Educational Concerns
Dear Sunderland City Council,
A) Can you please categorise how those known to the team dealing with elective home education became known? E.g. School, Doctor, self-referral, concerns about the educational provision reported etc.
i) Does the local authority seek to satisfy itself that the educational provision the parent(s) are providing is suitable to the child's age, aptitude, ability and any SEN as soon as they become aware that parents are electively home educating, regardless of how they become known to the local authority?
ii) How many instances have there been in the years (from January 1st to December 31st) 2015, 2016, 2017 and to the date of this FOI where the person dealing with elective home education has or has had concerns that a 'suitable' education is not 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 the particular child is not appearing to be learning 'enough'?
3) whether there are concerns because the family have not implemented a structured approach?
4) or whether the fact that the national Curriculum is not being followed is causing concern?
5) a qualified third party is not involved in the child’s education?
6) An educational report has not been provided by a third party such as; a teacher etc.
C) I would like to know of these children, how many of these concerns were proven?
i) Of the children in the above 4 categories, please indicate if further steps have or are being taken - for example, referred to CME or issued with a School Attendance Order. Please break it down into each year asked for.
ii) Please indicate how many of these went to court in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
iii) Please also indicate if any Education Supervision Orders are currently in court for this population?
Finally, please provide all recorded documentation relating to elective home education including policies, procedures (2015 - present) and recorded communications relating to elective home education (2017 - present), including any e-mail attachments. This does not include communications between the Elective Home Education team and electively home educating parents or information that falls under S40.
Yours faithfully,
J Carter
Re: Your request for information concerning:
Educational Concerns
The Council aims to provide available information promptly and in any
event within 20 working days, unless, exceptionally, there is a need to
consider whether the information is exempt from disclosure.
I will contact you again soon in connection with your request.
Please quote the reference below if you contact the Council regarding this
request.
Customer Request Number: 18 03 22
Dear Sir or Madam
Please find below Sunderland City Council’s response to your Freedom of
Information request.
A) The majority of referrals come from schools although we do receive
some self-referrals
i) When the LA is informed a parent is home educating a
letter is sent to the parent requesting some basic information about their
education provision – this can be found on the website. Parents are
requested to respond within six weeks of receipt of the letter. This
timescale is not rigid as we understand when parents first start to home
educate they may not have formulated a plan and in these cases parent
contact the EHE officer and a timescale is agreed. There are occasions
when parents may request advice support or guidance from the designated
teaching staff before submitting information.
Further information on providing written information can
be found online at [1]www.sunderland.gov.uk/electivehomeeducation
ii)
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|2015 |2016 |2017 |2018 |
|------------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------|
|24 |26 |42 |6 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
B)
1)
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|2015 |2016 |2017 |2018 |
|------------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------|
|24 |26 |42 |6 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
2)
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|2015 |2016 |2017 |2018 |
|------------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------|
|0 |0 |0 |0 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
3)
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|2015 |2016 |2017 |2018 |
|------------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------|
|0 |0 |0 |0 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
4)
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|2015 |2016 |2017 |2018 |
|------------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------|
|0 |0 |0 |0 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
5)
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|2015 |2016 |2017 |2018 |
|------------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------|
|0 |0 |0 |0 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
6)
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|2015 |2016 |2017 |2018 |
|------------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------|
|0 |0 |0 |0 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
B)
+------------------------------------------------+
|2015 |17 |
|------------------------+-----------------------|
|2016 |20 |
|------------------------+-----------------------|
|2017 |31 |
|------------------------+-----------------------|
|2018 |0 |
+------------------------------------------------+
i) N/A
ii) No cases went to court as the parents either returned the children to
school without the need to seek an order, or the children reached school
leaving age
iii) 0
The Council hopes that the information provided proves useful. If however,
you are dissatisfied with our response to your request for information,
you can ask for the decision to be reviewed within 40 working days of the
date of this letter. The review will be removed from the Directorate and
coordinated by the Council’s Information Governance Officer.
A request for review should be directed by email to
[2][Sunderland City Council request email], or by post to: Information
Governance Officer, Governance Services, Civic Centre, PO Box 100,
Sunderland SR2 7DN.
You are of course entitled to apply to the Information Commissioner at any
time, although the Commissioner will not usually investigate until the
public authority’s internal review procedure has been concluded.
Should you have any queries about anything contained in this response,
please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards
Information Governance Team
Sunderland City Council
[3]cid:image002.png@01D1081E.ECC35380
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