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Jeremy Clarkson, home education and living in an imperfect world

Steve Richards — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:48:54 +0000

There cannot be many people in the UK who have not heard of Jeremy Clarkson, the lead presenter in the popular BBC programme, Top Gear. Clarkson has acquired something of a reputation for having strong opinions, especially relating to the impact of what he sees as overly intrusive government in ordinary people’s lives. In addition to his TV appearances he also writes a column in The Times. He often writes with a very direct and some would say offensive style. However, often, his manner of writing hides some very perceptive comments.

In this week’s article, he writes about the UK government’s latest proposal to make it compulsory that all dog owners must have third party insurance so that they (the owners that is and not the dogs!) are able to pay damages when their little pouch attacks somebody. As a long time dog owner I think that the plan is barmy but of course what the government is trying to do is respond to dog attacks and the growing use of large and vicious dogs as status symbols and protection by young men in disadvantaged areas of our cities.

Clarkson also mentions home education in his article, pointing out that it is madness to try to legislate on the back of extreme cases of wickedness such as the death of Khyra Ishaq, whose mother removed her from school claiming she was home educating her. The government’s response to this was the Badman Report and proposed new legislation making it possible for local authority staff to interview children without their parents being present – because abused children are unlikely to say anything whilst the abuser is present!

Clarkson closes his article in a typically direct and crude manner but what he says is that this world is not perfect – bad things happen to very decent ordinary people; and it is nonsense to generate legislation that affects and controls ordinary people’s lives in order to try to stop all of the bad things happening.

What Clarkson is saying, of course, is very much in keeping with the worldview presented in the Bible – we live in an imperfect and fallen world where things are not as they should be, that all human beings behave stupidly and wrongly at times and sometimes that can seriously hurt others. Christians, however, would argue that the answer cannot be found in the hands of government, legislation will never change human nature. Only the gospel can affect people deep within their beings and give us all what Jesus called ‘new birth’. This is God’s ‘good news’ for a world where bad things happen.

Home Page News 1 March 2010

Steve Richards — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:07:38 +0000

Fundamental to any education system is a system of beliefs – each country’s education system says much about what, as a collective, that country believes to be important in life. Increasingly over the last twenty years, the English ( and Welsh) education system has been characterised by a commitment to national economic development and state control. In this regard, Tony’s Blair’s New Labour and Margaret Thatcher’s New Conservatism had much in common – it was the Conservatives, after all who introduced the national ( or perhaps it is more accurate to called it a ‘nationalised’) curriculum back in 1988. Before the 1997 General Election Tony Blair described education as his government’s best economic policy; which was his justification for spending billions on educational improvements, which appear to have achieved little by way of improving educational standards or indeed society as a whole. Government control over education is tighter now that it has ever been and our children are increasingly being seen as belonging to the state. This is essentially why the Badman fiasco of the last year has occurred, elective home education is the last area of education in this country that the government does not control – no nationalised curriculum, no control over how much learning should occur, no control over the standards of parents, and no control over whether the state allows particular parents to educate their children (although in reality the legislation is already in place to ensure that parents do educate their children in an appropriate manner). In this context, it is little wonder that Graham Badman and the DCSF do not want to look at research that demonstrates the home education works, and by and large, works better than their schools! They are simply determined to bring home educators under the control of the state machinery that manages the rest of the children in this country!

For those of us who are Christians, we need to recognise that we are engaged in a conflict that, in an increasingly secularised society, can only get more challenging. Education is about raising the next generation – the difference between what Christians and the secularised state regard as success in this respect is a gaping chasm, which can only become wider in the coming years. At some point, Christians in Britain need to ask the question – ‘Can a secularised education system raise the next generation of our children – equipped and prepared to live for the Kingdom?’

