Kelly Rigg (00:01.506)
Hey guys, welcome to the big Home Ed conversations. Now this week is our first ever guest special episode. So I'm really quite excited to welcome not only obviously myself, Kelly Wake and Ashley Venario with my co-host, but also Wendy Charles Warner from Education Otherwise. Hi, Wendy.
Ashley Vanerio (00:14.224)
Bye everyone. Bye.
Wendy Charles-Warner (00:20.231)
Hello, lovely to be here. Thank you for asking me, Kelly and Ashley.
Kelly Rigg (00:24.558)
All right, we're really excited to chat to you. So we obviously today are going to be really getting into the nitty gritty about kind of when you're very first starting home education, especially is really understanding your rights. But most importantly, and I think something that's particularly important to Wendy at the moment is really kind of emphasising how important it is to be getting your advice from the right places and making sure that as you're starting your relationship with a local authority around home education, etc, that we are doing so respectfully and
Ashley Vanerio (00:25.189)
course.
Kelly Rigg (00:54.734)
and making sure that we're obviously approaching home education in a really positive way and understanding that we do have rights and we are entitled to certain privacy but that obviously the more positive relationship we can have with the government and especially with threats of registers and all sorts coming down the line the more respectful that relationship is the more positive it's likely to be long term and at the end of the day what we all want truly is to be
left alone to enjoy our life and to get on with enjoying our children. And that's basically all we really want, isn't it? I think it's generally the gist. At least that's certainly for me anyway. But yeah, so we thought we'd just start really just by just having a chat about as well. I would love to actually ask Wendy a lot about kind of what her experience of home education has been. It's been a very long time that you've been involved in it. So I'll hand over to Wendy to just chat for a minute. Just tell us a bit about you.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:48.123)
well I first started home educating back in the early 1980s because my then little girl, who's now a terrifyingly clever professional woman, got up one morning and said, mommy, please don't send me back to school ever again. And I said, of course not, sweetheart. And I didn't even know that home education was legal, but I did know that I was not going to send my daughter back to school. She had been in a very nice little independent school.
prep school, she had moved to another school because her particular prep school, she had not aged out but because she was quite advanced academically, she had academically aged out and her school ended at a young age and so she moved to another one and the school she chose went bankrupt and not knowing what else to do.
thinking that children had to go to school, I put her in the only local school which had spaces and it was horrific. 10 days later, I learned what state schools at their worst could be. And she never went to school until she chose to many years later herself. That was a long time ago. And sort of to give you a, then I home educated.
my son part of the time although he went to school as well and grandchildren but to come back to what was going on what people don't appreciate is just how many freedoms we've got now and going back when I was very first home educating nobody ever asked me for information about my education I don't know whether it's just because I'm scary but I never had an education officer ask me literally I never
Ashley Vanerio (03:41.52)
Thank
Kelly Rigg (03:41.806)
You
Wendy Charles-Warner (03:45.715)
But it was minimal practice going back to the early 80s for parents to expect to not only meet with the education officer but for the education officer to come into their home, check their child's work, even test their child. And there were times back in the late 70s and early 80s there were parents who were being taken to court to have their children taken off them.
because they had chosen to home educate. It was not the friendly environment that we have now. People were plain about being approached by the local authority, but back then the local authority actually expected to come into your home. that was, some people never met the officer because they were simply unknown, but the majority did. So that's the early 80s.
And back in 1980, a man called Mr. Phillips, it was the Phillips and Brown case, really didn't want to have communication with his local authority. And so he refused to give any information when he was asked for it. He simply confirmed that he was home educating his child. And that became known as the Donaldson case, Phillips versus Brown. And Lord Donaldson found that
because the local authority has a duty to act if the education is not suitable, so it has the right to ask the parent to ascertain whether or not that duty is triggered and whether or not any other duties are triggered. So basically that was the introduction of the informal inquiry. Now the 1980s were quite turbulent and eventually
eventually it became very clear that the government was saying that no you do not have to meet with your education officer. However, this is overtime, however Lord Donaldson's case found that if you do not share detail about your education with the education officer they can assume that the education is not suitable. So what this developed was this two-step system.
Kelly Rigg (05:51.118)
you
Wendy Charles-Warner (06:11.431)
The first step was the informal inquiry when the parent has no duty whatsoever to answer, but if they don't, the local authority could assume that the education wasn't suitable. And that informal inquiry, Lord Donaldson was very, very clear that it should not be the same as an inquiry under what is now Section 437. And then if the local authority thought the parent hadn't given off information,
they could jump to what was then a Section 37, is now a Section 437 notice, and the parent would be obliged to satisfy them. So you mentioned getting advice in the right place. There are groups, I can think of one specifically, but I won't be rude and name it. There are groups who are encouraging parents to not be cooperative with their local authority.
Kelly Rigg (07:08.429)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (07:09.787)
Some of those parents are coming to education otherwise because they've ended up with school attendance orders. We've got education officers coming to us and saying, I'm really worried. This parent has a child who's got really severe needs. They need our help. We want to help them. And they're refusing even to accept special needs help because they've been advised by this group. And that worries me tremendously.
Kelly Rigg (07:15.745)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (07:32.002)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (07:37.346)
I think what's really interesting is I think from my perspective, I find myself quite often being quite anxious about the idea of the local authority having the opportunity to poke around in our home educating lifestyle, to question things, which obviously I've done an awful lot of research on, philosophies, especially as we don't radically unschool, but we have got a lot of kind child-led, relaxed tendencies. And I think that the attitudes, I think, can sometimes get a bit conflicting when...
you do find yourself sitting there kind of going, I'm not sure I really want the local authority to have an opinion on the education provision and all the rest of it. And I can understand why people feel this way, especially obviously with the skepticism that is coming more and more, I think in community, obviously where we've experienced COVID times, where obviously many, people were very anti the measures that were taken back through that. I think the fact that obviously NHS is struggling so much that maybe there's a kind of a general...
unhappiness that's in society these days that is starting to inflame, there's a part of the people who obviously who are pulling their kids out of schools who are not happy with the system, who haven't been experiencing great support, especially if their children have got additional needs, that I can see why they're feeling this urge to be like just back off to the local authorities like I don't want you in my days. I can see it. But I also understand that at the end of the day, we live in the United Kingdom. We have a government, we have a law.
And ultimately, we are responsible for abiding to that law. And if we want to have a peaceful journey, I personally feel like it's important to, as I say, have your boundaries, understand your rights, be firm, but ultimately be polite and work with people. But we're all in similar situations where most of us are, well, I actually know quite a lot of my friends aren't really on the radar. We're not going to necessarily be hounded for reports all the time.
Ashley Vanerio (09:34.298)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (09:40.174)
Don't say that too loud. Now I won't be.
Ashley Vanerio (09:48.297)
Yes, thank you.
Kelly Rigg (10:00.27)
And we've been quite lucky that maybe we elect to be home educated from the beginning. But definitely if people have had bad experiences with schools, I can see how they're, when they're coming out of it, they're frustrated. They're reaching out into these communities for advice. And ultimately it really depends where you land. Like if you go Googling into Facebook, like for advice, and you find yourself in one particular space and this is what everyone's saying, then you can get quite sucked into that. And we did an episode a couple of months ago about sort of don't just switch sides. It's super important.
that you get some critical thinking going on, you do some research, you do your reading. Don't just literally flip from one group of people to another group of people's opinions. Get your own, get yourself sort of researched. It's so important.
