I really did not know whether to laugh or cry when I found out the reason why the Statutory Guidance for Children Missing Education from 2007 was being revised.
It comes from the Home Affairs Select Committee’s Sixth Report on ‘Domestic Violence, Forced Marriage and “Honour”-Based Violence’.
This is about children being forced into arranged marriages under the guise of allegedly being home educated.
You can see the full article on the Freedom For Children to Grow Website.
There are no statistics for this or any data of how many children are actually at risk, yet it is enough to lump ALL home educated children into the category of “vulnerable and missing education!”.
I have just found an excellent article that has been written as a response to the poorly-written guidance document. This is written by Carlotta on the Dare to Know Blog.
The proof of home educated children being forced into arranged
marriages is so minuscule. It is a real case of clutching at the
tiniest of straws to prove that children are not safe whilst being
educated at home.
In my view, all of this is heading towards a big scandal (with huge
media coverage) involving a child or children being forced into an
arranged and/or with a trail of child abuse and other nasties attached
to it- and obviously the cause of all this is that they are educated
at home!
So the result is- Nanny says that children are not safe being educated
at home, therefore they all have to go back into a school where they
are “safe” and they can receive a “suitable education” and home
education is made illegal- as it is Germany!
With the Lisbon Treaty coming into force very soon, the UK government
needs to do something very rapidly to bring it’s policies on home
education into line with the rest of the EU, especially France,
Belgium and Germany i.e it is illegal and punishable by heavy fines
and having your children taken away because it “creates a parallel
society.”
I have been doing some research on the laws that compel us to obey any
of this nonsense (I was going to write something more expletive, but I
restrained myself!!!) and interestingly I have not found any.
Please take my comments and do your own research before you take any
actions based on what I have written.
Firstly, we have all been told that the word “statutory” as in
“statutory guidance” is something we are obliged or compelled to
follow… or else!! (and that is where force comes into play)
Actually the word “statutory” is an adjective, which pertains to or is
relevant to the noun “statute”. Again we are told a statute is
something we “must ” follow.
Some interesting definitions from Black’s Law dictionary:
“Must” means “may” which is a choice.
A “statute” is a “legislative rule of society given force of law by
consent of the governed”.
In other words, we have to CONSENT to be governed by these statutes.
Consent for the most part seems to be obtained by default i.e. consent
is assumed and people are told they have to obey etc.
However, buried in the small print somewhere will be the procedure you
are able to go through to remove your consent.
Sometimes it is explicit consent which is obtained by us filling in
forms and putting our signature on them.
BTW, beware of any government forms that have the words “application”,
“submit” or “registration” on them because you have just given your
consent to whatever might be at the back of that form.
However, consent can also be withdrawn.
I was looking through the information relating to the “Contact Point”
children’s database (another VERY BAD idea in my opinion) and there
are several places where it refers to consent either being explicitly
obtained or “assumed consent” being withdrawn.
As parents, we are responsible for our childrens’ education up to the
age of 16, in whatever form we consider most appropriate. Not Nanny,
not the State, not Civil servants or Education departments or any
other interfering busy-bodies.
The UK is still a Common Law Jurisdiction (although only just and by
the skin of our teeth, until the full EU law comes into place) and the
basis of Common Law is that we are free to do whatever we wish, as
long as we don’t harm other people, use mischief in our contracts with
them or steal their property.
Acts and Statutes are all something that we have agreed to be governed
by because we have not objected them.
Some great explanations of all of this are on the following sites:
http://www.tpuc.org
http://www.thetruthwillout.com/common_law.html and there are loads of
other sites on youtube and the Internet to do your own research.
Someone else has already made the point that home educating parents
are a vocal group, and we are. Most of us have already done battle
with schools to provide the best for our children.
Looking at this stupid legislation and the reasons for it, (i.e deeply
rooted in political correctness) I doubt very much we will be able to
get very much of it changed.
So perhaps an alternative may be to write to the DCSF and the
Education Minister and any other appropriate body and ask them what
law there is that compels us to obey this nonsense? or where does a
statute have the force of law if the human beings it applies to have
withdrawn their consent to be governed by it? and perhaps who exactly
do we write to make clear our “Notice of Withdrawal of Consent”.
Just my ramblings and musings on this subject.
Have a wonderful day.
Amanda Goldston
Tags: home education // 1 Comment »
