Interventions and interrogations: an analysis of recent policy imperatives and their rationales in the case of home education

Abstract

During the last 2 years, Britain's Department for Education and Skills (DfES) has commissioned several pieces of research into various aspects of home education. These items of research have served to illustrate several of the most pressing local authority concerns with regard to the educational outcomes, socialisation and welfare of children educated in this manner. As a result, in part, of the publication of these commissioned studies, and because of the perceived anomalous regulatory situation regarding such educational practice when compared with state and private education provision (which is subject to significant levels of legislation), a full public consultation into legislation concerned with the regulation of home education has been widely anticipated. Instead, the government has recently launched a consultation on elective home education guidelines. This article seeks to explore the need for, and implications of guidelines, further regulation and legislation for the home-educating community, in the light of increasing levels of national and international research into the educational attainment, welfare and impact of legislation on education other than at school.

Keywords:

• Home education
• Government policy
• Consultation
• Guidelines
• Regulation
• Legislation

Notes

1. ‘Vulnerable children’, as identified by the DfES for the purposes of the research, included among others: Gypsy/Traveller pupils, pupils with SENs and children whose parents choose to educate them at home (Kendall et al., 2005, p. i).

2. For a full discussion of these, see the work of Klicka (2004).