Kelly Rigg (00:01.487)
Hello everybody. This is a special episode really of the Big Home Ed conversations. I asked Wendy over Christmas from Education Otherwise to come back and chat to us for one or maybe more special episodes about the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill that's obviously top subject in all of our heads right now. And one of the things we're literally just talking about before we got on is how anxious it can make us all feel when we're...
facing a fight again when we know that we've not long fought one. And it kind of feels a little bit like we are always fighting for what feels like really should be quite a simple right as a human being to be with your children and to raise your children. It feels like we are definitely fighting again for something which feels like it should really just be an intrinsic part of our life that we should be allowed to choose how we spend our time, so to speak.
And I think so many of us are feeling quite anxious right now that we're about to have certain privileges or rights or experiences stripped away. actually, ultimately, we're saying that it's not anywhere close to being in law yet. It's they've got a heck of a lot of work still to do before we reach that stage as well, really. And we're already fighting and pushing back and doing the right things. So I think first and foremost, kind of should should we be worried, Wendy? Is this something that we should be?
sitting here quaking in our boots about thinking that everything is going to tumble down around us. I certainly don't think we're quite there yet, are we?
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:36.098)
No, we're certainly not there yet. think the most important message that parents need to understand is please do not panic. There are people and groups online trying to whip up that panic. Please... I'm in a meeting. Apologies. I think the most important message to get across to parents is please don't panic.
We have seen groups and individuals online whipping up panic, but panic is not going to help and it's also not warranted at this stage. Firstly, we have a long way to go before this is law. We have got MPs in Parliament who are actually on the side. 111 votes for amendments were made only the other day during the second debate and every single one
Every single parent can help and work to make this change for themselves. If you think about it, people often think, well, I don't matter, I'm just an individual. But if every single house brick was treated as just an individual, you'd never build a house. Every single one of those bricks actually is crucial to the building of that house. And it's exactly the same thing. Every parent
who writes to their MP is contributing. If their children do as well, think about it. There are roughly 120,000 home-educated children. That's roughly 80,000 parents. That's 200,000 of communications. If every one of those writes to their MP and asks a friend to do so, that's 480,000. You're constantly adding the figures.
the more pressure we put and it's not just children who are home educated, school friends could have the same effect.
Kelly Rigg (03:43.023)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (03:49.474)
There are aspects of this bill that can affect school children too. It will affect the ability, for example, of academies to provide a broad and balanced education. Many of us do not feel that the national curriculum is up to what it should be, and yet they would be forced to follow it. So ask your friends whose children are in school to also contact their MP. There are things also going on.
Please, please do. Education Otherwise Facebook group, we've posted our discussions about this, which go into length about all of the actions we're taking and what you can do. So please go there, please join the Facebook group and just watch through the video sessions for as much advice as we can give you. But in the meantime, we are and have obtained advice from
senior counsel David Wolf Casey. David is drafting arguments. He is confident that there are aspects of this bill that could be legally challenged. Many of the things that we are worried about actually aren't legal challenges, they're more moral challenges, but they are actually legal challenges and as soon as we've got those arguments drafted we will be sharing them on the group. you can use that
inform what you say to your MP. So right now it's not about panicking, it's about empowering yourself, it's about saying I have a voice and I am going to use it and if your MP writes back to you and says as I saw one this week, no this is really important because Sarah Sharif would have been, life would have been saved, tell them why they're wrong.
Kelly Rigg (05:28.708)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Rigg (05:40.559)
Yeah, awesome to consider another perspective. Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (05:44.91)
Yes, yes. Explain to them why they're wrong. In that particular case, example, Sara Sharif had been known to Children's Services since before she was born. A family court judge put her into the care of her abusive father, despite having been the same judge who found him guilty of abuse. And Children's Social Services had 16 referrals that they didn't act on.
Kelly Rigg (06:07.555)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (06:13.782)
and to cap it all, the cherry on the cake, she died during the school holidays when every child wouldn't have had oversight by a school in any of it. So it's just nonsense to say that this bill would have protected her. And there are challenges you can make, so do come, join the discussion. will upload information as soon as we've got it.
Kelly Rigg (06:33.316)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (06:39.607)
Mm hmm. I think it's, it's really important for us to kind of really reassure ourselves that at the end of the day, where we maybe don't understand the full ins and outs of this bill, like if we like myself, if I was to sit and read it and be like, holy moly, like, I don't even know what I'm looking at half the time. And we can come at it from a state of feeling really kind of like it's out of our hands. And as you say, the whole, takes more than a brick to build a house, we all need to put our two pennies worth in.
