Home and Online Schooling

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, there is surely another key element in the increase in home tuition: the aftermath of Covid and home working. Is it not true that we need a rapid increase in the availability of child and adolescent mental health services and direct support for parents who need help to get their children back into school?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not disagree that the aftermath of Covid has impacted not just home education but perhaps more particularly the wider issues that we have debated in your Lordships’ House related to attendance at school. The noble Lord is aware that we are expanding mental health support teams across schools and recruiting additional educational psychologists to support children.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that literally hundreds of thousands of children are missing from our schools—potentially an educationally lost generation. The charity School-Home Support has found that, particularly in poor communities, where children do not want to go to school they pretend to home educate and it is not happening. Is the answer not for the Government to bring a simple Bill which would make it lawful for parents to have to register if they are home educating?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I think we have to be slightly careful about the use of the numbers. The noble Lord talked about “literally hundreds of thousands of children” missing their education. That is conflating a number of different things, and I do not want to give the impression that there are hundreds of thousands of children missing all their education. There were 86,200 children identified as being home educated in the spring of this year, 24,700 children were classified as children missing education on the census day, and 94,900 missed education for a period at some point in the academic year. On bringing legislation, I think the noble Lord will have seen that a Private Member’s Bill has been introduced in the other place, and he may have heard my right honourable friend the Secretary of State speak warmly about it.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, a large number of children went missing from the educational roll as the pandemic ended and we lifted lockdown. What is being done specifically to identify those children and return them to the roll?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The department is working closely with schools, particularly around persistent absence and severe absence. Persistent absence is when a child is missing 10% or more of their school time, and severe absence is where a child misses 50% or more. We have an Attendance Action Alliance which the Secretary of State chairs, and we are expanding that to a number of other regional advice areas. We have expert attendance hubs and advisers working with schools to help identify and support these children back into school.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, there has been a 50% increase in home schooling since 2018-19. There is currently no inspection regime to check quality and I understand that the lack of inspection extends to home education hubs or online provision. Also, the only sanction currently applied on parents by councils where there are concerns is a school attendance order. How soon will the register mentioned by the Minister be in place, and what more will the Government do to ensure that both quality and safeguarding are front and centre of policy on home schooling?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Obviously I cannot comment on the timing of a Private Member’s Bill. On the very valid points raised by the noble Baroness about the inspection regime, that is one of the things that we are looking at in the consultation, which closes on 18 January. In particular, we are looking at how to judge the suitability of education. Importantly, much of the work that has gone into preparing that consultation has been done with parents and local authorities together so that we can build trust in both communities going forward.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has set out very helpfully the figures relating to children who are not in school on a regular basis. This is such an important matter at a formative stage in their development. Can the House assume from these figures that each of these children has a named place in school? If so, can the Minister say, in particular, what is happening to enforce the law of the land so that these children have a proper education?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not want to say that every single child has a named place, as children can move around and there can be a time lag, but obviously it is the right of every child in this country to have a named place. On enforcement, the noble Lord understands very well that there is a balance to be struck. We need first to understand why the child is not in school and aim to address that; then, if enforcement is appropriate, that should be followed through.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, the introduction of registers, to which the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and others have referred, is accepted universally to be hugely urgent. Can we not have government legislation rather than waiting for a Private Member’s Bill?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend will be aware that government legislation was not in the King’s Speech, but the Government remain committed to introducing statutory local authority registers for children not in school as well as a duty for local authorities to provide support to home-educating families.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned that we are dealing with special educational needs here. When will we have a structure where every school has at least some expertise in how to teach for the most commonly occurring special educational needs without going to an education and health plan? When is that going to come in?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that we are introducing an NPQ—a national professional qualification—for SENCOs in schools. We are also introducing support and training for SENCOs in early years to encourage early identification.