Home Page News 18th January 2010

Steve Richards — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:47:52 +0000

At church yesterday the speaker asked us all – ‘what puts fire in your belly?’ ‘What, in your life, excites you when you think about it?’ He was particularly asking us to reflect on the work that we do for the Lord, and especially inviting us to focus on those areas that we are especially called to minister in, over and above everything else. As I sat there I thought about NorthStarUK and also about gifts – not the sort that we receive at Christmas, but rather those that our Creator gave us at birth. For many years I worked as a special needs teacher. Many of the students I worked with were amongst the weakest in the school, in terms of their academic prowess. But each and everyone one of them had gifts; they all had abilities given to them by their Creator. Often these were talents that school did not notice or value; nevertheless, they were still gifted individuals – indeed, much of my most important work, I felt, was to try to convince them that they had abilities, because many years of schooling had often caused them to lose confidence and led them to devalue themselves. It also struck me that schools do not have a very good track record of working with exceptionally talented individuals, either, unless these talents coincided with what schools were looking for. I thought of Mozart – a child prodigy; how would he have got on in one of our local schools – now it has to be admitted, he would almost certainly have known more about science or geography, but would he have had time to compose – he was writing music from the age of five! Schools inevitably aim at producing generalists; our Creator, however is more concerned to produce unique, talented individuals who have a role within their community. As parents, teachers and educators let’s spend some time this week reflecting on the gifts that each of our children has been given and help them to have a fire in their belly as they develop those gifts and talents in the coming years.

Scheming plots?

Steve Richards — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:25:58 +0000

There is growing evidence that very senior staff within local authority social services departments have worked very closely with staff from the government’s Department for Children, Schools and Families to undermine parents rights to home educate and to portray home education as a growing risk to child safety. Recently a member of the House of Common’s Select Committee for Children, Schools and Families asked Maggie Atkinson, Ed Balls’ candidate for the post of Children’s Commissioner, “What do you think we should be saying as a Committee regarding the legislative process and the Badman Report, and whether it is protecting children’s interests or trampling all over the interests of home-educated children?” Her response was “I would give you two words, and they are the first and second names of the child who died ‘Khyra Ishaq’.”

Ms Atkinson was referring to the tragic case of a child from Birmingham whose mother and step-father allegedly starved her to death. In the last months of her life Khyra Ishaq did not attend school. However, what Ms Atkinson did not tell the Select Committee was that, months before, Khyra Ishaq’s teachers had repeatedly warned social workers of their concerns but had been told that the situation did not warrant further inquiry. Ms Atkinson also choose not to inform the Select Committee of the nineteen children in Birmingam who have died of abuse or neglect since 2004, nor did she feel it necessary to tell the committee members that sixteen of these were already known by social workers, police or health care staff to be at risk of harm. And the evidence of collusion between senior social services staff and the government – on the 16th January 2009, Maggie Atkinson and Graham Badman along with John Coughlan and John Freeman (Joint Presidents of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS)) had a 24 hour session with DCSF staff to work on matters relating to the DCSF’s Children’s Plan; three days later the ‘independent’ Badman Review was launched.

Home Page News – 28th September 2009

Steve Richards — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:51:31 +0000

The UK government seems determined to undermine home educators and make life more dificult for families who choose to teach their children outside of the school system. Not only have we seen the DCSF launch a review of home education amid fears that home education was being used as a cover for abuse or domestic servitude, but Graham Badman’s final report suggested the imposition of draconian control measures clearly targetted at discouraging parents from choosing home education. For various reasons, the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee has chosen to look into the way that Graham Badman undertook his review. As I reminded everybody last week, the deadline for members of the public to make submissions to the Select Committee was the 22nd September.

I was staggered, therefore, to read last week that Graham Badman has now asked local authorities to provide him with more information to help support the original data that his report is based upon. It seems that his original statistical data was based on a very small sample – he now needs more data to support his findings and recommendations! As somebody wrote last week – “he is looking for evidence to support his evidence!” This is little more than a tacit admission on his part that the data that he currently has will not stand the scrutiny of the select committee and that he needs to find more supporting data. One does not need to be a conspiracy theorist to smell a rat here!