It's OK if yours is a bit rough around the edges. It doesn't have to be in legal jargon. Your MP is going to be responding to you as a person and your experience matters, like whether it's your child's experience, whether it's your experience in school environment, whether you've been a teacher, whether you've left recently because of things that you've seen that you feel weren't safeguarding children or weren't actually providing a good environment for them, that there's so many different arguments to be making in trying to emphasise that. I think there was one.
quote in particular, I'm going to tell you now, can't remember who was who said it now, one of the MPs was basically stating on the lines of that children, insinuating was the word, that children would be better off in school and that they can be provided a better safeguarded experience inside of school walls and would have a better education. And that kind of sweeping, I don't know, it makes me wonder if they attended a standard school themselves, I imagine not, but it makes you wonder really.
like where they get these ideas from that they've got these ideas fixed in their heads that every child, no matter what situation they're in, no matter kind of the values that that family hold or abilities that child holds or passions and intentions for their own future they might have, that they are 100 % better safeguarded inside school walls. And I think so many of us can attest to the experience that we maybe had in school if we went and possibly that our children have been.
forced to endure, that actually that wasn't the case, that they were not safe, whether that's literally physically, like when we talk about bullying and kind of punishments, being asked to not use the toilet, being asked to not have drinks available to them, whatever it might be, like these in themselves potentially make children unsafe in my opinion, but also just the emotional, the strain, the mental health that our children are experiencing in schools. We don't need to necessarily get into that in great depth, but we know that
Kelly Rigg (09:03.981)
The truth is that children are not always better safeguarded in schools. And I get that what they're saying is they want to have this linked up. Everybody is talking to everybody. If someone's seeing something, they're saying it and it's all being documented and supported. Like, I get it. do. They want to bring it all together and make it so that we're all kind of talking to each other. And I do agree that that should be in this current digital age, so simple. Like it should be so simple that when a child is
getting a red flag in hospital because they've been in three times in the past week with significant injuries that sure, that does need to be connected to this department who also needs to connect it to this department. Of course it does. But we can't be saying that just because a child is home educated that they're invisible or suddenly not being safeguarded at all. Like my children are registered with a GP. We are registered with our local council. We have been to the hospital for injuries and
told them that they are home educated. Like we're not hiding them. We're like putting them under a rock somewhere. Like when things happen, people know about it. And at the end of the day, we have this sort of weird assumption, don't we? That some people, MP-wise, do seem to be having these strange assumptions that children will just be better off that way. And that is definitely something that I commented on in my letter to my MP recently and will probably write to them again as more things develop.
ultimately kind of just saying you need to really think about the perspectives here, really think about these sort of moments when they say these things and you feel like they're just a fact, but that isn't a fact, like that you've got to think about the other perspectives because it is important. But yeah, go on, we'd love some facts, always love a fact.
Wendy Charles-Warner (10:41.294)
Would you like some facts? Shall I give everybody some facts? Children get a better education in school. Did you know that 10 % of schools are either in special measures or found to be inadequate by Ofsted? 10 % of the schools inspected by Ofsted are found to be inadequate or in special measures. Compare that to the other schools. Thousands of them.
Kelly Rigg (11:01.775)
That's crazy. It makes you wonder how many children that is, just the quantity of children that must be.
Wendy Charles-Warner (11:09.71)
10 % of Ofsted inspected schools. So what percentage of home-educated children are found to be failing to provide a suitable education? Well, actually in the last year for which figures are available, and these are all government statistics, 1.4 % were found to not be providing a suitable education and subject to a school attendance order and found guilty. 1.4 %
Home educated, 10 % in school. That's a piece of data. Let's look at safeguarding. Home educated children are twice as likely to be referred to Children's Social Services as school based children are. And if you look at the conversion rate from referral to child protection plan, it's 26 % in school children, 11 % in home educated. If you actually look at the...
Kelly Rigg (11:42.735)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Rigg (12:06.263)
shocking.
