Issue - meetings

To receive and consider a report containing a review of Elective Home Education.

The Committee considered the Elective Home Education report which was set out in agenda pages 97-136. 

The following comments were made during the discussion of the item:

·           Councillor Soane expressed concern over the limited powers for the Local Authority in relation to home elective education, and the fact that even the number of children being educated at home may be inaccurate as there was no way of knowing if a child was at home if this child was never registered in the first place;

·           Shan Ratcliffe, Virtual School Headteacher was aware of the tension that the government policy in relation to home education created.  However, she stated that the Officer that worked with overseeing home education was doing an excellent job in building relationships with parents and creating robust processes to ensure home education was being properly monitored;

·           Paul Senior was confident that the systems and processes that were in place were as robust as they could be;

·           Lisa Humphreys pointed out that only in a small minority number of cases there was a safeguarding issue, the vast majority of parents did educate their children at home, including by employing tutors;

In response to a question Shan Ratcliffe stated that she was not aware of any un-registered schools in Wokingham.

RESOLVED That the report be noted.