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Home-educators are already inspected. Photograph: Corbis
Home-educators are already inspected. Photograph: Corbis

Why point the finger at home-educators?

This article is more than 15 years old
Bernard Trafford
We should not be surprised that schools are the latest instrument for checking up on families, says Bernard Trafford

It is commonplace now to talk about the surveillance society. One agency after another becomes part of the mechanism, so we should not be surprised that schools are the latest instrument for checking up on families.

Bowing to pressure after the succession of child abuse cases that has the media screaming for action, and policymakers devising ever more layers of safeguarding procedures, the government has asked Graham Badman - chair of Haringey's safeguarding children board, replacing Sharon Shoesmith, sacked after the Baby P inquiry - to review the safeguarding and support of home-educated children. A recent article in the Independent quoted the children's minister, Delyth Morgan: "If there are problems, we have to look at the evidence. Home-education is a small but important part of keeping children properly safe."

In the storm of outrage that followed the tragedy of Baby P, fingers were bound to be pointed. Inexplicably, they are now being pointed at home-educators. The estimated 20,000 parents who choose to educate their children themselves currently stand accused of motives that are suspect at best and abusive at worst.

Why they are suddenly a target is unclear. Outrageous allegations are made, and apparently accepted, without proper examination. The Independent described authorities' fears that parents home-educate to mask truancy, or to hide forced marriages or children babysitting younger siblings. An NSPCC spokesperson observed: "We have no view about home-education, but we do know that to find out about abuse someone has to know about the child." The inference is made. Mud sticks.

The suggestion is that only if children are in schools can we be sure that their parents are not abusing them, but the smug moralising is unjust and inaccurate. Victoria Climbié was not in school at the time of her death, but she was not being home-educated. Eunice Spry was jailed after abusing her foster children for 19 years: no one noticed the children's bruises because, it is said, they were home-educated. But they werefostered. Where were the social workers?

Home-educators deserve better treatment. I know, because I've been one. Between 1991 and 1996, when I was a newly appointed secondary school head, my wife taught our two daughters at home. Those five years were some of the happiest we have known, full of the joy of discovery and learning. The girls went back into the system for the secondary phase (their choice) and are now happy, self-confident, well-qualified young adults with jobs.

It worked for us, but we were regarded as odd. Some friends and colleagues were profoundly uncomfortable with our decision. People are wary of difference, but parents often turn to home-education precisely because their children are different and are bullied in school as a result. Others do it on principle or, as we did, because they reckon they can offer something better. For us, the issue was the national curriculum, which we felt had blitzed primary education.

The image often painted of a secretive approach is misleading: most home-educators do it openly and network widely. I guess some do hide their children away; there are religious fundamentalists among them, too. I don't like either approach, but I claim no right to ban them. Perhaps a tiny minority of home-educators is abusive. Statistically, a minute percentage of judges, politicians, doctors, lawyers, church leaders, teachers, and even social workers must also abuse children, but we don't proscribe those jobs. And remember, home-educators are already inspected.

Paranoia about systemic failure in safeguarding is leading society to demonise a few free spirits. We should not be surprised. We inhabit a world where we are filmed on CCTV wherever we go. Amid the hysterical reaction to abject failures in child protection, the rights of a few families on the fringes will be seen as an acceptable sacrifice on the altar of obsessive security.

Dr Bernard Trafford is head of the Royal grammar school, Newcastle upon Tyne, and chairman of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. The views expressed are personal

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