Wendy Charles-Warner (12:07.896)
percentage of children subject to a child protection plan, home educated and school is 0.1 % difference. So what that says is that it's 4.56 % or something overall of those referred. I have the data, but anyway, basically those children in school, the data shows us that the percentage subject to a child protection plan
is virtually identical to the percentage of home-educated despite twice as many home-educated children being assessed. So we know that school does not protect children and here's a really shocking government statistic. This is actually a little bit old now but it was a piece of research commissioned by the government. It was a company analyzed
references and referrals for abuse and poor behavior by teachers and teaching staff and the purpose of the research was trying to ascertain whether the teaching staff was subjected to unwarranted investigation and what that found was that the percentage compared to our statistics the percentage of teaching staff in schools found guilty of abusing children
is slightly higher than the percentage of home-educated children subject to a child protection plan. That's quite shocking.
Kelly Rigg (13:46.863)
And I think, yeah, and I think what is shocking as well, like you think, I guess I to ask the questions like, why are so many children being referred to social services if they are home educated? That to me, I know that there are malicious referrals made by schools simply as they are deregistering, that schools are just referring them to social services because they just disagree with the decision and that they just don't want the child to be deregistered. But I think the truth is that I know I have a friend who had a malicious referral made by a family member who...
just disagreed with the idea of her home educating her children. Which is awful to imagine a family member doing something like that. like, we're talking families here who are perfectly normal, perfectly capable, wonderful to their children, who are getting on the radar of social services. And under this new bill, I understand that would actually mean that they would, as soon as that has been the case, that that could potentially start to cause trouble for them. And they might not then be able to home educate simply because of this.
sort of malicious referral, et cetera. So it's completely unacceptable. Like as you said, I think in one of the messages we've had back and forth is like, absolutely, or maybe it's on a, it's like I read, but they're saying about absolutely, if a child is on a child protective plan, then I don't think I disagree with the idea that that child, they should be taking a good hard look as to whether or not that child should be allowed to be then home educated and not have access to a school education, which.
let's be honest, could in that situation mean that child would not be receiving an education at all? And so, yes, I agree there should be very much questions asked in that situation. But a child who simply had an investigation at some point that could have been a nonsense referral that got completely dismissed and thrown out, that is not someone who should have to jump through any extra hoops to do something that they feel is actually safeguarding their child. They might be doing what they probably will be doing.
Wendy Charles-Warner (15:30.638)
Let me get.
Kelly Rigg (15:38.517)
absolutely the right thing for their child in doing that, so it makes no sense does it?
Wendy Charles-Warner (15:42.786)
Exactly. Of those children referred to social services who are subject to a section of Children Act Section 47 investigation, 78 % do not end up on a child protection plan. So 78 % of those children who would be subject to what is essentially a formal notice to satisfy...
which is the precursor to a school attendance order, 78 % would be subject to it for no good reason. And let me give you an example. I've just sent some what we call walkthroughs. So I've taken actual cases I'm dealing with, anonymized them, and walked through the bill to see what would happen to that family. And I've sent them to the senior DfE officers that we're actually meeting with over this. And this particular case...
I'll give you an outline, I'll keep it so that it retains its confidentiality. Domestic abuse situation. The father has had very, very little relationship with the child. The father actually only first met the child when he was about five. He's seen him only two or three times in his life. The child has severe autism and other needs.
A psychologist, an expert has found that that child could not cope with school and needs to be home educated. So, in the past two years, of which this parent is aware, 17 separate referrals have been made to children's social services, making serious allegations about the mother, isolating the child, abusing the child and having mental health.
These are common. I'm actually a family lawyer and a lot of my cases are domestic abuse cases and I can almost tell you what the average abusive parent will say and it always includes isolating, neglecting and the mother has mental health difficulties or the father has mental health difficulties. And of those 17 referrals, 14
Wendy Charles-Warner (18:06.018)
resulted in Section 47 investigations, every single one of which was closed with no action, no child protection plan. The final three, the mother had moved and the court and the social worker actually understood what was going on and treated them as malicious. So 14 times in the space of a couple of years, that mother would have been subjected to a notice to satisfy.
to prove to the satisfaction of the local authority that her home education was suitable. But it's even more sinister than that because if a parent is in court proceedings, as this parent was, and social services are actually investigating serious allegations, courts are being conserved in places, so what could have happened had there not been a psychologist report?
If that mother had been in an average case where no psychologist reported being obtained, the court would have acted conservatively and said, well, we'd better make an input to the model putting this child in school. Bear in mind that this is a child with such complex needs that he was suicidal in school. So by extending this, I don't think any reasonable person
an object to somebody who's on a child protection plan for good reason being subject to having to provide evidence and to prove that education is suitable for the child. But if you extend that to those who are just under investigation, you open it up to every malicious and misguided individual and they're not always malicious. You think about it, I've seen many, many cases where
An elderly neighbour who doesn't even know that home education exists rings social services and says, I'm really concerned because my neighbour's children are outside playing in the street at all hours of the day and they don't even have their coats on. Now, when I was a child, schools insisted that children wore coats at playtime during certain terms of the year, regardless of the weather.