Whilst Christian home educators and others must be vigilant and do all that we can to stop the proposed changes in legislation; at the same time, we have to remember that we have a sovereign God who we believe is in charge of this world. Ed Balls and Graham Badman are not the real ones in control – as much as they may think that they are. I visited the delightful Swallow Falls in North Wales over the weekend. One cannot help but be overwhelmed by the power and beauty of the water as it cascades down the valley. I was reminded not only of the wonder of creation but of the power of God’s grace – which is poured out upon this world so lavishly. At this time especially, those of us who are home educators in the UK need to hold on to this truth and thrive in the knowledge that our gracious God is in control.

“a better all round learning experience … attending school”

Steve Richards — Mon, 04 May 2009 10:03:43 +0000

Over the weekend I was chatting with a teacher friend of mine about a 15 year old student that he has in his class who has severe learning difficulties, dyslexia and he has spent the whole of his secondary career learning to speak English as an additional language. When asked questions in class he usually smiles and answers with just one or two words almost entirely unrelated to the correct answer; in exams his answers often consist of little more than words extracted from the question he is trying to answer. This young man is ’statemented’, which means that his local authority has acknowledged that he has learning difficulties that are beyond the resources of his school to meet. Despite this, according to my friend, he has no additional resources allocated to him – no teaching assistant sitting with him helping him understand what the teacher is saying or differentiating his work and for four years he has made little or no progress.

You may wonder why I have mentioned this young man in my home page news. Well, over the weekend I also read about the case of Elysha Robertson, a seven year old in Rotherham who suffers from a disease related to motor neurone disease but so rare that doctors don’t even have a name for it. Elysha’s intellectual ability is unimpaired but the disease has robbed her of all movement from the waist up. She now communicates using her toes and is fed via a tube into her stomach.

Elysha’s mum withdrew her from a local special school because she felt that the school was not doing a good enough job of educating her daughter. Mrs Robertson has said “I want to teach my child at home because I believe she has made better progress than she did at Newman School where she was taught before.”

The response of the local authority has been aggressive and intolerant. The Council’s social services department supported by the school is arguing that Elysha could be suffering from isolation and missing the company of other children, and has opted to use legislation relating to child abuse and neglect to call a case conference and demand that the Robertson’s attend.

A spokeswoman for Rotherham Council has stated ” .. the authority would always recommend that children receive a better all round learning experience from attending school.” I couldn’t help thinking of the young Asian boy taught by my friend when I read this!

Why we offer IGCSE qualifications

Steve Richards — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:41:42 +0000

Manchaster Grammar School, one of the most prestigious independent schools in the North West of England, announced last week that it was replacing all of its GCSE exams with IGCSEs. Although this might appear as a minor decision akin to a school changing its exam board in history or maths, the reality is that there is an increasingly political dimension to the quarrel that is taking place in England over supporters of GCSEs and IGCSEs. Government funded schools are forbidden from offering students IGCSEs because the Department for Children, Schools and Families does not accept that IGCSEs assess the National Curriculum, which is what must be taught in English and Welsh schools. Independent schools can offer IGCSEs, because they do not receive government money.

In recent years there has been a growing lobby that has argued that GCSEs have been dumbed down, made less of a challenge; this lobby further suggest that IGCSEs have maintained their intellectual rigour and are therefore more worthy exams for 16 year olds – a good grade at IGCSE says more about a particular student than does the same grade at GCSE, so the argument goes.

These arguments have not been helped by the high master of St Paul’s School in London who recently described GCSEs as “simply pap, … baby food, … examination rusks…” In response, those who support GCSEs have suggested that the shift to IGCSEs is being done for marketing reasons or for elitist feelings of superiority. IGCSEs give certain independent schools boasting rights over their state school cousins!

This whole discussion is especially topical, it seems to me, coming as it does a week after I announced to NorthStarUK would effectively be scrapping GCSEs in September. Why do we, in NorthStarUK, offer IGCSEs and not GCSEs? Well the simple answer, as I pointed out last week, is that GCSEs have been closed off to us by new government regulations. However, I would argue that IGCSEs are better qualifications than GCSEs, in any case! In my opinion, there are a number of reasons for this, none of which are to do with elitism or because of a supposed dumbing down in GCSEs -

IGCSE specifications, more often than not, have a wider range of topics to study than GCSE. The National Curriculum has had a stifling effect on school curricula.
IGCSEs have an international dimension to their courses that is normally absent in GCSEs. In my opinion, this is especially important for young people who are going to be adults over the next 50 years.
IGCSEs are based around terminal exams, which is education speak for saying that students are assessed by one or more exams at the end of the course. The new GCSEs will be assessed by a series of modular tests where students will be permitted to forget the material after the module has ended.
IGCSEs are not affected or shaped by politicians – our current national curriculum has seen more changes over the last ten years than I care to remember, and all have been affected as a result of political pressure.

