Council welcomes move to tighten controls on home schooling

Legislation to tighten controls around home schooling has been welcomed in Blackpool where parents have taken hundreds of children out of school in recent years.

The most recent Department for Education figures show more than 500 children in Blackpool are taught at home, an increase from around 440 in the 2022-23 summer term and up from 187 in 2018.

Currently parents must notify the school which will then inform the council, but new government legislation will introduce a compulsory Children Not in School register.

A bill put forward to Parliament by Education secretary Bridget Phillipson on the same day as Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother were sentenced to life in prison for her murder, seeks to increase powers for councils over children who are home schooled.

Ten-year-old Sara from Woking in Surrey was removed from primary school in order to be home-educated four months before she died.

Parents will be refused the automatic right to home educate their children if their child is subject to a child protection investigation or under a child protection plan. Councils will also have the power to require school attendance if the home is deemed an unsafe environment.

But those parents providing a good education in a safe environment will be able to continue to do so.

Coun Kath Benson, cabinet member for young people and aspiration at Blackpool Council, said the council already had procedures in place but welcomed tighter controls.

She said: “In Blackpool there are more than 500 children who are currently being home-schooled. While we have support and processes in place to help these pupils and their families, we are currently restricted somewhat by the existing legislation.

“A recent external review praised the work of our Elective Home Education team and the additional steps they took to monitor pupils.

“However our statistics show that home-schooled pupils make up a significant proportion of the NEET (Not in education, employment or training) cohort.

“We welcome any changes that can further strengthen the powers and input we can have in elective home education to ensure that all pupils are reaching their potential as well as keeping them safe.”

Victoria Gent, director of Children’s Services at Blackpool Council, warned a meeting of the Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Committee in October that current legislation was “quite weak”.

She added: “We have statutory responsibility but what parents have to provide is quite limited.”

Blackpool recently appointed a dedicated officer to support families of home schooled children in Year 11, who are 15 and 16-year-olds, to give them more information about post-16 options. The post has been funded by education charity Right to Succeed for one year.

Research carried out by the Press Association earlier this year found in Blackpool the most common reason parents opted to home school their children was for lifestyle reasons, with around 90 children doing so. The reasons for home schooling were not known in 23 per cent of cases. Approximately 30 children in Blackpool were home schooled for mental health reasons.