Electively home educated

The request was successful.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I would like to know whether Khyra Ishaq was officially deregistered from the last school of attendance and considered to be electively home educated?

Yours faithfully,

Astrid Brand

Birmingham City Council

Dear Astrid Brand

Thank you for your request for information held by the Council under the
provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which was received on
06/08/2009.

We will contact you again once it has been ascertained what data is held by
Birmingham City Council. In some circumstances a fee may be payable and if
that is the case, we will let you know. A fees notice will be issued to
you, and you will be required to pay before we will proceed to deal with
your request.

If you require any further information or are not happy with our response
please do not hesitate to contact me quoting the reference number above in
any future communications.

Yours sincerely

Steve Cullen

Data Protection and Freedom of Information Manager
Children, Young People and Families Directorate
Birmingham City Council

Tel: 0121 464 4591
Email: [email address]

Data Protection Act 1998
The information you have provided within your Freedom of Information
request will be held on our database and may also be held within manual
records for a period of 2 years from the date Birmingham City Council
received your request. Any personal data that you provide to Birmingham
City Council will be held in line with the requirements set out within the
Data Protection Act 1998.

Re Use of Public Sector Information
Where Birmingham City Council is the copyright holder of any information
that may be released, re-use for personal, educational or non-commercial
purposes is permitted without further reference to the City Council. Where
the re-use is for other purposes, such as commercial re-use, the applicant
should notify the City Council in writing to seek approval or agree terms
for re-use.

show quoted sections

Birmingham City Council

Dear Astrid Brand

I am writing in respect of your recent enquiry for information held by the
Authority under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000:

I would like to know whether Khyra Ishaq was officially deregistered from
the last school of attendance and considered to be electively home
educated?

Please find herewith the following:

Khyra Ishaq was deregistered before home education.

Whilst we have undertaken a thorough search of the information held by
Birmingham City Council, it may be that, due to the size and amount of
information held by Birmingham City Council, some information may have been
inadvertently missed.

If you have any information which may assist us in determining or locating
any missed information, we would be grateful if you would contact us with
details of this information, so that we can conduct a further search.

If you are not satisfied with the response you may ask for an internal
review. If subsequently you are not satisfied with the Council’s decision
you may apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally,
the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints
procedure provided by the Council. The Information Commissioner can be
contacted at the following address:

The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 01625 545745 Web Address: www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Steve Cullen

Data Protection and Freedom of Information Manager
Children, Young People and Families Directorate
Birmingham City Council

Tel: 0121 464 4591
Email: [email address]

Re-use of Public Sector Information
The information provided is subject to Birmingham City Council copyright,
however, it may be re-used for personal, educational or non-commercial
purposes without further reference to the City Council. If the re-use is
for other purposes, such as commercial re-use, you should notify the City
Council in writing to seek approval or agree terms for re-use. Where
Birmingham City Council does not hold the copyright, it has indicated the
copyright holder. Permission for re-use should be sought from them
directly.

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Tania Berlow left an annotation ()

A. please raise this to internal review and say the answer is ambiguous .INternal review often gets the response much quicker and they stop faffing about

ask for proof of deregistration by way of a copy with name of school if neccessary redacted.

If they cannot produce the written document then ask them if they have lost it .

Then ask them to explain how Olaf came to the conclusion she was deregistered -i.e. case notes after deregistration etc.

thnaks T

Dear Sir or Madam,
Thank you for your response, which I appreciate. However, your response is sufficiently vague to give me some concern. In the first part, you say that Khyra was 'deregistered before home education' but you later go on to suggest that you aren't certain of the facts because of the quantity of information held by the council.

Can you please confirm that Khyra was officially deregistered, following the guidelines outlined by the DCSF, viz a letter from the parents to the school, stating that the child will be home educated. Could you please provide a copy of the letter (redacted if appropriate)? Could you also please outline the procedure the education authority put in place, including all contact with the parents, once the letter had been received?

Finally, could you please provide details of information on the case which were provided to other education authorities, including the specific information provided to them and which authorities were informed.

Yours faithfully,

A Brand

Birmingham City Council

Dear Sir

Thank you for your request for additional information held by the Council
under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which was
received on 18/9/09.

We will contact you again once it has been ascertained what data is held by
Birmingham City Council. In some circumstances a fee may be payable and if
that is the case, we will let you know. A fees notice will be issued to
you, and you will be required to pay before we will proceed to deal with
your request.

If you require any further information or are not happy with our response
please do not hesitate to contact me quoting the reference number above in
any future communications.

Yours sincerely

Steve Cullen

Data Protection and Freedom of Information Manager
Children, Young People and Families Directorate
Birmingham City Council

Tel: 0121 464 4591
Email: [email address]

Data Protection Act 1998
The information you have provided within your Freedom of Information
request will be held on our database and may also be held within manual
records for a period of 2 years from the date Birmingham City Council
received your request. Any personal data that you provide to Birmingham
City Council will be held in line with the requirements set out within the
Data Protection Act 1998.

Re Use of Public Sector Information
Where Birmingham City Council is the copyright holder of any information
that may be released, re-use for personal, educational or non-commercial
purposes is permitted without further reference to the City Council. Where
the re-use is for other purposes, such as commercial re-use, the applicant
should notify the City Council in writing to seek approval or agree terms
for re-use.

show quoted sections

Birmingham City Council

Dear Sir

In response to your request for additional information:

Thank you for your response, which I appreciate. However, your response is
sufficiently vague to give me some concern. In the first part, you say
that Khyra was 'deregistered before home education' but you later go on to
suggest that you aren't certain of the facts because of the quantity of
information held by the council.

