Isle of Wight MP Bob Seely and Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Donna Jones have raised concerns with Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan, about the rise in electively home-educated (EHE) students on the Island. Bob and Donna have sought clarification of the measures in place to ensure that all students are receiving a suitable education. Latest figures show there are approximately 520 EHE students on the Island. The number of children being home-schooled on the Island is over 3x the England average (2.92 and 0.91% respectively). In a joint letter to Gillian Keegan, Bob Seely and Donna Jones have said:
“Whilst we respect the choice of some parents to home educate, we question the very sharp rise in EHE students and school absence following the Covid-19 pandemic. “… local authorities are obliged to make enquiries to ensure that children are receiving a suitable education, there is no obligation for parents to register or inform their local authority about home education.” “As you will know, there are no legal requirements for EHE students to acquire qualifications, learn the National Curriculum, or have their progress formally assessed. As such, monitoring the progress of the significant number of new EHE children relies heavily on local authorities’ diligence.”
The Island’s MP and PCC went on to raise concerns about the life chances of some EHE students who may not be receiving a suitable education, stating:
“Not receiving a good education is a permanent blight on the lives of young people and the social cohesion of our communities. “Persistently absent pupils who lack the support they need are thought to be three times more likely to commit an offence by age 17 than those who are fully attending school.”
Mr Seely adds:
“We need to understand why some Islanders are opting to take their children out of mainstream education and seek assurances that they are not being forgotten by the local education authority. I’ll be writing to councillors about my concerns.”
Donna has added:
“I am concerned that some home-educated children could be at a greater risk of being exploited, involved in anti-social behaviour, or committing crime. “We need to understand why parents are taking their children out of school and whether, having made that choice, they are being adequately supported.”
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Pop up Bob strikes again with his “man of the people” rhetoric. Please don’t do any more photo ops Bob, you’ve lost your seat. So if a child is educated at home, you’re both saying they will probably end up a criminal, did most of the tory party home educate then? They are the biggest criminals around right now, bye bye Bob.
Judging by the amount of uneducated feral kids that roam the island at will and cause problems at all times of the day, I think he has a point that needs to be looked into…
Weird, I thought home ed kids were isolated? Which one is it?
I think you will find that the children you refer to are playing truant from school. There are many children who can not cope with the lack of discipline within the classroom. There are other children that find they learn a lot better on their own, particularly if they are monitored and encouraged. These are a few of the reasons that parents opt for home education. The majority of parents who choose home education take this decision very seriously and their children often obtain much higher grades, in their qualifications, than those in mainstream schooling. Bob is not qualified to comment on these issues!
Let’s face it Seldom Seen Seeley is not qualified on anything to do with Island life, he hadn’t thrown himself into the job he was meant to be doing for his constituents, unless it’s to do with quality and size of a sausage! Forget him,and that’s very easily done!.
Bob looking like he sobbed himself to sleep again last night. His ordeal will soon be over and then he can get back to the allotment.
Perhaps if schools actually provided the correct definition of an education, rather than an ideologically driven, propaganda based indoctrination program designed to focus on rainbow or race politics and other woke drivel, then perhaps more parents would choose to send their kids to the state schools.
schools are not being seen as bastions of education and learning, they are being seen as child internment camps for the downloading of state propaganda and petty personal gender/race bias of the lefty teachers into the kids head.
Better than downloading your kind of education from Fox news and the MAGA crowd. You have made your self a perfect joke of a gammon spitting right-wing racist. Well done, give yourself a clap.
Fred, unless you have a coherent response, which isn’t based in insulting the person posting the message, who is expressing their view, as is there right to do, whether you agree or not with it, then please don’t say anything. Insults completely invalidate any argument you may have put forward
The irony of your comment escapes you Fred as does logic and reason. Calling somebody a “gammon” is in fact a direct racist term relating to a persons skin colour, pink like gammon. It also has other nasty connotations so it is you who have made yourself “a perfect joke” by spewing your racist tendencies for all to witness. For that I will give you a clap. Realisation is the first steps to redemption.
Give me that gun, Fred. So you don’t shoot yourself in the foot again…
Have to agree with you. And Labour want to charge VAT on private school fees.
When Labour get in power there will be countrywide ULEZ charges and
Countrywide 20mph
Well said, I home educated my daughter an now both my other children I do not agree what’s happening in schools what they are pursuing as “normal” just isn’t atall!! And for there info my eldest daughter passed her GCSEs at college an is on her level 3 of health and social care course so no not all children turn to crime… Maybe look at the parenting
Word’s fail me… You ‘educate’ your daughter? Your grammar is shocking!! She’s doomed!
Well said..x
I totally agree, I’m having problems with my son through what’s been forced upon him with all this rainbow pride rubbish, I couldn’t believe what they had been filling his head with as I was totally unaware, they weren’t telling us the parents, I’ve since pulled him out of school & now trying to get him back to normality, I’m absolutely fuming over this,,
There must be an election soon. I’ve not seen him surface so many times for years.
