At the moment, the LA seem to know nothing about us.  I know this because most of my friends, both HEing & schooling, got letters from the LA when it was the Autumn before their children would start reception year at school asking them which school their children would be registered at.  We never got one for Flopsy.  She will be of compulsory education age on 31st August, so just a couple of weeks away, and we’ve heard nothing at all.  These letters used not to be send out because the health authority used not to share information with the education authority - clearly not the case now.  Even children who’ve never attended a nursery or pre-school have had letters.  We think we’ve slipped through the net thanks to changing doctors and moving house (didn’t do it on purpose!), and, of course, our children have never been registered with anything other than doctors and HVs because they’ve never been to nursery or pre-school.

The reasons we haven’t bothered to do the LA’s work for them so far are:

a) We don’t have to - it’s not law that we have to tell them we’re HEing

b) Although they have no right in law to visit our home or meet with our children unless there is a child protection concern, we don’t want the hassle of trying to tell them to bog off and finding other ways of telling them that we are genuinely educating our children (our children don’t, and won’t be asked to (by us) produce ‘work’ that I understand is sometimes asked for as evidence of learning)

c) We don’t want visits because we don’t want them spoiling the ongoing lives of our children where they are learning quite happily without being tested (which a visit would amount to)

The reason it might be worth telling them we’re here is:  Do we really want them to find out about us at some time in the future and then be very suspicious of us on the grounds that we didn’t tell them in the first place (even though we don’t have to)?  Would it be easier in the long run just to ‘fess up and be open about it?  Would we be helping other local HEors to educate the LA in the nature of autonomous learning?

It is true that we ‘have nothing to hide’ and it is also true that the ptb use that as their argument for knowing everything about us all the time ie. ‘those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear’.  But what about our privacy?

Children’s Centres all ask parents to register their children with them when they use groups based at them.  Some registration forms are simpler than others - the best ones simply ask for the parents’ names and addresses and phone numbers; the children’s GP and HV and the school they will be going to and any medical things the centre ought to know about.  However, they do say they will be sharing this information with the child’s school and that, if there are any child protection concers, with other authorities.  Fair enough, but even that would make me want to stay away from Children’s Centres (clearly, to my mind, a Government ploy to know as much as possible about as many as possible of us - ignoring the fact that the most vulnerable children are unlikely to have parents who will be taking them to activities anywhere, let alone run by busybodies in Children’s Centres!).  However, one of our local CCs has recently produced a gem of a registration form which asks you to tell them (and no where does it say that you are at liberty to not answer some of the questions) (items I cannot fathom the need for at all are in bold!):

• main carer’s name, address, telephone numbers, date of birth, relationship to child(ren), gender, ethnicity, the main language spoken, read and written, how fluent their English is (I can see that it may be helpful for parents if the CC knows if they can’t speak English, but not quite sure why they need so much detail!)
• Whether the carer has a disability or special needs with details
• If the carer is a lone parent, if s/he recieves any benefits, what those benefits are
• The carer’s employment status, and how many hours they work if they work PT
• The carer’s housing status (ie. home owner, renting, temp housing)
• If the carer smokes, or has ever smoked, how much they smoke and when they gave up if they have done so; if anyone else in the household smokes
• Health visitor name, GP surgery, if you’re pregnant and when the baby is due
• Nearly as much information about any other carer (it ‘allows’ you to leave this blank if you’d like, but if you do to provide an emergency telephone number)
• Child’s name, dob, gender, ethnicity, birth weight (????????), school or nursery, disability or special need

Then it says at the bottom that they will only share the information with Children’s Centre Partners but doesn’t tell you who those Partners are so you’re not even in a position to make an informed choice about filling in this form.

What on earth is going on in this country?  Why is our privacy being invaded here there and everywhere?  And, most importantly to us, do I really want to have anything to do with the LA, which is a government agency and will also be under pressure to be garnering all this information about us just because we have children and because our children are potentially at risk because the incompetent state aren’t educating them and of course, they know far better than us how to do it?  I could go into a massive rant about quite how incompetent the state is at educating children, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post. 

On a completely different note…is anyone out there reading this?  Not that it matters (and I know Emma is reading it ), but I’m aware I’ve not been blogging for so long I may have been ‘given up on’ but if anyone is reading, will you drop me a comment to let me know?  I kind of miss my regular commenters!