Home Page News 2 March 2009

Steve Richards — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:15:48 +0000

The subject of home education continues to attract a fair amount of media interest. There was a fascinating article in last week’s Independent newspaper which was in the main pretty balanced – you read the article in full by clicking here.

I received an email from a member of staff at the Department for Children, Schools and Families last week expressing some dismay that I was not embracing the most recent consultation mor enthusiastically and that I was being critical of the DCSF’s behaviour in the area of home education. You may be interested to read the reasons that I gave for my mis-givings over the current consulation -

The re-visiting of this matter less than 18 months after a successful consultation that resulted in the publication of very good guidelines to LAs on the topic of elective home education;
The short time period of the consultation;
The decision to undertake academic review after the consultation, rather than before, which would have made far more sense, because this would have allowed the academic review to feed into and affect the consultation;
The wording of a number of the questions in the current consultation – notably “Do you think that home educated children are able to achieve the following five Every Child Matters outcomes?” Leaving aside any discussion about the appropriateness of applying the ECM’s outcomes to individual families, this separates home educated children in a way that is, in my opinion, discriminatory.
The wording of the final question – “Some people have expressed concern that home education could be used as a cover for child abuse, forced marriage, domestic servitude or other forms of child neglect. What do you think Government should do to ensure this does not happen?” is flawed in so many ways. Without defining who the ’some people’ are, the question is almost worthless and is profoundly discriminatory – the vast majority of children who are abused, neglected, experience domestic servitude, and are forced into unwelcome marriages, actually attend school. If LAs cannot protect even these children, then the application of the ECMs agenda to home educators is not only entirely inappropriate but it actually smacks of hypocrisy.
If the DCSF was serious about supporting home educators they would ensure that their policies in this area were research driven. The DCSF has never funded serious longitudinal research into elective home education or even as far as I know commissioned a comprehensive literature search in this area. In the absence of these, the DCSF leaves itself open to accusations of prejudice, discrimination and simply being nobbled by LAs, certain children’s charities, some of those in the educational media and certain politicians all of whom were unhappy with the outcome of the last consultation.

Home Page News – 23 February 2009

Steve Richards — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:09:29 +0000

All educational systems are underpinned by a belief system or worldview. This is inevitable and unavoidable. In schools and colleges around the world – whether it is governments or individual teachers – decision-makers choose to teach children what is most important to them. And what is most important is actually shaped by our worldview. That is why a growing number of Christians are increasingly uncomfortable with the English National Curriculum; although it claims to be religiously neutral it leaves God out of every subject (except for Religious Studies, of course) – no mention of God in history, biology, geography, English – the list could go on! This is not neutrality but a form of practical atheism. In NorthStarUK we do not make our worldview conspicuous – in the end much of our subject matter is the same as that taught in secular schools. However, a Christian view of the world underpins all that we do and it is this that sets us apart.

Some months ago I was commissioned to produce a series of short videos introducing home education to a wider Christian audience. We have almost completed the first episode and have put it on YouTube to find out what people think. It deals with the issue of neutrality in education and challenges Christians to think deeply about these matters. If you would like to watch the video, simply here.

NorthStarUK Home Page News

Steve Richards — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:05:34 +0000

Every week, as Educational Director I post a message on our online learning environment home page. For fairly obvious reasons, this has come to be known as the Home Page News. Sometimes this message deals entirely with parochial matters – information that our parents and students need to know about; often, however, the Home Page News deals with matters of a more general nature. These latter posting swill now also be made available on our blog so that those with an interest in Christian online learning, home education, or NorthStarUK can read them as well.