Wendy Charles-Warner (20:30.508)
we were told we had to wear coats and that lady would have grown up in that sort of culture and so to her, the child's not wearing a coat and the child's outside is a genuine concern, it's not malicious but that will result in a social services investigation. You then have the fact that...
Kelly Rigg (20:31.055)
Mm.
Kelly Rigg (20:41.293)
Yep. Mm-hmm.
Kelly Rigg (20:49.953)
It just seems crazy to me. Like, all seriousness, getting my kids to wear coats is like, honestly, it's like trying to put a coat on a slippery pig. Like, you're never going to manage it. You're going to race around for the rest of your life. They'll wear them if they're really cold, but they won't put them on unless they really want to. It's crazy, isn't it? And that to me is just mind boggling.
Wendy Charles-Warner (20:56.969)
Wendy Charles-Warner (21:05.998)
We have a five-year-old who's exactly the same, but you then take it one step further. Social workers used to, in their training, in their guidance, they're given lists of what are risk factors. And one risk factor used to be the child is not in education. Now about four or five years ago that was changed to the child is not in school.
So the social worker comes along and she says, I'm sorry, we've had this referral that your children are outside all day and they're not wearing coats. And the parent says, oh no, no, that's fine. You know, they're home educated. That's why they're out at different times. A light, big, light bulb moment for social worker, tick the box, not in school. That means it's a risk factor.
Kelly Rigg (21:57.071)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (21:59.064)
So the chance of that parent being subjected to a Section 47 investigation is extrapolated. It becomes worse. And it's not necessarily about malice. But where you have malice, and I dealt with a case only last week or the week before, it was very, very recent, where the parent had had an argument with somebody who has a professional role that involves safeguarding.
Kelly Rigg (22:06.616)
this site.
Wendy Charles-Warner (22:27.692)
The argument was basically about they were in a meeting together and the individual wanted to go to one particular place and the other individual wanted to go to another. And it was only a group of friends meeting up. know, was nothing important. the professional individual, not the one who was just the mum, was very angry because she...
really really didn't like being disagreed with and she made a referral to Children of Social Services making claims about the other mother. That mother had a social worker turn up on her door, she has got three or four children, can't remember how many, one of whom is so severely disabled that a social worker turning up at the door caused that child to become so dysregulated
that the social worker then had to help mum to comfort the child. Now, fortunately, she had evidence that it was malicious. But how many people do? And I see this most commonly in domestic abuse cases, and I deal with quite a few domestic abuse cases every year. And these are cases where the abusive parent doesn't care about the child.
Kelly Rigg (23:39.289)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (23:54.264)
that very often their only goal is to hurt the parent caring for the child. And locally to me, I have a case where it's actually the father is the parent with care of the children and the mother has very serious problems. And this father has spent nearly 11 years being consistently referred to Children's Social Services and taken to court. And...
Kelly Rigg (24:00.953)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (24:23.257)
Just unbelievable, isn't it? But I think what's really kind of, I guess, it's going to be worrying people, guess, is this, I mean, certainly a thought that crossed my mind is that under this bill, it would also give the government an opportunity to simply, or schools or GP surgeries or whoever, to be given policies where they hear a child is home educated and to just automatically refer for like investigation, like a child turns up at the hospital with a broken arm, they're also home educated. in that case, they've ticked two risk factors. Now we automatically get a referral.
Wendy Charles-Warner (24:50.319)
it has been abused.
Kelly Rigg (24:52.781)
And then obviously we're going to end up with a severe number of children who are completely fine, completely safe, going on to the investigative side of things, which means that so many more parents are then going to be so, so stressed about actually providing a good education for their children. I think what the government needs to recognise is the increase in people pulling their children from school is largely being caused by inconsistent, unsafe
Wendy Charles-Warner (25:01.666)
Yes.
Wendy Charles-Warner (25:20.046)
Thanks.
Kelly Rigg (25:22.861)
like miserable experience of their children in school and obviously the fears that they are suicidal or whatever really that might be going on for them and that parents are choosing to do something different for their children and care about them more than anybody else on the planet does in 99 % of cases and ultimately are desperately wanting to make sure that they are safeguarding their children way better than any stranger ever could.