Can you please confirm that Khyra was officially deregistered, following
the guidelines outlined by the DCSF, viz a letter from the parents to the
school, stating that the child will be home educated. Could you please
provide a copy of the letter (redacted if appropriate)? Could you also
please outline the procedure the education authority put in place,
including all contact with the parents, once the letter had been received?

Finally, could you please provide details of information on the case which
were provided to other education authorities, including the specific
information provided to them and which authorities were informed.

I am unable to provide copies of any documents relating to this case, I
can, however, confirm the following.

The parent communicated their intention to home educate to the school, by
phone on 19th December 2007.
The parent was invited to a meeting at Grove School on 7th January 2008 to
discuss this matter.
The parent did not attend the meeting but wrote to the LA indicating a
decision to home educate.
As per the LA procedures the matter was then referred to the Education
Welfare Service and Elective Home Education Advisor for visits to the home
address. These visits were undertaken.
No information was provided to other education authorities.
As you will probably be aware the matter is the subject of an impending
court case and therefore detailed data regarding the case cannot be
disclosed at this point in time.

Yours sincerely,
Steve Cullen
Data Protection and Freedom of Information Manager
Children, Young People and Families Directorate
Birmingham City Council

Tel: 0121 464 4591
Email: [email address]

show quoted sections

Elaine Walton left an annotation ()

Khyra was deregistered in March 2008 this was testified in court and confirmed by Maggie Atkinson in her interview with the Select Committee .

Tania Berlow left an annotation ()

Maggie Atkinson said many things at the Select committee which showed she is not exactly best placed to know the actual facts- including saying that when used to work for Birmingham EHE they had a right to visit and the right removed by statutory guidance . This is incorrect. So basically Maggie (2 words) Atkinson did not know the law when she worked as an advisor and she still does not know current law and guidelines.

If someone did testify in court that there was an official deregistration letter on March 8th that is still almost 10 weeks AFTER she was taken out of school. Why NO truancy and NO CME involvement in that 10 weeks then?

That letter should be produced if it even exists.

verbally telling a school you are home educating without an official deregistration letter IS NOT enough for any headmaster to take a child off roll.

Elaine Walton left an annotation ()

The school did not remove Khyra from the roll , the School made every effort to try to secure the well being of the children.
The following is from the Court hearing in June that was stopped by the Judge due to juror illness.
A JUDGE has dem-anded to know who checked on tragic Khyra Ishaq as she starved to death.

A court heard the seven-year-old had not been to school for six months, during which time she wasted away.
Prosecutors said they believed there had been only two attempts to contact her family during that time – one by teachers and another by police.

Both happened a month after the youngster had been taken out of school.

Recorder of Birmingham Judge Frank Chapman asked if either visit had been followed up over the remaining five months of Khyra’s life.
Prosecutor Hayley Firman replied:
“The information I have says that it wasn’t.”

Tania Berlow left an annotation ()

Elaine where do you get the court information - as far as I am aware a) the court is not a matter of public record yet
b) there was not ever an actual deregistration letter.
That no-one visited is obviously being contradicted here by Birmingham who say he EHE team went out., MY point is that they should not have gone out as without a WRITTEN deregistration letter this should have gone through Truancy and CME teams.

Unless and until I see evidence of that letter I do not believe there was one and that also includes any number of officials standing up in court 'saying' there was one . if it not produced it does not exist.

Having spent a good deal of time in the family courts I can say with absolute certainty in this public forum that frequently what people 'say' is the case whilst being asked questions or in statements , is often not actually what happened .

s lloyd left an annotation ()

Now that this case is out of the courts, is there information that could now be released that could not previously. Is it possible to ask this of the department concerned?

Elaine Walton left an annotation ()

The best reporting has been in the Birmingham mail
http://www.birminghammail.net/
and The Times
http://tinyurl.com/yaxzkq2
Quote
The department mounted a vigorous defence of its role in the child’s death, saying that it lacked sufficient powers to intervene, especially once Khyra was removed from school to be “home-educated”.
But the statement from a High Court judge who presided over related care proceedings last year cast doubt on the department’s version of events.

Mrs Justice King said that “in all probability” Khyra would be alive today if there had been “an adequate initial assessment and proper adherence by the educational welfare services to its guidance”

We could invite them to produce evidence that Khyra was legally de-registered from her School by her Parents but I suppose they can only give us what they have got ;) otherwise we must assume that the EWO marked her as home educated when he visited due to her non attendance at school .

Becky left an annotation ()

I believe it may be likely that Khyra Ishaq was taken off roll on the following basis, and was therefore NOT electively home educated:

(quoted from The Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006)

"8.Deletions from Admission Register

1) The following are prescribed as the grounds on which the name of a pupil of compulsory school age shall be deleted from the admission register—

(h) that he has been continuously absent from the school for a period of not less than twenty school days and —
(i) at no time was his absence during that period authorised by the proprietor in accordance with regulation 6(2);

(ii) the proprietor does not have reasonable grounds to believe that the pupil is unable to attend the school by reason of sickness or any unavoidable cause; and

(iii) both the proprietor of the school and the local education authority have failed, after reasonable enquiry, to ascertain where the pupil is;"

Elaine Walton left an annotation ()

Becky is quite right
Mr H an education Welfare officer called at the family home and decided to record Khyra as home educated so she was never Electively Home Educated

Francis Irving left an annotation ()

Blog post referring to this request.

http://gritsday.blogspot.com/2010/02/con...