Wendy Charles-Warner (10:42.653)
Precisely. And I'm a legal professional, though retired in theory. And I have a little saying which is very common amongst legal professionals. And that is when you're dealing with somebody, you always start politely, respectfully and collaboratively. If they come back at you aggressively, you become more polite, more professional.
but firmer, you don't ever become aggressive. Only when they become extremely aggressive to you do you use more aggressive tactics and that is not aggressive language, it's not threats, it's not calling these people names. By that what I mean is if somebody behaves very badly to you then you fight back using legal tactics and I refer to it as going for the jugular.
but I mean it in terms of tactics. And I know that this works. It worked in my career and it works in home education. And there are local authority officers who are appalling, but quite frankly, most of them are just trying to do a decent job. They actually want to be supportive and they don't want to spend hours and hours and hours dealing with...
somebody who's very awkward and then having to go down the line of a school attendance order. What they need is to deal with everyone as quickly and in as friendly a way as possible so they can move on to the next person. So if you're the person who's doing what is needed in a friendly way, you get moved on from to the person who's being confrontational and aggressive. They are the ones who end up with problems.
And then it becomes a story of, well, I know they're really aggressive because they were really aggressive with me. They were really confrontational with me. But what's actually happened is that parent has gone in there saying, I know my rights. You can't do this. You can't do that. I'm not going to give you information or I'm only going to give you the absolute minimum and I'm doing it out of the goodness of my heart. And that, if you received a communication like that, it would make you feel a bit spiky.
Wendy Charles-Warner (13:06.247)
So they get a slightly abrupt response back at times and then they say, see, I told you they were awful. But actually, if you, in order to protect your rights, the very best thing you can do is first of all, know what they are, but know what your duties are. Secondly, it's to uphold them in a polite, respectful way, which means that you are the person who gets ticked off
Kelly Rigg (13:06.51)
Hmm.
Kelly Rigg (13:14.764)
You
Wendy Charles-Warner (13:35.219)
and moved on from and what your rights are specifically are. The local authority is entitled to ask you for information. That ship sailed back in 1980 with with Phillips and Brown. The High Court found that the local authority can ask you for information. Now, Lord Donaldson also said that in the case, the litigant said, well, what about if they just keep coming back asking for information?
and he said they can't do that because that would be challengeable. Now there is lots of legal precedent, that's called case law, that says if a public body has a duty it's acceptable to check whether that duty is triggered once a year is not too often. Now that doesn't mean to say that an annual report is due, what it means is that the local authority can ask for information
and asking after a year is not considered unreasonable. So if they ask you, there is no legal duty on you to reply, but if you don't, they can assume the education is not suitable and go to formal proceedings. So the wise person does reply and you reply in whatever way is comfortable for you and your family. There are a lot of parents who actually find the idea of writing a report horrifying, but
Kelly Rigg (14:46.157)
Mm-mm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (15:01.265)
because they're terrified, they can't do it. Dyslexic mums or dads who just freeze when they try to write. And those parents might prefer to meet with the local authority. But the bottom line is, it's the parents' choice. Because you're not obliged to provide information, how you provide it is your choice. One of my colleagues actually used interpretive dance.
Kelly Rigg (15:25.23)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (15:29.811)
Her daughter is a ballet dancer and did interpretive dance. So there you go. So the parent can choose how they provide information. So what's the local authority actually looking for? They want to know what your child is learning, how they're learning it, what resources they're using, how the child is engaging in the learning and what progress they've made. They don't need to know.
Kelly Rigg (15:31.566)
you
Ashley Vanerio (15:34.531)
Thanks
Wendy Charles-Warner (15:57.683)
know that Johnny's got a bowel disorder and has to go to the toilet four times a day and trust me I've seen reports that say things like that. you need to know is you know Fred went to the beach, Fred had whilst he was at the beach Fred was digging and noticed that the sand was in layers and Fred asked about those layers and I explained about deposition. Fred was really excited and went to look at the cliff and noticed that the cliffs were in layers.
Kelly Rigg (16:01.838)
I mean...
Wendy Charles-Warner (16:27.505)
So what you're doing there, that is not a child sitting down with book work. That's a child who you've said, what has he learned? He's learned about deposition. He's learned about stratification, deposition and form stratification. He's learned how it works. He's engaged. He's asking questions. How has he learned by being at the beach and seeing for himself? And you finish that little paragraph off with,
Fred was really excited when he got home to research this further and he now understands that blah, blah, blah. So you've then got the how he learns, what he's learned, his engagement with it, his progress and the fact that Fred is actually having a jolly good time and is enthusiastic about his education. So the local authority doesn't need you to write a school-based report.
The things that parents often do are provide extracts from online things. For example, they might take a block, a piece of information from Twinkle and say, Fred is learning and just list it. That your type of approach of the other schoolie type is actually telling the local authority more. So if you are telling them that your child is literate,
Kelly Rigg (17:42.542)
Hmm.
Kelly Rigg (17:51.896)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (17:55.281)
they're numerate, they have social contact, you've got the resources you need, your child is engaged with the learning and actually they're making progress, which isn't linear by the way, progress can be linear. Of course, then you are providing the information that's required and how you provide that is entirely up to you. Now, that comes to the local authority. The local authority's duty
Kelly Rigg (18:08.352)
No, it can be in all kinds of different ways, yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (18:11.184)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (18:23.931)
isn't to be satisfied in the early stages no matter what some will say. They don't have to be satisfied that your education provision is suitable. What they have to do is make a reasonable judgement that their duty to act, if it's not satisfied, is not triggered. It's a different thing. So if there's no concern when they read or hear whatever you're doing.
Ashley Vanerio (18:34.288)
you
Wendy Charles-Warner (18:52.731)
If they don't have any concerns, then they have ticked their box and they can move on. Now, you do get some local authorities who say, we need to get into your home. They're not entitled to. They are not entitled to. The guidance says that in some circumstances they can. And that refers to a court case called Tweedy. And that case was exceptional. So exceptional that the parents had already been to court.
Kelly Rigg (19:18.926)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (19:22.675)
and the court had basically not carried on with the prosecution on the basis that the parents had agreed in court to accept home visits because of the nature of the concerns. So the reason that the local authority in that case was entitled to go into the home was because the parents had agreed in court and the court had ordered that that was what they had agreed.
Kelly Rigg (19:36.398)
you
Ashley Vanerio (19:38.35)
Mm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (19:50.585)
exceptional circumstances. Most parents there is no such right. Even a social worker when you are on a child protection plan does not have the right to enter your home. If you say no they might just go to court and get an order which you won't like but even a social worker needs a court order to enter your home. So we get others that say we need copies of work and they'll usually cite the Portsmouth case.
Kelly Rigg (20:07.896)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (20:13.922)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (20:19.217)
That isn't what the Portsmouth case found. What the Portsmouth case found was that it's acceptable for the local authority to ask for copies of work. But the DFE agrees that they cannot find the education unsuitable solely on the basis that the parent doesn't provide copies of work. And parents will often say, no, I'm not giving you copies of work because it's my
property, it's my child's property. They're absolutely right. They're absolutely right. But what the local authority should then do is say, how do you want to give me this information? And it comes back to the point that it's up to the parent to give the information in the form they want. Now, you do have, there is one local authority which, thank goodness, everybody who doesn't live in that local authority is grateful.