And I think what is really quite frustrating about this is this idea that parents who are home educating instantly having that as a risk factor. it's just like, what's, like if we're really truthfully, like if we just take a step back and think about that for a minute, what exactly about it is so risky? Just the fact that they're not being in a school with a teacher looking after 30 children. Like there's, what is so risky about that? And I did say in my letter to my MP, I just want you to really understand how not hidden.
these children are, that you think that one adult to 30 children, if that is the pinnacle of safeguarding and paying attention to children, if that is what we're looking for, then ultimately I want you to think about how many people my children would interact with on a daily basis, just going about our day, living our life, that yes, okay, we don't necessarily go out every day, but.
We still have the postman knock on the front door every day and the children run to the door to get whatever post he's got. We've still got people we walk the dog with almost every day that know them, that talk to them. We have street parties, we know our neighbors. Like we see family, we talk on video calls to family. there is so many moments when our children are seen. And I think that children who are in school and are being abused at home, the truth of the matter is...
schools are missing that most of the time. if you're really talking about a child, say for example, I was abusing my children. like, how sure am I that in all the people who see them and meet them on a daily basis would know about it? Like it's just one of those things like you would know, you would see it, you would hear me, you'd interact with me, you'd see that. I don't know, I feel like it's...
Kelly Rigg (27:45.805)
I just don't see how it makes any difference. These children are going home, they're in school for what, 30 hours a week? And then they're home, so that's literally just over a day of the week. So that means most of their week they are still in the care of the people who are abusing them. And so ultimately it doesn't make any difference.
Wendy Charles-Warner (28:03.598)
And you look at it, we're not seeking registers and compulsory meetings of any sort. We're not seeking oversight of children under five. Children under five, yes there's a health visitor service but it's not mandatory. What about children during the school holidays? Do they suddenly...
not need safeguarding. So the six week main school holiday, if you're an independent school that would be longer than six weeks, can be up to seven and a half, eight. So those children are only safe when they're in school, so why aren't we mandating school holiday registers and compulsory checks? This is the thing, it flies in the face of logic and actually you're saying about how many people your children meet.
brings me to another aspect of this bill which I think we can talk about. Parents can talk about examples in their own lives. I have a friend who home educates. She home educated eight children. Two of them have now moved on to higher education. Both of them doing very well. So she's got six children who are home educated currently. And I said to her, right, okay.
you've got to tell the local authority about every single education provider and as the bill stands they don't define what that is so that's anyone providing education to your child and she said well mine are nearly all classes and tutors let me add them up 64 she had 64 different providers and I said well hang on a bit
How often do those change? Because you've got to notify changes within 15 days. And she said, you know, probably about 10 a week. Because online things, they switch and swap out. Each child might change, change one or two a week. So she said, probably about 10 a week. So she's got to report these within 15 days. So she's got an initial burden of 64 sets of data to provide.
Kelly Rigg (30:02.959)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (30:10.649)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (30:21.368)
followed by every single week she's got to provide another 10 changes. Add to that, she's self-employed. And so very often, her mum will come and spend time with the children while they're undertaking their education, supervising them. So she's got to provide the local authority with the hours that each parent is looking after the children. Now these children actually only have one.
but she's got to provide those hours. So every single week she's got to, or in fact every day or fortnightly, she's got to do a day by day, blow by blow account, every single change in those hours. So...
Kelly Rigg (31:07.097)
So this is exactly the problem that's been going on in schools for like the past decade or more. It was just the constant addition of paperwork. Like I know that my mum who worked in a nursery was just constantly frustrated by just the red tape, the constant forms, they're filling out all the planning, they're filling out all of what they've done every day, filling out all their individual books. it's just, she goes, it just took forever. And so you actually didn't get much time to physically play with the children or enjoy the children or actually help them to be nourished and growing.
having a great time. I think if, I know that schools are crippled by this and lots of teachers are leaving because of this as well, that ultimately why should a parent who is desperately trying to keep the economy going and their own life, like that's what you're doing, everything they've got to do in their own home. Like they've got to cook clean, take care of their kids, work and actually educate them. Like just speaking from personal experience, like we are fairly strained as it is in the current climate that we're in that
Do they really want thousands of parents who currently home educate or hundreds of parents, whatever, to basically sit there and go, actually, do know what? Fine, they're just going to have to go back into school because I can't keep up with this silly paperwork. That's not good for the child who has clearly been safeguarded by bringing them out of school and home educating them. And they're then going to be put in back into a situation where they're not OK and they're not happy. And now the schools have got even more children to try and satisfy the needs of.
