Tommy Tainant
Diamond Member
Children 'falling off the grid’ in the tens of thousands amid surge in pupils leaving mainstream education
The number of children being taken out of school to be home educated has surged in recent years, prompting calls for greater supervision of youngsters not in mainstream education.
The children’s commissioner warned that 60,000 children, many of whom are vulnerable or have special educational needs, are permanently out of school and therefore effectively “off the grid”.
Research by Anne Longfield shows the number of children who are known by councils to be home educated was 27 per cent higher in 2018 than in 2017, and has risen by 20 per cent in each of the last five years – doubling since 2013-14.
There are two main drivers for this and they are linked.
Firstly is the need to get rid of special needs kids off the schools register. Special needs costs money and that cuts into the schools profit.
The second reason is to eliminate the lower ability students so that they dont affect the schools rating when exam tables are published. Higher rated schools attract more pupils and therefore more money.
State education in the UK has been hopelessly compromised by a succession of Labour and Tory governments who have turned large swathes of our education system over to the private sector.
Acadamies (charter schools) are all the rage here but their main purpose is not education . It is to enrich its shareholders.
It is a national scandal.
The number of children being taken out of school to be home educated has surged in recent years, prompting calls for greater supervision of youngsters not in mainstream education.
The children’s commissioner warned that 60,000 children, many of whom are vulnerable or have special educational needs, are permanently out of school and therefore effectively “off the grid”.
Research by Anne Longfield shows the number of children who are known by councils to be home educated was 27 per cent higher in 2018 than in 2017, and has risen by 20 per cent in each of the last five years – doubling since 2013-14.
There are two main drivers for this and they are linked.
Firstly is the need to get rid of special needs kids off the schools register. Special needs costs money and that cuts into the schools profit.
The second reason is to eliminate the lower ability students so that they dont affect the schools rating when exam tables are published. Higher rated schools attract more pupils and therefore more money.
State education in the UK has been hopelessly compromised by a succession of Labour and Tory governments who have turned large swathes of our education system over to the private sector.
Acadamies (charter schools) are all the rage here but their main purpose is not education . It is to enrich its shareholders.
It is a national scandal.