Kelly Rigg (20:50.808)
Yeah. Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (21:18.139)
and actually a lot of local authority staff are very upset by the conduct of this local authority, who for example, I heard a recording a few weeks ago of a conversation by the education officer with a parent, in which the education officer said that he needed to see 50 copies of work for every national curriculum subject. And this particular local authority is pushing school at home, insisting on
Kelly Rigg (21:42.126)
That's crazy.
Wendy Charles-Warner (21:47.667)
piece of work and they are serving school attendance orders on anybody who doesn't provide them and unfortunately the DfE doesn't actually act there is no redress other than going to court and that's really expensive and that's what happens when relationships break down nobody wants to get recognition
Kelly Rigg (22:08.536)
See, is one of the things which I think is the most kind of critical point and is something which I know that education otherwise you're saying the other day that are really working on is the fact that there is so much inconsistency with the local authorities. I think this is the problem really where trust gets built when you know that when you're interacting with an organization that you are going to receive an equal and standard of care. And ultimately I think that what's happening is because
some areas are like this and some areas are not so like this and some areas might be more judgmental based on certain living situations. Maybe they might be aware of, mean, I don't know, obviously I'm assuming there is going to be race, there is going to be classism, there is going to be all kinds of things and judgments and criticisms going on within local authorities. Like it's super hard for parents to obviously...
Wendy Charles-Warner (22:45.649)
and thank you.
Wendy Charles-Warner (22:56.147)
special.
Kelly Rigg (23:04.174)
As I say, it's taking that deep breath and studying yourself, getting the right advice. And obviously all these reports and as you say, trying to put together this information. Like you said, obviously I know that education otherwise can check reports and help you to make sure that when you do submit it, it's saying the right things that you're going to hopefully tick all their boxes and move on. And I think home education for all as well, Hefa tend to provide support with that as well.
Wendy Charles-Warner (23:26.258)
Next.
they've actually stopped doing it other than for parents to come back with problems.
Kelly Rigg (23:31.82)
Nah, fair enough. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so is education otherwise the main way you're going to get that help?
Ashley Vanerio (23:33.744)
Hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (23:39.185)
Yeah, it's a really difficult service to provide if you're not for it. And apart from anything else, if you are providing the service, you should be registered with the ICO for data protection. You should be insured because if you're not, a parent can actually sue you. it's very hard for peer support groups to have that set up. And parents can be really quite stressed by this. We get parents...
Kelly Rigg (23:42.893)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (23:57.008)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Rigg (23:57.134)
Of course, yeah.
Kelly Rigg (24:03.159)
Yes.
Kelly Rigg (24:06.702)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (24:07.803)
I've had one this week, a parent sending a report saying, this is due in tomorrow and I haven't done it, I've only just managed to do it because I found it so stressful, can you check it? And we actually try to meet 48 hour turnaround and I've got volunteers who are doing the reports and they have their lives, they're volunteers, they're not paid stuff. They have their lives and not everyone can drop everything and do it. So when we get something like
Kelly Rigg (24:19.246)
Bye.
Kelly Rigg (24:29.058)
Yeah. Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (24:37.157)
I generally fit it in myself and you'll find me at one o'clock in the morning checking reports sometimes because a parent has left it till the last minute and the volunteers are given 48 hours and it's really really hard. Parents get very stressed by it but yes we do that service.
Ashley Vanerio (24:43.056)
Mm.
Kelly Rigg (24:57.378)
Yeah, because I guess it's a thing, it's trying to make sure that, so guess coming back to the kind of the trust side of things with the local authority, if they are not all meeting the same standard, I guess at the moment, I know that you guys are working on training local authorities, but within the actual government itself, people who are being hired into those roles don't necessarily have any experience of home education or schooling or even childcare, may not have even had children themselves.
Wendy Charles-Warner (25:03.697)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (25:24.214)
So may have absolutely zero awareness of home education before being placed in that role. And then obviously they then have to get up to speed. And as you say, I'm not doubting that those people go into it with good intentions sometimes. And so I'm not going to say always, because we know what people are like, not everybody does. But some people may have a very kind of, believe in the school system and I believe that that's the right way of doing things. my, my mum was quite funny really in the sense that she had worked in childcare for 30 odd years.
And when I said I was going to home educate, she had a fit of me really. Both of my parents were like, what, what are you doing? And it's actually taken a few years, but they do now, we have these really great conversations. I think your bit that you did for Good Morning, she actually saw that. I was smiling the other day when you mentioned it, because she actually was talking to me about that and talking about home education, saying they were talking about it and that she's really starting to understand now, like why we care about it so much.
It takes quite a long time sometimes to get people who don't know anything about it, who have never considered doing it for themselves, to actually not only come to a basic understanding, to be honest, of all the different philosophies, the attitudes and ethos and beliefs that go into it, but then also to stop judging it or to stop questioning it or worrying about it and having a fear-based response to it. Because actually we literally did an episode recently about how quite often when you're dealing with someone who maybe is maybe somewhat
of convinced that home education is not a good thing, to help them to understand what it actually is compared to what their image of it is, is really, really hard. And I think unless they're getting some good standardized training, we are potentially dealing with a real wild card. Like you literally don't know who you're going to get. You don't know what kind of attitudes and beliefs they're going to get, how educated they're going to be. And I think that's the fear, isn't it, for parents as they're submitting these reports or they're trying to have these interactions. And
Ashley Vanerio (26:57.699)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Rigg (27:19.488)
Ultimately, if the government want us to work collaboratively with them, like there is a, it's a, to and fro, isn't it? And like, it's absolutely, we should be being expected to follow our duty as citizens to do as we're told. But also when you're dealing with a government authority, they should also be really considering how they're training these staff to make sure that there is a standard of care that people aren't expecting to be attacked or judged or criticized unduly.
Ashley Vanerio (27:27.855)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (27:46.237)
Yeah, and it's such a shame actually because, fact, going back to the training, we set that up because there was none. Well, there is one university in the south of England that one researcher who's never to my knowledge met a home educated parent set up some training, but it was based on, it was pretty awful.
Ashley Vanerio (27:48.644)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (28:12.495)
and local authorities were paying for it so education otherwise came up with training we call it continuous professional development which was free of charge to the local authorities and we based it on three things mutual respect, mutual trust and allowing parents to feel safe and those are the three things and that actually came from some research I did at two sources
Some research I did going back a couple of years ago, which was for the then education minister in the Lords, and that was on what positive practice looks like. And I interviewed education officers who had a reputation for being very positive in their practice, and they were interviewed separately, and every single one of them said, well, parents need to know that there is mutual respect.
and we need to build mutual trust and those parents need to feel safe and one of the officers actually showed me some letters with permission from the parents that parents had sent to him thanking him for helping him get the child back into school would you believe because they didn't want to home educate but they'd had problems in the school and he had worked actually fought on their side to get them help them to get the child
into a school that was more appropriate and that was that's part of their role and these these local authority officers would often say to me if I serve a school attendance order then I have failed. Now that quality practice is what we base it on we base the training when we're doing it we we tell local authorities how to act when things go wrong we tell them how to do the formal proceedings but it starts with
very clear messages about what positive practice is about. And we do a separate session for GRT children and we're developing one with David Wolf Casey on special needs children and he's going to co-present with us. So we are doing our best and it's really interesting that sometimes those officers will say to us, I've got a new manager and he wants me to do this.
