To receive and consider a report outlining details of Elective Home Education in the Borough.

Sal Thirlway presented the Elective Home Education (EHE) report which was set out in agenda pages 47-68.

Some of the points made by Sal Thirlway are listed below:

·           The local authority had a statutory oversight of children and young people’s education, employment and training up to the age of 18, including those being home educated;

·           EHE was an active choice, and parents chose this option for a variety of reasons;

·           Since the pandemic started there had been an increase in the number of EHE, in line with the national picture;

·           Three main reasons had been identified for this increase:

·           Covid anxiety

·           Successful experiences of home education during lockdown

·           Consistency and stability – rather than stop/start throughout Covid, looking to return to school once the pandemic is over;

·           When families chose to home educate, the Education Welfare Service offered support to schools and families to make sure this was the right decision to deliver that child’s education, assessing suitability;

·           During the course of the autumn term the Education Welfare Service assessed the suitability of education to over 164 families of the 221 electively home educating and had made sure that all new families that decided to Electively Home Educate were seen to ensure they were making an informed decision and life choice (and not being off-rolled);

·           There were 57 families left to visit this academic year and then all families would have been visited either in person or virtually;

·           EHE families were not compelled to engage with the local authority, but most agreed to engage voluntarily;

·           The service was exploring the reasons why certain parts of the Borough had seen a higher number of families choosing to electively home educate their children.

During the discussion of the item the following comments were made:

·           It was noted that the figures for Bearwood Primary were missing from Fig 2 (page 50), Sal Thirlway agreed to provide this information;

·           Councillor Bray asked if the raising number of EHE registrations for Bohunt was because the school was off rolling children with low attendance and children who did not have good prospect for their exams; she also asked if parents were choosing to home educate their children because of concerns in relation to religious education and sexual education in schools;

·           Sal Thirlway stated that the service was trying to understand the reasons for the peak of EHE in Bohut, this was not yet known;

·           Sal Thirlway was not aware of religious or cultural reasons for EHE, he pointed out that parents had the option to remove their children from religious lessons;

·           In response to a question from Councillor Richards, Sal Thirlway stated that EHE was different from supporting remote home education during lockdown.  EHE was an active decision to remove children from school and educate them at home;

·           In response to a question from Councillor Richards, Sal Thirlway stated that should families decide to revert back to school education, they would have to follow a normal in-year school admission application process, there was no guarantee that they would be able to return back to the original school;

·           Sal Thirlway stated that schools would undertake assessments of any child joining the school to ascertain their level and what support they may need in their learning;

·           In response to a question Sal Thirlway stated that many EHE children took national exams/qualifications and some schools supported this;

·           Given that this year there would be no exams and grades would be based on teachers’ assessment, the Chairman was interested to know how EHE children would obtain their grades.  Sal Thirlway stated that he was expecting guidance from the government in relation to this issue;

·           In response to a question Sal Thirlway stated that the local authority welcomed continued engagement and offered advice and guidance to EHE children and families; where the local authority believed that the home provision was not sufficient (which was rare), there was the option to serve a 15 day notice.

RESOLVED That the report be noted.