Concerns about Suitability of Elective Home Education Provision

We acknowledge receipt of your request for information.
This will now be passed to the relevant area(s) of the authority and a
response sent within 20 working days.
If for any reason we cannot respond in full within 20 days, we will let you
know.

"This e-mail is intended for the named addressee(s) only and may contain information about individuals or other sensitive information and should be handled accordingly. Unless you are the named addressee (or authorised to receive it for the addressee) you may not copy or use it, or disclose it to anyone else. If you have received this email in error, kindly disregard the content of the message and notify the sender immediately. Please be aware that all email may be subject to recording and/or monitoring in accordance with relevant legislation."

Scanned by MailDefender - managed email security from intY - www.maildefender.net

Dear L Thorn

Thank you for your request for information about Elective Home Education
(EHE).

At Dorset County Council we try to respond to all requests well within the
20 working days permitted with the Freedom of Information Act, and hope to
reply to you in full by 4 September.

However, I need to let you know that the person who I approached for
information regarding EHE, is not back in the office until 21 August.
Often in Children's Services the staff are obliged to take their breaks at
the same time as school holidays, in order to fit in with their term time
workloads. Obviously, staff are in post to answer requests of an extremely
urgent nature, in order of priority. Your request is of course important,
but it will not be looked at immediately.

I will contact you again if I am not able to respond to your request within
20 working days.

Yours sincerely

Freedom of Information Team
Dorset County Council

L Thorn
<request-16537-a2
e9b474@whatdothey To
know.com> FOI requests at Dorset County
Council <[Dorset County Council request email]>
06/08/2009 19:47 cc

Subject
Freedom of Information request -
Concerns about Suitability of
Elective Home Education Provision

Dear Sir or Madam,

I read that you had 161 children registered as Electively Home
Educated in 2009. This request concerns children currently
registered as receiving EHE in Dorset - for the purposes of this
FOI request , these children are either de-registered from a school
or have never been registered with a school.

Please could you confirm the figure of 161 receiving EHE in Dorset,
and for those children, answer the following questions:

A) I would like to know of these children how many are there where
the visiting person has concerns that a 'suitable' education is
being provided?

B) I would also appreciate it if this information could be broken
down into categories:

1. whether they feel that no education is taking place?

2. whether they feel that the philosophy of education is inadequate
-for example in the case of autonomous or child led learning , that
particular child is not appearing to be learning 'enough'?

3. whether there are concerns because the family have not
implemented a structured approached?

4.or whether the fact that the national Curriculum is not being
followed is causing concern?

C)If there are children in the above 4 categories , please indicate
if further steps are being taken- for example ,issuance of a School
Attendance Order?

D)Please also indicate if any any Education Supervision Orders are
currently in court for this population.?

E) Please can you confirm whether any children who fit into the
above categories of concern about 'educational provision
suitability' would also therefore be referred to Social Services?

F) Lastly is it possible in your Local Authority that Social
Services are involved with a family but that The EHE department do
not know of this involvement (This involvement would be on an
on-going basis rather than a one off referral which is found to be
of no genuine concern)

Yours faithfully,

L Thorn

show quoted sections

Dear Sir/Madam
I am writing further to your email below.

Whilst at a particular time during the 2008/09 academic year we may have
had 161 EHE students, we actually had 191 in total for the year.

We had 5 children where there were concerns about the education being
provided. The reasons for the concerns do not fit neatly into the
categories suggested. One case probably could fit into category B1, i.e.
no education taking place. In the other 4 cases some education was taking
place, but there were not considerable gaps to give us cause for concern.

We would not raise concerns for categories B3 or B4.

Of the 5 children for whom there were concerns, we are working with the
families, either by making recommendations on how to improve the education,
or involving other agencies (as there could be other issues which may be
affecting the home education). More frequent monitoring in these cases is
undertaken.

C - One School Attendance Order was issued.

D - There are no Education Supervision Orders currently in court

E - It is unlikely that Social Services are involved with a family which we
are not aware of, as I would anticipate they would contact us to check if
we had any concerns regarding the EHE being carried out.

I hope this information is useful to you, and completes your request for
information. If you are not completely satisfied with my response, please
contact me again, or write to the complaints officer at: Dorset County
Council, County Hall, Colliton Park, Dorchester, Dorset DT1 1XJ. Or you
can follow the complaints procedure that can be found on our website
www.dorsetforyou.com at http://212.104.140.176/index.jsp?article...
If your appeal is not resolved to your satisfaction, you have the right to
apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision.

Yours sincerely

Freedom of Information Team
Dorset County Council

L Thorn
<request-16537-a2
e9b474@whatdothey To
know.com> FOI requests at Dorset County
Council <[Dorset County Council request email]>
06/08/2009 19:47 cc

Subject
FOI: 116832 Concerns about
Suitability of Elective Home
Education Provision

Dear Sir or Madam,

I read that you had 161 children registered as Electively Home
Educated in 2009. This request concerns children currently
registered as receiving EHE in Dorset - for the purposes of this
FOI request , these children are either de-registered from a school
or have never been registered with a school.

Please could you confirm the figure of 161 receiving EHE in Dorset,
and for those children, answer the following questions:

A) I would like to know of these children how many are there where
the visiting person has concerns that a 'suitable' education is
being provided?

B) I would also appreciate it if this information could be broken
down into categories:

1. whether they feel that no education is taking place?

2. whether they feel that the philosophy of education is inadequate
-for example in the case of autonomous or child led learning , that
particular child is not appearing to be learning 'enough'?

3. whether there are concerns because the family have not
implemented a structured approached?

4.or whether the fact that the national Curriculum is not being
followed is causing concern?

C)If there are children in the above 4 categories , please indicate
if further steps are being taken- for example ,issuance of a School
Attendance Order?

D)Please also indicate if any any Education Supervision Orders are
currently in court for this population.?

E) Please can you confirm whether any children who fit into the
above categories of concern about 'educational provision
suitability' would also therefore be referred to Social Services?

F) Lastly is it possible in your Local Authority that Social
Services are involved with a family but that The EHE department do
not know of this involvement (This involvement would be on an
on-going basis rather than a one off referral which is found to be
of no genuine concern)

Yours faithfully,

L Thorn

show quoted sections

We acknowledge receipt of your request for information.
This will now be passed to the relevant area(s) of the authority and a
response sent within 20 working days.
If for any reason we cannot respond in full within 20 days, we will let you
know.

"This e-mail is intended for the named addressee(s) only and may contain information about individuals or other sensitive information and should be handled accordingly. Unless you are the named addressee (or authorised to receive it for the addressee) you may not copy or use it, or disclose it to anyone else. If you have received this email in error, kindly disregard the content of the message and notify the sender immediately. Please be aware that all email may be subject to recording and/or monitoring in accordance with relevant legislation."

Scanned by MailDefender - managed email security from intY - www.maildefender.net