Wendy Charles-Warner (30:36.785)
and they are fighting back with their managers and sometimes, I saw one a few weeks ago and I happened to know the case that she was carefully mentioning and the case had gone online to one of the groups and people were saying, just tell them to get lost, you shouldn't be doing this, you shouldn't be doing that. What those people online didn't realise is I knew the case and this officer said to me, I'm not sure what to do, I've got a problem.
with the case and the problem is we can't get the parent to provide us with information and that parent actually had two children already taken into care because of neglect. The parent had multiple vulnerabilities and she was being advised not to be cooperative. She was going to lose her child to the care system. So we need to know that there is this balance but the horrible thing is
Kelly Rigg (31:18.99)
you
Kelly Rigg (31:28.398)
Gosh.
Wendy Charles-Warner (31:35.747)
one bad apple, one bad apple in our community can spoil things for us, but one bad apple in a home education officer's community can spoil everything for that whole of that local authority area. So you'll have a good officer leave, a new one come in who's got that schoolie approach because they don't know better. And suddenly parents in that area are withdrawing, don't want to be collaborative.
Kelly Rigg (31:45.646)
you
Kelly Rigg (31:49.464)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (31:55.598)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (32:04.066)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.
Wendy Charles-Warner (32:05.639)
because they're scared. They're scared of repercussions. And what we're hoping, and we know that in some areas our training has really made a big difference. We've seen one area that had a terrible reputation turn itself right around. And we're just hoping that by offering this and by doing this and by getting across, you know, these are your limits, this is what parents would like to happen. We're helping
parents to be treated better because we need to know our rights and our responsibilities but so do they. And the funny thing is I'm writing the history of home education right now and I reread Graham Stewart's committee report findings after the bad man review and the main point he said is there is a postcode lottery and what we want is to get rid of that postcode lottery don't we?
Kelly Rigg (33:01.368)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (33:06.077)
this.
Ashley Vanerio (33:06.23)
Yeah, it's so interesting because the approach here is so very different than it was in Italy and then it was then what it is in the United States. And I think a lot of what you touched on around the inconsistencies and being at the mercy of the local authority that you're in, whereas in Italy, for example, there is a requirement at the end of the year to do an assessment.
but you can choose where to go for that. So you don't have to go to your local school if you don't want to. We did, because we thought they were lovely and supportive. But if you felt like you were in an area where you would get some kind of initial judgment or pushback, you could choose to go to a different area and you would just then pay for that service versus it being free locally. And in the States, it obviously varies drastically from state to state, but...
Generally, you kind of see this either request for a report at the end of the year, similar to what it sounds like is asked for here, or a test to be completed, some kind of standardized test. And you get to choose which one in many cases, and you can also choose who reviews that report for you. So there are a lot of teachers that are in the school system, and then they come and offer their services as a report review.
And you actually built up a relationship with them over the years and it's really nice and they see your child grow. And, but then of course, if you're not happy, you can find someone else. So I think there is a lot of flexibility, but there's definitely consistency. And here I just, I just feel fearful. There is a lot of fear that your ability to home educate could be taken from you. And I never felt that in any other country that I've been in. So I think that extra layer is a little bit.
worrisome.
Wendy Charles-Warner (35:02.899)
That's interesting you should say that. it is a fear that people have. If you take the worst possible local authority out of the statistics, 1.9 % of parents actually are subjected to a school attendance order. 1.9%. So if you think about it, if you take the normal distribution curve of... Home educators fall into a normal distribution curve. Most of them...
Ashley Vanerio (35:22.352)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (35:31.813)
somewhere around the middle doing a good enough job, an average job, you get a tiny number who are so exceptional that it's jaw dropping. You then get a bunch who are really, really good. You then get a bunch who are well, they're not unsuitable, but they're not, you you're not that impressed. And then you get that very small number who are absolutely abysmal. And if you look at a normal distribution curve, that's one to 2%.
Kelly Rigg (35:42.19)
you
Ashley Vanerio (35:59.31)
Yeah. So is it just that we're hearing, we're just hearing the worst stories and it's creating this kind of shadow over the community? Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (36:02.675)
Right. But 1.9 % actually receive a school attendance order and that's consistent with a standard distribution curve. So it's not actually people being hunted down. And the interesting thing is that there are places where school attendance orders are served without good cause. I can think of four local authorities off the top of my head.
Ashley Vanerio (36:15.824)
Absolutely, yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (36:33.171)
and one of those is they serve them if the parent refuses a meeting, one of them serves them routinely on parents whose child is disabled and one of them just serves them on willy-nilly because they're barking mad. And well not barking mad but they have very strange views of how they should do their job, it's unfair to say that. And you look at these cases and 66 % of parents
Kelly Rigg (36:53.288)
You
Wendy Charles-Warner (37:02.643)
actually do not lose in court. So parents going to court on the school attendance order don't lose. And actually, if you do lose, that does not force your child into school. The local authority has to start again. If the local authority, there are things local authorities can do if you do lose in court, and those steps are very, very hard and often need collaboration of their social services system.
And one of the problems that local authorities have is where they do have cases where they do need to act. The social services don't want to know and the result of that is the education officer becomes over anxious and then becomes more likely to act where it's not possibly not necessary. So it's they have problems with balancing their duties and that causes problems for the community.
with that postcode lottery and you said about, Ashley, education otherwise does in some cases often offer independent third party reports. I've given evidence in court on cases and I've been called as an expert witness in court on home education cases. But when the government was drafting the new guidance,
We raised objections repeatedly, but the DfE was absolutely adamant that the guidance should say in it that third-party reports will not be acceptable, will not normally be acceptable. Now the reason that they wanted to say that primarily was because people are writing reports and people are just dropping their names in. But they were extending that, one particular DfE staff member was extending that.
And I specifically said, look, I don't need extra work, but we sometimes do independent reports for parents, parents who are stressed by their relationship with their local authority. We ameliorate that by going in, we meet the parent, we talk to the children, we write those reports and local authorities in virtually all cases accept those reports. And the attitude was...
Wendy Charles-Warner (39:29.981)
Well, we're not going to change that. Third party reports aren't acceptable. Why? Why is that less acceptable than somebody who's less qualified than I am, who's been employed by the local authority on the basis of a teaching qualification? And they couldn't explain it. But there is this attitude that we have teachers in our community.
Kelly Rigg (39:36.824)
Hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (39:38.478)
Hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (39:58.675)
not only a qualified lawyer, also a qualified psychologist. I have a master's in psychology. I know I have 40 years experience and I was actually told in one meeting that, well, yes, you can advise local authorities and other people on relationships, but you can't advise them on the law, can you? And I just, I said, well, I've been doing that for more than 40 years.
Kelly Rigg (40:02.51)
Hmm.
Kelly Rigg (40:10.798)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Rigg (40:21.944)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (40:23.006)
Thank
Wendy Charles-Warner (40:27.923)
I'm a legal professional, why can I not? And it was dismissed. And this is where you get this difficulty, it's lack of trust. And even lack of trust, I'm recognised by the court as an expert, and yet told by someone at the DFE that a report written by me wouldn't be acceptable. And that doesn't make my relationship to break down.
Kelly Rigg (40:31.182)
Eh.
Ashley Vanerio (40:33.882)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (40:39.279)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (40:57.287)
makes a sarky comment back. But that sort of approach, when you get it, when it boils down to parents, as in a local authority officer, implies to a parent that he or she is the expert in your child's education, it kind of makes people bristle and think, how dare they? I don't want to cooperate here.