We need to understand why some Islanders are opting to take their children out of mainstream education
because some activist teachers in the uk seem to think that encouraging children to consider mutilating theirselves at the hands of a surgeon and taking a cocktail of drugs to try to become something that they can never become, because you cannot change your natural biological state, is somehow the right course of action.
it was only 70 years ago that doctors actively promoted smoking as they believed it was beneficial – cigarette companies had doctors pictures on the packaging – they were wrong and promoting life changing cosmetic surgery to kids now, will also be seen as wrong in the not too distant future.
“it was only 70 years ago that doctors actively promoted smoking” that is a false equivalence. What promoted doctors to promote smoking has no bearing what so ever with what is going on with gender identity. A completely different set of doctors wrong about a completely different scenario.
This idea that teachers are encouraging children to change gender is a lie peddled by right wing media. It is the opposite, no child in the UK is allowed to undergo any surgery of any kind until they are at least 18. And even then it will be years of counselling before they can take that route.
The ONLY thing the schools teach is tolerance for people that are different to you. A lesson you have clearly missed out on.
fred, you are completely missing the point of the persons viewpoint
the fact is that the healthcare system and society got it wrong about cigarettes, all those years ago and it proves that the state is not always right. They are not right about this either.
your responses to many messages on this website, are not tolerant of others views or those that differ to you, so please, stop being hypocritical.
Couple of things to consider here, firstly we are limited to alternative schools here, the Priory or Ryde being the only private schools, not everyone can afford these, so choose to home school. Also since the plandemic people have started to notice the overreach of schools and teachers, probably due to Common Purpose and their “lead beyond authority” training, making schools push these WEF agendas. “Traditional” families who dont want all this woke gender sh1t, but want a Christian based education have nowhere to go.
Oh look a picture of the two most pointless people around! Silly face Seelys making loads of appearances lately, I wonder why??
He knows he will be getting his P45 by the end of the year
so now he is showing is face before he leaves.
Some home educated children probably are being isolated, but that’s because they don’t have a suitable school placement that they would prefer. There is a HUGE amount of home educating parents that actually are not ‘electing’ to home educate, but there simply isn’t a school place suitable for their child.
Then there’s us lot who love our lifestyle, our children thrive, some go to university or other further education.
Come talk to us Bob, we are here, we aren’t hiding.
Well if council do away with subsidised or free school transport for many( as they plan)and trying to force them to attend poor schools, then more will be home schooled. With cost of uniform at secondary school,school trips and transport it is becoming difficult for many working families on the Island,was it 7500 food parcels given out last year? – yet expect parents to pay £300 each child school uniform and new transport plan could be paying £1400 .Home schooling in majority case’s doesn’t mean feral criminal kid’s. Many of those type are on mainstream roles but either excluded or refusers.
Freddie
I would love to have owned a horse, but couldn’t afford it, so never had one.
IF, like with Children, by having one I would end up having it not only ‘paid for’ but I too would gain a free house, free council tax, free prescriptions free dental care extra help with my heating and food costs, and have all the horses needs ie, training, treatment, transportation catered for as well as being given thousands a year ‘purely’ because ‘I’ wanted one, then you too can bet I would have a horse.
Whilst HMG’s idea to fund children would ensure they could tend the old, has failed as many just ‘do the same’ breed from puberty themselves and add to our burdens too.
Same with imm’s, they do likewise.
I just hope you got a horse and didn’t have children that you could brainwash with your drivel.
Well the Island has voted, Bob please ensure every parent has to pay for school transport and increase cost of uniform and force parents to pay for expensive school trips and go without food. – NOT . But not sure which part of my comment was voted down so much
Once again, Bob is looking at it in the wrong way, the problem is not home education but the current broken education system in schools. Too many pupils have been let down in school and have not received the adequate support. Parents know what their kids need best and that is not algebra but life skills, cooking, driving, finance, how to write a CV etc. Lets just get bob and this awful government out!
The modern world is latterly built using algebra. Anything that is running software will make used of algebra in it’s software development. This very website will be using it to assign values and manipulate them. There is a massive shortage in software engineers in the world and the UK. The best thing you can do for your child these days IS to teach them algebra and coding.
Shocked you’re being downvoted, people vote with their hydrogenated fat congested lazy hearts, rather than their brains.
Teaching algebra to island children is like teaching a pig how to dance.
You could do with a grammar lesson. The irony…
Spot on Cameron .. my family has experience of these special needs schools, they failed my family .. could not provide many parts of the EHCP provisions, but still took the money, and left the pupil with inadequate support. The classroom behaviours from some students was horrific, and the school looked past this .. SEN were equally useless .. so home schooling was the only option, wasn’t easy but we did it .. the LEA were equally useless. So Bob & PCC go and stick your beaks into another electioneering opportunity..
Another photo opportunity for the two most pointless and useless people in southern England.
What does that Donna woman have to do with education? She isn’t interested in anyone, only herself.
The Country doesn’t need a paper-pushing ‘look at me, I’m shaking the hand of a woke’; it needs proper coppers run by Chief Inspectors who have walked the streets and experienced the job first-hand.
