Contextual research week 9 – Government and council school enrolment
In June 2019 I started my MA with Falmouth university as part of an accredited education programme.
19th November 2019
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CONTEXTUAL RESEARCH WEEK 10 : The Awen project – https://www.bambino-art.co.uk/contextual-research-week-10-awen-project/
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To better inform my project, I have been researching the literature from the government in relation to “Compulsory’ school age, school application letters, and other information given to parents, when children have reached the age by which they are required to have gained access to full time education for their children .
The purpose being to find out what the government advises parents of when a child reaches the age by which they are required to be in full time education. I want to discover what parents are being told of alternative education, if anything at that point. I readily ‘admit’ I have serious issues with the term “COMPULSORY SCHOOL AGE” , and believe it should be amended to something like compulsory age of education instead. By it’s very wording parents are excluded from having all of the options available presented to them, and are steered in a certain direction. I am trying to investigate this further though, as just because when my children started school (2005/2008/2011/2014) we were not advised or aware of home education, that doesn’t mean it is the same now, and I feel strongly that I can only create this project, and do it justice if I have all the available information.
Gov.Uk : Get childcare step by step : https://www.gov.uk/get-childcare First accessed 19.11.19
This tends to be the way it is presented on a lot of pages and articles I have looked at. It isn’t that home education is not mentioned, but more the wording implies that there is no other choice. That school is the only choice. I am aware that this is coming from a page where parents are actively searching for this information though, so I am going to look further at at broader level on the gov.uk site first to see if there is anything different there.
This was really interesting, and shows why research is so important. When I went to the main education page on gov.uk it is clear that home education is mentioned. I could argue the merits or not and subliminal meaning of home education being placed underneath “sending your child to school” “Types of school” and “the national curriculum” , but I don’t really think there is any necessity.
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https://www.gov.uk/home-education
A big plus here for me is they are using the correct terminology “Home education” .
Home schooling refers to a child who is enrolled at a school and then for reasons such as medical ones, received their education at home via tutoring. Whereas home education is defined as receiving an education otherwise than at school. In general, the home education community prefer the term home education, as it distances them from the image of school lessons/timetable/structure, which a lot of home educators do not use in their daily lives, or at least not in the way we imagine it when we think of school as we as a collective society know it .
Publications on elective home education. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/elective-home-education
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ELECTIVE HOME EDUCATION
DEPARTMENTAL GUIDANCE FOR PARENTS. APRIL 2019
CLICK LINK TO OPEN BOOKLET EHE_guidance_for_parentsafterconsultationv2.2
Taken from https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/media/39977197/admissions-booklet-starting-school-2020.pdf