Ashley Vanerio (41:00.238)
you
Kelly Rigg (41:00.364)
You
Ashley Vanerio (41:20.484)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (41:24.273)
And so the development of mutual respect, really the local authority has a duty to do that. They've got no matter how spiky the parent is, their role is to remain professional and to try to develop that mutual respect because they don't know what the parents, it's hard, but they don't know why the parents acting like that. and really what we need to do is to encourage parents not to be spiky because
If they do a decent job, give some information, then actually it takes up a couple of hours of their time instead of weeks and weeks of stress trying to deal with the backlash of them being spiky. So if we can get parents to understand, you know, just give what's needed in a friendly way as best you can. If any queries come back, we can help you to deal with those queries.
Kelly Rigg (42:15.947)
you
Wendy Charles-Warner (42:24.231)
but don't start off spiky, then we're more likely to get education officers being respectful because we're preaching respect to them. So there you go.
Kelly Rigg (42:34.35)
Yes. Yeah, we're putting ourselves a good face forward, aren't we, really, I suppose, is the idea. know that. And I think what's quite interesting is there's an, I've obviously got various type of people pleaser issues myself. And I was, I had made a little note as you were talking there about kind of just sort of British culture and our values around authority and how actually we are typically raised in this country to be respectful of people who are sort of older, wiser, like people who are in positions of authority that we are.
I think you're either raised to be very much conscious of doing the right thing, being a good girl, don't rock the boat. And I think from my perspective, a lot of my fear was actually based in my own issues around kind of that constant training as a child to be well behaved, to do as you're told, to like be polite to people, don't make anybody mad. And actually I actually felt like I was being very rebellious and naughty.
by choosing home education that I was sorry, it felt very much like I wasn't choosing the path that everybody else is choosing. Like I'm actually doing something rebellious here. I don't do rebellious. And so I think that sometimes actually it's almost got nothing to do with the local authority and nothing to do with like whatever. It's actually to do with our own internal fears around authority. And maybe whether or not we're in this sort of space of our life where we're feeling like we want to push back against it a little bit, or maybe we're feeling.
Ashley Vanerio (43:31.993)
Thank
Kelly Rigg (43:56.376)
just anxious in general, because this is a big thing for us, maybe especially if we don't know much about it or if it wasn't something which we maybe thought we would be doing. I I literally came across home education during COVID times. I applied for my son's school place and as we received it, went, we're not accepting it, are we? To my husband, was like, we're gonna give this a go, aren't we? I was like, actually, I'm feeling really scared right now. I'm gonna send them this message to say, actually, do know what? No, thank you. And it felt like, my goodness, I'm like.
jumping into this massive, great deep pool and I've just got to try and fight for my life. And there is just a lot of fear in that initial stages, as we say, especially when we're talking to the day about people who are being forced into home education through absolutely no intention of their own, whether they've got children who are being bullied or literally in quite dangerous situations, whether you've got families who've got neurodivergence, whatever it is, so sort of mental health issues, depression, et cetera.
Ashley Vanerio (44:39.119)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (44:50.946)
that we are seeing obviously an alarming amount of young people with mental health conditions and anxiety, especially around school and obviously peer to peer relations obviously with social media and the way people are bullying follows them everywhere now, that we are seeing young people who are struggling and parents who are having to make a choice despite not necessarily wanting to, not feeling geared up to do it, having absolutely no idea where to start, being kind of thrust into these situations and ultimately
that is going to bring a very heightened kind of sensation, isn't it? Like everyone's going to be feeling really kind of like anxious about not getting into trouble. And I can remember being really, really worried about school attendance orders back at the beginning, really hoping that nobody was going to come knocking on my door and be like, why are they not in school and telling me off? And it's taken, it took a couple of years for me to realize that actually it is a minority and it's literally only going to be if we are.
literally abusing our children and we shouldn't have them home with us really at all. Like it's got to be worst case scenario typically for that to be what is going on. And yeah, I think it's just really interesting how I think some of it is just culture. It is just the fact that we have been raised in a society that does worry about authority quite a lot, overstepping or whatever. It's interesting, isn't it?
Ashley Vanerio (46:10.02)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (46:12.371)
Yeah, and that's right, people have fears and we have parents ringing our helpline who will say to us, I want to home educate but I'm frightened that my children will be taken off me. And people have this fear and you see rumours online about social workers being paid to take children away and it's nonsense. Of course they're not paid to take children away and actually to get a care order the courts don't give them away very readily.
And I was known as that rebellious child and it was because my parents were very strict and actually I wasn't a particularly awful child. But I can recall saying to somebody when I was about nine or ten, well, you can't kill me and you can't physically injure me because that's a crime. And because you can't kill me or physically injure me, you can't actually make me do anything.
Kelly Rigg (47:10.51)
That's when they knew she was going to be a lawyer.
Wendy Charles-Warner (47:12.4)
Thanks.
Ashley Vanerio (47:14.714)
Ha ha ha!
Wendy Charles-Warner (47:14.931)
Exactly. And that was quite a funny thing to come from a child. But actually, it's something we need to bear in mind. We need to bear in mind that we need to be respectful of others in general, but that doesn't mean to say that they are somehow superior to us. We see respect as...
gosh they're more important than me, they're the adults in the relationship and what's needed is to remember that the local authority officer is not the adults in the relationship and you are not the child, you are both adults who are mutually respectful and if you cut from that you're not a child in the relationship, you are actually an adult and I'm sure I was born one.
Ashley Vanerio (47:58.532)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (47:58.563)
Yes.
Kelly Rigg (48:07.726)
You
Wendy Charles-Warner (48:08.851)
That can turn how you feel about it around because you then, as an adult, you know that adults should be respectful. They don't swear, they don't call people names. Well, not if they're reasonable human beings. They actually say, well, okay, yeah, I get what you're asking. So what you need of me is, yeah, okay, I can do that much, but I'm not going to do this. And they can...
have a reasoned and adult way of approaching it. But it's that innate fear of authority is somehow above us. You should see the terror I see in parents who have to go into the courtroom. I love the courtroom. For me, the courtroom is just, it's like being on stage in a play, it's fun. But most people going into a courtroom is absolutely petrifying.
Ashley Vanerio (48:42.32)
something.
Ashley Vanerio (48:51.991)
I bet.
Kelly Rigg (48:52.131)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Rigg (49:00.974)
Hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (49:07.793)
And yet it's a place where people are trying to achieve balance. And that's the same with relationships. If you go into relationship, seeing that other person is terrifying, it's much harder for you to find that balance because you feel like the child. It's the realization that powers are not as great as you think they are. So if you're doing a good enough job, chances of you even getting a formal
Kelly Rigg (49:07.875)
You
Wendy Charles-Warner (49:37.593)
formal notice are very slight, about 8 % on average. If you're then, and that's usually because something's gone wrong, the parent has actually not given quite enough information, they've not realised what is wanted and the local authority might give the formal notice because in most cases they just need more information and the parent is either misunderstood or being advised not to give it. So you actually get into a school attendance order
is under 2 % of people. Actually getting into the courtroom is even less. But that tells the parent that the local authority power isn't that great, really. Because unless you are not giving what the basic information is required, unless something goes wrong, the local authority actually, the officer wants to say, great, they want to be able to say to you,
you know, that's good, but have you thought of or can you this? They do. They're like you and I. They don't want any more hassle than they need in most cases. So if you remember that you are an adult in the relationship and you behave as a respectful equal, you're more likely to get that approach back and get through it than if you are like a frightened child. And getting over that psychological
Kelly Rigg (51:00.654)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (51:06.043)
jump to, I'm not going to be terrified of this person, is what I did when I was a little girl and never ever, I tripped Prince Philip up as a child because as an experiment and I felt very very guilty, he was an absolute gentleman about it, but it was a childish experiment in the degree of respect you should
pay people and I learned early on that actually you gain power by actually presuming power. So if you don't allow anyone to presume power over you psychologically, then you've gained power over your own feelings and you can have that mutually respectful relationship. And that's what's needed because what we all want is
Kelly Rigg (51:47.758)
Mm.