Too many Counties’ police forces are run by these interfering political nobodies. We don’t need them; we have an adequate chief inspector.
Has anyone used the new part-time ‘pop-up’ cop shop in Cowes yet?
Wants to be the next Bob that’s why !!
Nowdays there are many women in mens positions
Lol
It might have a lot to do with all the bullying going on in schools nowadays with the schools doing nothing at all to stop it,but they will state they have zero tolerance policy in place. Absolute BS
I blame the ferries, its a shame that kids only have the option of being educated by islanders, eugh
Recipe for disaster, you have obviously seen Caulkheads
Tories cuts costs then wonders why education is bad. Seems Bob is the one that needs to go back to school.
Some of these home educated children are kept at home because their behaviour is intolerable in schools. Some of these behavioural problems are down to bad parenting but others have learning difficulties and mental health issues. Clearly, these children aren’t suited to a normal school environment but there is no real alternative. The high incidence of home schooling on the island is down to our totally failed educational system and genetics. The island has the lowest academic achievement levels in the whole of the UK because you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.
For us, and other families I know, homeschooling wasn’t an ‘option’. Rather a last resort after being unable to obtain the help needed from the local authority despite many requests and meetings over several years. I suggest an open public meeting for interested parties to discuss their stories.
Is this a joke?
Is it any wonder people are choosing to HE their children?
The education system is absolutely broken and massively underfunded.
That’s before we look at lack of suitable placements for some children.
I know plenty of HE children and they are thriving, this is likely why Bob and Co want them back in schools.
Donnas needed why exactly?!
And Chocky teapot strikes again for his useless involment nearing voting season.yawn
“Persistently absent pupils who lack the support they need are thought to be three times more likely to commit an offence by age 17 than those who are fully attending school.”
They are very stupidly trying to insinuate that home schooled children are likely to end up committing crime. “Persistently absent pupils” are not home educated pupils, but instead they are not being educated at all because they are running wild.
Studies from across the world consistently show outcomes from home education to be much better than the average for the population.
Elective home education is not the same as absence from state education. These two are conflating two completely different issues. There is no evidence that children who home educate are more likely to commit crime or be involved in anti social behaviour. That’s an outright lie. As for numbers, this lot keep saying they want a register yet they tell us 3x as many children here are in elective education. Which they don’t actually know. They are using the figures parents here have volunteered. Parents on the mainland may not be so obliging. Finally it is curious how they have decided to use this issue as a political football. It will backfire on them, especially here on the island.
There are approximately 100,000 children not in mainstream education nationally. Estimates are that of those, approximately 86,000 are electively home educated (as of 2023). This has been rising year on year for the last 15 years, or roughly the length of the current government. Why? Because the school environment has become rather hostile to children due to teaching to the test as opposed to the child. They’ve standardised teaching but haven’t yet worked out how to standardise children. This creates winners and losers, successes and failures. Children (even ‘uneducated’) aren’t stupid. If they feel like a failure they withdraw from the game. As do teachers. Remove OFSTED and all will improve.
Not really. People who home educate typically have a high level of education themselves. Their children are likely to have the capacity to do well educationally and one-to-one tuition helps them to achieve their potential. If the same child was in a state school with children of mixed abilities, they would not do so well because the teacher’s time would be spent focused on those with less ability. Those lesser abilities are actually very low indeed (one in three island children leave primary school with the reading ability of a goldfish), which is why reaching Ofsted standards is a forlorn hope.
You know there ‘gonna be an impeding election when it starts popping up all over the place. It even had the nerve to send me it’s junk mail.
Home schooling is the new norm, bit like working from home
Civil servants only work a 2 day week on 5 days pay
Morbidly and Embarrassingly Obese People that can’t be bothered to eat a good diet nor exercise due to laziness, and as such do not/cannot lead by example, should keep their nose out of education!!
I thought Tories were all about choice and not interfering in people’s lives? If people chose to home educate their children, which is perfectly lawful, why is Seely interfering? If he is saying that as a matter of policy home education is badthen why at some point in the last 14 years didn’t his party make it complsory for kids to attend school? You can’t have it both ways – unless of course this is a publicity stunt – is it an election year by any chance?
What’s Donna gonna do? Lock them all up?
Worse than that Sit there and Listen to one of the PCC speeches !!
Schools are more concerned about making sure there students are wearing the correct socks these days then there education
If you had paid some attention at school, you would be writing “their” instead of “there” and “than” instead of “then”.
Bob is being VERY visible at the moment. One might suspect there is an election in the offing. Hope he maintains that visibility during the hustings.
but to the point. The ENTIRE article is underpinned by the notion that home schooling is INFERIOR to the current state of education offered by the state or the ‘for profit’ system preferred by them. A system focused on an ‘educate to test’ base that focuses on the wrong things and is pulling from the curriculum important skills like critical thinking and creativity.
The home schoolers I know are extremely dedicated and diligent towards their child’s education.
Also higher EHE numbers are to be expected with a tight correlation in higher autism numbers on the island.