Home School Education Registration and Support Bill [HL]

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for proposing this Bill. I support mandatory home education registration—as well as the registration of those not in education, as highlighted by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Lucas—but this must be accompanied by mandatory checks to provide assurances that children are safe and receiving a quality education.

I understand that there is a legal obligation on parents to ensure that their child receives efficient full-time education suitable to their age and ability, including in the right format for those with special educational needs. Local authorities have a legal duty to establish that every child in their area is receiving a suitable education. However, how effectively is this happening? Do the Government have any evidence of how many inquiries local authorities have made and followed up? While I respect parental wishes on how to educate their children, and many parents will be providing a stimulating and safe environment and acting in the best interests of their children, this is not always the case, leading to lifelong barriers and affecting life chances.

When children are not in education and are home-schooled without oversight, they become invisible and vulnerable to various risks, such as domestic abuse, sexual abuse, female genital mutilation, poor mental health, forced marriage and so on. I asked the previous Education Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, about this. She provided a detailed written response back in February 2024. I will use some of the data in that letter to make some of my points.

The noble Baroness provided elective home education data which showed that the numbers in 2016 were 37,500. Since then, they have been increasing every year. By 2023, they had rocketed to 126,100 and may well be higher, as has been highlighted. That is a rise of 236%, if I have got my maths right. The proportion increases as children grow older; it is one-third in year groups 10 and 11—14 and 15 year-olds. Children from minority-ethnic backgrounds are overrepresented: for 26% the ethnicity was unknown, 51% were white British and 23% were from minority-ethnic backgrounds. This 23% is an overrepresentation since the minority-ethnic population is 18%. However, if you consider the unknown data, assuming that it follows a similar trend, the proportion of minority-ethnic children in elective home education is more likely to be 30%. I therefore welcome the recording of protected characteristics in the Bill. We cannot ignore these trends of rising numbers, older children and high numbers of minority-ethnic children. Are the Government concerned about these trends? They should be.

I also inquired into the reasons for home education in my letter. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, shared that for 35% of the children the reason was unknown or the parents did not give one. Will the Government tackle the drivers of elective home education? Perhaps parents have no choice because schools are not meeting the needs of children and even pressuring parents to take their children out of school. Will the Government support this Bill or incorporate its recommendations into their future children’s well-being Bill?

Education: Early Years Attainment Gap

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that the quality of staff is fundamental, but so is the number of staff. We have a big challenge to ensure that we have sufficient staff in place by next September to deliver the outlined entitlement. We are working to provide additional training for staff. I take his point about the training and ongoing support that we need to provide for the staff who do such an important job at the beginning of children’s lives.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, the largest number of nursery closures in recent years has been in the poorest parts of the country, particularly in areas with large minority-ethnic populations. Will the new and expanded nurseries that the Government are allocating be proportionately allocated in those hardest-hit areas?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that those are the areas where need is very great. In our recent announcement of £15 million-worth of investment in the first 300 nurseries based in schools, we will be encouraging applications from those where there is a particular need. We will be using evidence of those applications to ensure that we are able to improve the provision in the areas that need it most.

Home and Online Schooling

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Gohir]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether there has been a rise in home schooling and online schooling, and what action they are taking to strengthen child safeguarding in this context.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, we are aware that the number of home-educated children has been rising for several years. While the rise in itself is not an inherent safeguarding concern, the view of many local authorities is that the increase is driven by reasons other than commitment to home education. That is why we remain committed to introducing local authority statutory registers, are consulting on revised elective home education guidance, and have launched an accreditation scheme for full-time online education providers.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, it is important to try to understand the reasons for the rise in home education. Can the Minister provide a demographic breakdown of home-schooled children by sex, age, ethnicity, location—there may be hotspots—special educational needs and reasons for home schooling? I do not expect that information to be provided now; I can have it in writing. If that information is not readily available through local authorities, could mechanisms be implemented to collect it? I am worried about children with special educational needs. Are their needs being met? I am worried about the content and quality of online education, although I acknowledge that it removes barriers to learning. I am very worried about the increased risk of children being subjected to sexual violence and domestic abuse—Sara Sharif is an example. Some girls will be at increased risk of FGM and forced marriage. What will the Government do about these things? I do not think the register is the only solution.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I share many of the noble Baroness’s concerns. On her first point, we believe there are three main reasons why parents might decide to educate their children at home. The first is that they want to do it and it is a positive choice. The second is that they feel that the school their child is at is not meeting their child’s needs, particularly where special educational needs come in, as the noble Baroness suggests. The third group is where we have genuine safeguarding concerns. The Government are working on all three aspects, and part of the consultation will aim to address them.

Schools: Special Educational Needs

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I acknowledge the noble Lord’s point about the variability in identification of certain commonly occurring special educational needs. There is a variability as the noble Lord explained, but also regionally. That is why we are trying in our special educational needs, disabilities and AP improvement plan to make sure that at every level—from initial teacher training to the qualifications of SENCOs, to the availability of specialist support from educational psychologists—schools get the support they need and such children are identified early.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I am really concerned that parents are being told that their children’s special educational needs cannot be taken on in schools, or to move their children in order to maintain school statistics. Does the Minister agree that this is discriminatory, and what action will the Government take to prevent this happening?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

If the noble Baroness has specific cases she would like to share with me afterwards, I will be more than happy to take those up and look into them. It is extremely important that children with special educational needs are in schools where they can flourish and thrive. For the vast majority, that will be in mainstream provision, but I recognise some of the pressures the noble Baroness describes and I am very happy to take this issue away and try to address it directly.