court of Human Rights. The Court supported an earlier German verdict which stated that homeschooling ran counter to ‘the general interest of society’ since it could lead ‘the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions…’
In order to prevent families raising their children with philosophical convictions separate to that of the state, the Court has said the right to education ‘by its very nature calls for regulation by the State.’ (Read the LifeSite report)
‘The United Nations is also restricting the rights of parents. Article 29 of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates that it is the goal of the state to direct the education of children. In Belgium, the U.N. Convention is currently being used to limit the constitutional right to home-school. In 1995 Britain was told that it violated the U.N. Convention by allowing parents to remove their children from public school sex-education classes.’
To receive automatic notification every time new material is added to this blog, send a blank email to largerhope @ tiscali.co.uk with “Blog Me” in the subject heading. (Note: for anti-spam purposes, this email address has had spaced inserted before and after the @ sign. The address will only work after deleting these spaces).
Monday, March 05, 2007
Secular Intolerance
Some examples of secular intolerance: HERE and HERE.
See my earlier post on secular intolerance HERE.
To receive automatic notification every time new material is added to this blog, send a blank email to largerhope @ tiscali.co.uk with “Blog Me” in the subject heading. (Note: for anti-spam purposes, this email address has had spaced inserted before and after the @ sign. The address will only work after deleting these spaces).
Comments and Genes
I have only just realised that some of my readers posted comments over the last six months which were awaiting activation from me. Many apologies to those who comments did not show up until now.
By the way, did you know that some of your genes are not privately owned? They may be in your body, to be sure, but they are not your property. If you don't believe me, read HERE.
By the way, did you know that some of your genes are not privately owned? They may be in your body, to be sure, but they are not your property. If you don't believe me, read HERE.
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