With Mr Badman regularly suggesting that one way to overcome barriers between Local Authorities and home educators is that HEors be offered support, and with HEors first reaction being "uh oh, that weaselly word, support. Yes, that would be support with strings attached, HEors dancing like puppets. For support, read monitoring and control", some of us have been wondering if there actually can be any way forward on this front.
What we are clear we don't want: anything that all of us HAVE to do. We don't want to have to log in the morning, or pitch up to some centre, do a curriculum, do SATS, do exams.
We don't want something that starts out innocuously, by offering something that then mutates into being forced to do something we never signed up for.
Most of us don't want something that will engulf us, take all our time, reduce our capacity to sort our lives out for ourselves. (See link above.)
So we are looking at a few of the examples that have been set up around the country that seemed to have worked, and haven't come under fire for wrecking the home educating community and effectively returning children to school, a la Bedfordshire scheme (again).
There are a number of possible models. There's the Dudley scheme, which offers English and Maths lessons of one and a quarter hours each, on a Wednesday morning, is entirely voluntary, paid for by the LA, and may or may not end up in taking a GCSE. That sounds good.
The Home Education Centre in Chard seems like another possibility. They are funded by the LA, but what they get up to seems to be entirely determined by the families themselves. They meet for two days a week and have the option of a wide range of activities. The only problem here: they have reached a maximum number. Home educators looking in from the outside could be feeling pretty desperate as deep friendships form and they can't join in.
And Dani has just pointed me to the Milton Keynes model: a once-a-week drop-in centre, providing advice to HEors, play equipment for younger children, and access to an exam centre for external candidates. There are also regular opportunities for HEors to meet with the LA to discuss various issues such as apprenticeship schemes and truancy patrols. Milton Keynes has for a long time had a reputation for respecting the rights of home educators to educate as they see fit and for their sensible approach in their guidelines.
Have also been casting around and looking at models abroad. We must do our best to avoid the problems posed by cyber-schools in the US, but an umbrella school, where you sign up, sometimes for free, and simply report on the number of hours of study you have undertaken? Now that sounds interesting.
Would be interested to hear what you think?