I am glad for this article for two reasons. First, it allowed someone to make the statement that most victims of abuse are schooled children–children the government has access to 5 days a week.
Second, though by now to most home educators it is a bloody, mangled, beaten dead horse, it points out that responsibility for the cases of Spry and Climbie clearly should be hung on the government’s various welfare agencies that were meant to be looking after the abused children in question. Indeed, Climbie was not even being home educated. And to quote a council website,
“Mrs Spry was initially approved as a childminder then, following spells as a private foster carer (private arrangements with families), she was approved as a County Council carer. Parental legal responsibility for all the young people referred to in this case was subsequently given to Mrs Spry through the courts making Residence Orders or Adoption Orders in her favour.”
It’s pretty clear to me that the government should accept the liability for the carer that they approved of and happily handed children to.
Vijay Patel of the NSPCC also gets his stab in, and I find it fairly disgusting that the leadership of a charity that should be beyond reproach should be so ill-informed and in the position of being able to cause so much damage to home educating children and their families.
Update:
Home educators have been plastering the Facebook page of the NSPCC with messages protesting this aforementioned spreading of misinformation and demanding apologies/resignations. The NSPCC have actually made the following response:
The NSPCC would like to clarify its position regarding home education. The statement issued by the NSPCC when the review of home education was announced made iit clear that the NSPCC wishes the review to balance parents’ rights to home educate their children with the local authorities’ duty to safeguard children and the child’s right to protection. We sincerely regret any misunderstanding caused by the quote attributed to Vijay Patel in the Independent. The reference to Victoria Climbie was meant to illustrate the point that she was killed at home out of sight of the authorities. It was not intended to imply that Victoria was educated at home or that home education was in any way connected to what happened to her. We are writing to the Independent to clarify our position on this important point.
I’m tentatively glad to hear this, but I’ll wait to see what comes of their clarification and if one can infer an actual shift of position based on how they phrase their position. I’d rather not have more reason to be cynical, but these are hard times for optimism.