Kelly Rigg (51:56.012)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (52:03.471)
get on with our home education, get on with being with our children and get, right, that's that tick box, ticked move on to the next person please and that's how you do it.
Kelly Rigg (52:16.492)
Yeah, and I think like I was thinking as well about kind of, all right, so I think it kind of this moves us on quite nicely to the kind of the concept of the fact that we're as humans, we want to obviously home educate our children and to do it our way and to be able to live our lives and to enjoy that process. And I think that ultimately we kind of maybe sort segueing slightly into the fact that actually it's very hard sometimes to.
to really trust that and to kind of make up those own decisions and to be able to just be ourselves and to go on and do those things in a world that is kind of constantly asking us to be a certain thing. And having that kind of internal fire and power to make those decisions is actually really hard to access sometimes. And I think it's so important, sometimes even just the numbers, just the numbers of hearing what you said have really helped to reassure me that actually I don't need to be worrying about this.
Ashley Vanerio (53:12.752)
So reassuring. Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (53:14.166)
Like, I don't need to worry about it really. I just need to be polite and I need to be helpful. But I think it can be very hard when you're trying to form who you are and to really become more authentic and all the rest of it to kind of, it's interesting, is it just operating within a system? And I think I can see definitely why we have this kind of pushback, this kind of idea that as home educators, I say, I gave an example, I think the other day of like a lion and a lion cub.
nobody has a right to tell that lion how to teach that lion cub how to survive and how to exist within the environment it finds itself in. But yet, as humans, we obviously dictate and legislate and get involved with people's lives and basically indicate that you have to be a certain way, you have to behave a certain way, you have to do certain things in order to be allowed to live within this society freely. And I am definitely sort of doubling in this sort of the
the kind of idea of human rights in a way. I'm obviously clearly just like starting to educate myself and understand it a bit more. But we were talking briefly about how it almost feels like it should be a human right to simply be able to exist and raise our children and allow them to learn what is appropriate for them in their community within their own home, family, extended like their area. Like
Ashley Vanerio (54:34.308)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (54:35.456)
accessing all the information that they might want about the millions of different subjects they could possibly want to access and actually having anybody having any kind of say or authority over what subjects they should be learning at what level should it be academic, should it be functional, whatever feels, like I'm being quite bolshy here, but feels inappropriate. And I think that this can be sometimes where people like where the more sort of fiery side of me gets a little bit like,
I know that it's important to be polite and I know that I will be as and when those inquiries come around and I want to make sure I'm giving them the information they're after. But I can understand where we kind of get in this sort of skepticism is building and people are kind of going, hang on a minute, surely, like you shouldn't actually have a say over what subjects we're covering or to what depth and what is appropriate for the age or whatever it is that they might be calling any judgment on. And I think this is where I get.
It's just like a little fiery side of me that I'm getting quite amused with lately. That's just a bit like, surely we should just be able to do whatever we want. And we were saying that actually human rights was, there was a case in Germany, I think you said that basically was, has now kind of thrown that.
Wendy Charles-Warner (55:52.179)
Thank you.
Kelly Rigg (55:55.87)
of wild card out the way, can't say actually no it's my human right to be able to do this, that's actually not going to hold in court, which is a little bit scary I think. I'm actually like quite saddened by that.
Ashley Vanerio (56:02.468)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (56:07.999)
no, actually, right. What the case found, this was a case in Germany in which the European Court of Human Rights found that it was not a breach of a parent's human rights for the court to, even for a government to even ban home education. It was based in Germany and it was based in the national law of Germany, which was, and the court was very clear, it was specific.
Kelly Rigg (56:27.118)
Mm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (56:36.465)
to that nation because as a nation Germany is very concerned about what they call parallel societies and parallel societies being people creating a society within a society which then creates a broken and split society and because that concern existed and was legitimate in Germany then that over
Kelly Rigg (56:56.814)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (57:04.018)
the parents' rights. So that was that case was about, but what it basically has done is tell us that you cannot go to the Court of Human Rights and say it's my human right to educate my child so I see fit. However, the Human Rights Act does give you a lot of rights. Now what your rights are in this country, and people have a difficulty understanding rights, you do.
Kelly Rigg (57:19.171)
Maybe.
Wendy Charles-Warner (57:33.763)
absolutely have the right to educate your child as you see fit. The Education Act, Section 7, says you can choose, you can send them to school or educate them otherwise. Courts have found over the years that you can choose to home educate. Home education is of equal legal status to school. It's not lesser and unfortunately some people treat it as if it is. But what people don't understand
Kelly Rigg (57:59.854)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (58:03.287)
when they say, it's my right, absolutely it is. But what happens in a society that works on legislation as ours does is that you, for example, I'll give you an example that some years ago a group of people calling themselves home educators started stalking and harassing me.
they were claiming it was their right to do whatever they liked. Now that included death threats and terrifying my children, all sorts of things. And they considered it their right to do that because they have freedom of speech. But we don't have freedom of speech in this country. And just as we don't have the absolute right to educate our children as we see fit, those rights are what are called qualified rights.
Ashley Vanerio (58:41.806)
I know.
Wendy Charles-Warner (58:59.699)
Now a qualified right is a right that the parent has a qualified right to home educate the child. So if you are providing an education to your child which meets section 7 that is suitable for the child's ageability, aptitude and special needs, your right is absolutely sacrosanct. Nobody can touch you because legally you have that right.
The reason it's called a qualified right is because the child also has a right. The child has a right to receive a suitable education. Therefore, as a society, we say that if you're not providing your child with a suitable education, the law has to support your child's rights if you are failing to do so yourself. So that's why it's called a
qualified right and most democratic societies take the view that government has got an interest in the rights and education of children because children are their future adults of society. So you have an absolute right to home educate your child unless or until you fail your child and that's where people have that slight misunderstanding.
Kelly Rigg (01:00:15.491)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (01:00:19.619)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:00:27.083)
So where the local authority comes in is the local authority has a right to just take a look to just make sure their duty to protect your child from failure has not been triggered. And if you understand that, that that's why they're taking a look. It's the legal theory is that it's in protection of your child's rights. So as a parent,
Kelly Rigg (01:00:27.63)
Mm.
Kelly Rigg (01:00:44.558)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:00:55.323)
your rights do not take priority over your child's and I bristle terribly at the idea that anyone should suggest that I am not protecting my child's rights. I would take a speeding bullet for one of my children and they're all bigger than me and they're all having been brought up by me they're all even tougher than me but I would still stand in the way and take a speeding bullet for them and for fierce mummy tiger
Kelly Rigg (01:00:59.342)
Absolutely.
Kelly Rigg (01:01:06.958)
Okay.
Ashley Vanerio (01:01:07.002)
course.
Ashley Vanerio (01:01:10.98)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:01:24.295)
feels like that. But as a society, our legal system takes the view that not every parent will be like you and me. Not every parent will take that bullet for their child. There are parents who don't actually protect their children's rights and they're that tiny little minority on that normal distribution curve. And therefore, the local authority has a duty
Ashley Vanerio (01:01:26.192)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (01:01:40.336)
Thank
Ashley Vanerio (01:01:49.796)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:01:54.001)
to just poke their nose in when they feel no more often than annually is fine, just to check and say, can I just have a check that actually your child's OK and you are actually protecting that child's rights to a suitable education. And it's a bit like the licensing authority has a right to check that you've got a TV license. Because it's a bit like that.
