In April we shared here details of an email we had received from the Welsh Government’s Equity in Education Team. Attached to it were Welsh and English versions of the “Child Friendly Versions” [CFV] of the “Children missing education database” consultation which was ongoing at the time.
We replied at the same time to the Equity in Education Team, sending a copy to the recently appointed Cabinet Secretary for Education, Lynne Neagle MS. On 30 April we received a response from EiE, which gives the impression that they are not motivated to engage with the genuine concerns of home educating families. You can read their response in full here.
We have replied to their letter today and are happy to make our response available.
In their letter they defended what they called a “targeted engagement” by citing the wording of “the Children’s Right’s Impact Assessment” [sic]. We have pointed out that the wording of the CRIA actually said “We will be consulting on the revised proposal, and this will again be open to all children and young people.” This was clearly not the case. The late circulation of the CFV, without a request to forward it to HE families, plus the late announcement of three in-person consultation sessions for HE young people, strongly suggest that the attempts to include these young people were a very late afterthought.
Further, Equity in Education’s original email stated, “we have shared this [CFV] with our networks who we have asked to support reaching children and young people.” However, it is not clear which ‘networks’ these are.
In the light of that statement we have included in our letter a Freedom of Information Request, asking for a full list of all organisations in their networks which they asked to support them with “reaching children and young people,” the dates on which EiE approached each of those organisations, and the number of responses received via each partner organisation.
We will of course let you know when we receive the information requested.
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