As stated in our post on 12 June, it has been our intention to publish the letter we sent to the Welsh Government on 10 June, in response to theirs of 23 May following up our meeting with them.
We felt it right to allow them time to respond, as it would have been helpful to publish both documents together.
In the meantime however, we have become aware that several individual enquirers are in receipt of letters from the Government such as this one [redacted version published with recipient’s permission], making further reference to their intended home education reforms.
So, having allowed reasonable time for reply but received none by the start of this week, we therefore informed the Welsh Government that we would be publishing our letter to them, in the interests of transparency amongst the HE communities – full letter as PDF.
Our letter began:
From communications so far, it appears that rather than heeding the voices of concern raised by many home educators, the Welsh Government intends to pursue its proposals as outlined in the 2019 and 2020 consultations. In particular:
- Establishing a database of all children using data from healthcare sources and health authorities, for the purposes of identifying a particular group.
- Mandatory regular meetings with both parents and children without consent of child or parent.
- Definition of suitable education to be determined by the Government rather than by the parents/caregivers.
According to the letters being sent out recently, the proposals the Government are planning to implement appear to include:
- Mandatory regular meetings with both parents and children without consent of child or parent.
- Justifying this requirement through their perceived safeguarding powers in the Part 7 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014.
- Clarifying the procedure for serving SAOs.
- Seeking to sugar the pill by offering ‘support’ to HE families.
- Encouraging all stakeholders to assist in ensuring the successful implementation of these changes. (It is not clear if parents are regarded as stakeholders in their children’s futures.)
Whilst the recent correspondence from the Government does not make specific reference to LA databases of all children, we understand that these will also be established.
Our concerns remain the same, and we will comment further in the future
NEWS
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