Kelly Rigg (01:02:19.105)
Don't get me started on TV licences, Wendy.
Ashley Vanerio (01:02:21.2)
Wait, I thought it was joke when I moved here. I was like a TV license, what? Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:02:26.131)
We didn't have television for years and years and years. kept getting letters from the TV licensing authority threatening to sue us for not having a licence. And I sent them a formal notice in defamation because it was defamatory for them to suggest that I would watch the rubbish that's on television as it insulted me.
Ashley Vanerio (01:02:31.737)
You
Ashley Vanerio (01:02:35.792)
you
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:02:55.495)
That's an example of respectful response to somebody who challenges you. slightly humorous, how dare you say that my intellect is so low that I would watch the rubbish programmes you're putting out. And we do now have a television and I do watch quiz shows.
Kelly Rigg (01:02:56.32)
I think is.
Ashley Vanerio (01:02:59.248)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (01:03:03.022)
Bye.
Kelly Rigg (01:03:07.159)
You
Kelly Rigg (01:03:17.356)
Yeah. So I think it's interesting how like I've gotten very interested in the past couple of years about kind of the the potential agendas that went into compulsory schooling and like bringing children together and all the rest of it. I won't get into it in too much depth right now because obviously we're going forever but I think what can be quite interesting here as well is the fact that obviously where like I totally respect that sort of checking in on the child making sure they are receiving a suitable education that absolutely they should have the right to make sure because someone's got to.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:03:25.139)
you
Kelly Rigg (01:03:45.678)
that ultimately they need to be able to keep track of it because we can't always, as you say, trust the parents to ensure that. But I think what's interesting is kind of where this suitable education bit comes in. So it's like another layer to this. It's not like, their view is different to ours. And I think it's quite interesting how like the general kind of academic focus of this country, and we've talked about it in depth, and Ashley before, but the concept of like what is considered to be a suitable education, what is actually appropriate.
Are we future-proofing it? Are we ensuring our children are actually giving functional skills? Are they feeling confident and happy and creative in their writing? Are they enjoying books and other resources naturally all by themselves? Are they getting opportunities to ask questions? That ultimately, I have been known to say it, is like, when you get your house in order, you can comment on mine. And I think that that's, it's a bit of a fiery thing to say, but I can't help myself sometimes, because I do find myself thinking it's really tricky.
And this is where we obviously have got to play by the rules, but also be really mindful that actually it's our job as home educators to continue to push the boundaries of what is considered to be appropriate and suitable, and to actually offer our children these opportunities to have their own critical thoughts, to educate themselves and be educated in a really empowered way so that they obviously can continue to be the change makers in our societies to push back against this sort of legislation, to actually say,
this is what it should look like. And at the end of the day, the people who formed our government back when, I mean, it still is currently today too, to be honest, but the people who formed it back when children were first being put into school, a lot of it was very much, yeah, that they were basically really kind of commercial people. They were the big businessmen. They just wanted workers and they wanted people to cooperate with work and that we have got to remember.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:05:17.523)
you
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:05:23.187)
1876.
18.
Kelly Rigg (01:05:39.854)
the history and I'd love that you're doing the history of it really, because it's fascinating. And I think one of the things I've worked a lot on is educating myself about the agenda that's gone into it. And obviously why we have got to be so conscious of not pushing back for pushing back sake, absolutely embracing the fact that obviously, if there's going to be a standard of education in this country, it's important that our children can coexist within it, but that ultimately they are aware that they can choose other directions that they don't necessarily have to be specifically academic and
Ashley Vanerio (01:05:43.78)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (01:06:09.25)
do loads of fantastic math skills. As long as they can do functional math, they can understand how math works and they've got good concepts, then great. And obviously we can move on from there into further maths if they find that fascinating and want to use it for their careers. But ultimately there's loads of other opportunities out there to learn about interesting things that children in school will have very limited opportunity to touch upon. And I think it's...
It's really fascinating, isn't it? I think this is why it's so important to just get the wording right when you're submitting these reports and make sure that you're ticking their boxes, but also at the same time, maintaining your own critical thinking and understanding that in your home ed world, what matters and yeah, yeah, is playing the game, to speak, to some degree, but also being respectful and understanding that these things are important.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:06:47.825)
Yep.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:06:55.783)
Yeah, and honestly, you could do a five hour podcast on the national curriculum. We've got a national curriculum that isn't fit for purpose. We've got a legal system that assumes that if you send your child to school, you are providing your child with a suitable education, even if the school is in special measures and children are coming out of there unable to read and write. So we have and we have a system where in
Kelly Rigg (01:07:02.264)
Mm.
Kelly Rigg (01:07:14.414)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Rigg (01:07:20.984)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:07:24.933)
one particular area where if you serve a school attendance order, that school attendance order requires the child to attend a failing school where children are being failed and you've got home educated children in that area who are doing GCSEs early successfully being served with school attendance orders which would in theory force them to attend a school where roughly 20 % of the children leave unable to read and write.
So this assumption that school provides a suitable education is a whole other subject and that get your own house in order is a message that education otherwise is trying to push. That's what the partly the Good Morning Britain interview is about, that people are coming to home education because they feel that school is not meeting their needs. The national curriculum hasn't been fit for purpose for years and you know I look at
Kelly Rigg (01:07:59.106)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:08:21.617)
One of my own grandchildren, I had an email from my daughter today saying he's got a conduct mark at school because he's not doing enough written notes for his revision. The child hates written notes. He's happy to sit and do an old exam paper as revision. He'll go through it with me, talking through his answers and do so very well. But if he's asked to spend two hours,
writing up notes that the teacher specifies, to him that's hell and he's mispraxic, so writing for him is horrible anyway. And this idea that everybody has to learn in the same way, it just fails because every child is an individual. I'll give you another example from my family and that's one of my home educated grandchildren who
Kelly Rigg (01:09:09.838)
Hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:09:19.781)
at 10 started a maths and science degree but could not write an essay. If you asked him to write about his visit to the zoo, he'd shake, he'd cry and he'd be terrified. He could not write an essay. In order to do his degree work, everything he had to write had to be turned into a mathematical formula because he was a mathematician by heart, he still is. he could, reading and writing and literature
and free-form fiction to him was like being thrown into hell and he actually got his degree before he got his English GCSE. He got it but after he got his degree and I have one of my children who I home educated was phenomenal at English and in fact got 100 % on English literature and 100 % in English language in her exams.
But for her, maths was a no-go area. Now you've got two completely different children there. You cannot educate those two children in the same way. And schools try to educate 30 children in a classroom, none of whom is getting one-to-one education, none of whom can have individual education because with the best will in the world, a teacher cannot provide individualised education to every one of 30 children in a class.
Kelly Rigg (01:10:29.229)
No.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:10:49.115)
no matter how good that teacher is.
Kelly Rigg (01:10:52.416)
No, certainly not following like a set curriculum that they've got to get all the children through the same hoops. And I think this is where the argument could easily be made that one teacher with 30 children that were self-directed following various different projects and things where they're facilitating and supporting and moving between them as they're like exploring a subject as a group and like maybe looking at books, maybe watching some stuff on the computer, maybe playing some games, maybe doing whatever. That if they're all kind of exploring a subject together and then maybe coming together for a collaborative chat at the end that
Arguably, you could potentially have a teacher facilitating lots of different varieties of learning, lots of different ways and enthusiasms with movement, with interaction, with children actually having a chance to express themselves as individuals and learn from each other and support each other. So like where one obviously is struggling with one thing, another might be able to support them with that. And I mean, that's another whole thing as well, this kind of concept of like cheating and children not being able to support each other or...
copying each other's answers and all this nonsense. find that quite frustrating as well because ultimately that's just for the sake of the school to understand how that child is learning and are they at the same level as their peers. It's not at all to do with, I mean, you want them to come out of school at the other end and be collaborative adults and actually be able to go into teams and jobs where they've got to work as a team. And everyone's got a one-upmanship issue where they won't share their answers with the next door neighbor. It's a very strange environment that we seem to be.
cultivating very individual, sort of this kind of everyone out for themselves attitudes. But I just don't see really how it's supposed to allow them to kind of come out of it feeling confident in their own ability to work together. And I mean, I certainly didn't, I find it very, very difficult coming out of school, even though I got great grades and all the rest of it. I found it very hard to then go out into the working world and have confidence and yeah, just do all of the things that needed to be done really.
as though we can get on for a massive tangent now, but it's fascinating.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:12:49.683)
Yeah, but to give, I'll quote something Robert Halfman said to me in a, when I was giving evidence to his inquiry, he commented and he had commented in the press that we need to regulate home education because we've got, we've got nine million children in this country who are illiterate. And as I said to him, yes, and of those nine million, 999,000 went to school.
Ashley Vanerio (01:12:49.904)
soon.
Kelly Rigg (01:13:19.523)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:13:21.843)
Anyway, we digress, coming back very basically, you absolutely have a right, you absolutely have a right to home educate, unless you do such a bad job of it that you're failing your child, because your child has a right to a suitable education, and how you home educate is up to you, it's not up to somebody else to tell you how, it's up to you to make sure that's right for your child, and it's a big ask, but it means that
Kelly Rigg (01:13:22.23)
I'm gonna say...
Kelly Rigg (01:13:37.486)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:13:51.155)
education can fit your child and my children have all been autonomous and some of them have liked very strict book work and timetables but that's their choice which makes it your autonomous. Others have liked a very free-form type of education which is more like unschooling and that is your choice and so you do have that right but you also have the right to be treated with respect.
and to be trusted. But we need to remember that so do those other adults we're dealing with. So the whole message of let's develop this mutual respect, mutual trust can only be developed with mutual respect. going back to Graham Stewart's report, he was very clear that a register of home educated children was not required, it was mandatory.
Kelly Rigg (01:14:20.974)
Bye.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:14:49.371)
and that an informal register, if local authorities didn't have a postcode lottery and they all were respectful of parents, parents could trust them, parents could feel safe, then parents more of the majority of parents would be known to their local authority because it wouldn't be something that scared them. So he was very much in favor of this informal register, which relied on mutual respect and trust.
If you, the more that parents behave aggressively and confrontationally to the local authority, the more they are providing evidence to the government that more control needs to be brought in. So we create a self-fulfilling prophecy of these people are feral individuals who are hell-bent on going against the law, which is the impression that can be taken. The more we are confrontational, we can be
Kelly Rigg (01:15:41.646)
Yes.
Ashley Vanerio (01:15:41.808)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Rigg (01:15:44.792)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:15:48.827)
resistant and support our rights in a polite and respectful way, but when you become aggressive and confrontational, you actually feed what you are fearful of. You actually feed the basis for bringing in mandatory control because you make yourself look like it's needed and that's what we've got to be aware of. It's a tightrope and we have to walk it carefully.
Kelly Rigg (01:15:56.814)
Absolutely.
Kelly Rigg (01:16:12.897)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (01:16:13.85)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:16:18.643)
to say we have digressed and you said about 45 minutes and.
Ashley Vanerio (01:16:19.322)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (01:16:24.162)
No, it's fine. Don't worry. We'll have a double bill episode. It'll be fine. Don't worry. I didn't want to waste the opportunity. You look like you wanted to say something then Ashley. I'll let you say what you wanted to say.
Ashley Vanerio (01:16:28.496)
Alright.
Ashley Vanerio (01:16:34.736)
He's gonna say Kelly and I do this all the time. We're like this episode will be 20 minutes and then you know hours later We're editing it down, you
Kelly Rigg (01:16:39.026)
yeah, I know.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:16:39.591)
Thank
Kelly Rigg (01:16:42.336)
I know, no, it's good. want to make sure we obviously exhaust the subject properly. But yeah, I completely agree. I think it's super important that we're being really conscious of constructing our home-ed journey in a respectful way that understands the law, understands our rights, and ultimately understands the rights of the local authority as well and our children, because they do deserve for us to be aware of this stuff and supporting them and making sure that they have every opportunity to thrive and that
Ashley Vanerio (01:16:47.642)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (01:17:11.564)
that is our ultimate responsibility. And I think that actually, as you say, that curve of home educators, most of the people on that curve really do believe that that is their responsibility and we'll be working hard at that. And I think the more we can prove that to the local authority, to the wider community, to society at large, the more respect will grow of it and the less skepticism and fear of a community, as you say, that kind of parallel society side of things that people won't see us as being such separate beings. And they'll understand that actually what we're trying to do is fight for the rights of children.
in school, out of school, and everywhere in between, that we care an awful lot about that. We want to make sure that children are feeling supported, loved and encouraged in all areas. And yeah, I think it's really important for people to notice that obviously education otherwise and not just sitting there going, I'm helping kids who are home educating. No, you are clearly very, very immersed in supporting the Department of Education, the local authority and supporting all children. And that's what's really important when we
Ashley Vanerio (01:17:44.1)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:18:02.097)
No.
Kelly Rigg (01:18:10.914)
want to get our advice. We get our advice from people who are thoroughly immersed in actually trying to do something good about it and actively taking a proactive role in that. Try not to trust too much on these big Facebook groups where you chuck your worries in and everyone gives you their thoughts. Do remember that only so many of them have actually got any experience whatsoever in actually supporting you with this. So do not follow advice blindly. Make sure you're getting it from a good source and yeah, just make sure that you are.
taking the time to think about this and really noticing your rights because it's important, but having that duty to other people. Thank you so much, Wendy. It's been a fantastic conversation. I mean, obviously hope to have you again one day.
Ashley Vanerio (01:18:46.682)
Thank you.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:18:47.219)
That's
Yo.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:18:53.623)
I'm now going to go and have my breakfast but I'll leave you on a note of an idea for a campaign that parents can do and that's use the term instead of compulsory school age, compulsory education age, we're currently lobbying the DfE to try to change that in legislation so instead of saying compulsory school age let's say compulsory education age and show respect and that changes the
Kelly Rigg (01:18:56.694)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:19:21.295)
And it's been lovely talking to you and as I say, I'm now going to retrieve my little puppy and eat my breakfast before I have my lunch.
Ashley Vanerio (01:19:23.856)
Yes.
Kelly Rigg (01:19:23.864)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (01:19:28.174)
Enjoy. Well, thank you so much, everyone, for listening. And obviously, we will see you again on the next one. As usual, give us a follow. Come and tell us what you thought of this episode, how it's made you feel, any thoughts, et cetera. And yeah, continue to tune in. Thanks, guys. Take care. Bye-bye.
Ashley Vanerio (01:19:30.128)
you
Yes.
Ashley Vanerio (01:19:47.568)
Thank you.