Wendy Charles-Warner (32:16.876)
Yes, precisely.
Wendy Charles-Warner (32:32.782)
With the best will in the world, no matter how good a teacher is, how much individual attention can they give to each of 30 children in their class? How much? You go to senior school and you've got 30 minute or one hour lessons. How much attention can each child... So in one hour, even if no child is disruptive...
Kelly Rigg (32:33.816)
that ultimately that's, it makes no sense.
Wendy Charles-Warner (33:02.258)
even if the teacher was able to give exactly the same amount of attention to each child, that's two minutes. Two minutes in an hour. What is a parent doing? You're giving 60 minutes in an hour. But I don't want parents to feel that they've got to panic about this. I think what we're doing is talking about the sort of things that are happening.
Kelly Rigg (33:11.215)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (33:18.829)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (33:28.822)
and how you can take a walk through your own life and explain to your MP how this will affect you. And I think a really, really important message to MPs is about the primacy of the parent. The Education Act 1996, Section 7, says that it is the duty of every parent to ensure that their child receives a suitable education. Now you can do that by sending your child to school.
Kelly Rigg (33:33.391)
Mm.
Kelly Rigg (33:37.348)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (33:58.07)
or you can do it by home educating them. But it is always the duty of the parent. So now we have a bill that is saying that if you home educate or if you want to home educate and you want to withdraw your child from school, in certain circumstances, the local authority can decide whether or not that would be in your child's best interest. If you already home educate and you're referred to Children's Services,
and they decide to investigate, the local authority can decide whether the education is in your child's best interest. So basically, you can have a situation like my friend I just referred to, whose home education is so great that her local authority holds it up as an example of excellence, whose home education is excellent, but a social worker who decides, no, no, can't possibly be educating this many children well.
it's not in their best interest and children receiving an excellent education could then be put into a state school through school attendance because somebody who does not know them decides it's not in their best interest. Now if we look at that, the best interest of the child is always the duty of the parent to act in the best interests of the child.
Kelly Rigg (34:58.617)
Mm. Yep.
Kelly Rigg (35:14.468)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (35:25.71)
who decides the best interest of the child is always the parent unless there is a court order in place, so for example a care order for the child. Now, if parents disagree about what's in the best interest of the child, then the aggrieved parent has to make an application to the court, then and only then
Kelly Rigg (35:35.247)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (35:51.33)
does somebody other than the parent decide what's in the best interest of the child? But here we have a bill that's saying, no, we've decided that the state should take the parenting role. Now, MPs, very often MPs, now Labour parties are subject to Labour whip and they will vote in favour of the bill. Now, other MPs might be more open to understanding.
Kelly Rigg (35:56.783)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (36:00.612)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (36:04.569)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (36:18.302)
even Labour MPs might understand that it needs some adjustment, that actually the big message for most MPs who are not in the Labour Party, the big message is the primacy of the parent and undermining the parent and giving them state control over children's lives. the state does not make a good parent. Children in care do not have happy outcomes.
Kelly Rigg (36:43.821)
No.
Kelly Rigg (36:47.854)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (36:48.302)
including in your argument that you as the parent feel that your parental rights to act in the best interests of your children are being undermined and the state is not a good parent or a good decision maker, it's a good thing to raise. I think that take that walkthrough through your life and if I looked at my life, goodness, you know, I can think of one example, I'll give you a lovely one which is
Kelly Rigg (37:06.915)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (37:17.72)
totally mad. I was home educating my grandson a few years back now and he was terribly interested in forensic sciences for a short period. So he wanted to understand about blood spatter analysis and there were worse examples that are really really horrible. So I got him into it.
Kelly Rigg (37:40.091)
I've gotta love a home-educated kid. Some of the stuff they ask for,
Wendy Charles-Warner (37:44.686)
pig's head from the butcher because pigs are similar to human beings in their structure injected it with red fluid put it on a large white cloth next to a white wall gave him a hammer and told him to sit in different places and bash the pig's head blood spatter all over the place can you imagine a social worker turning up and there we are beating the hell out of the pig's head
Kelly Rigg (38:06.241)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (38:14.282)
and covered in blood, what she would see as blood, and measuring the blood spatter analysis. my goodness me, can you just imagine, you know, would they have thought that Telma was in his best interest?
Kelly Rigg (38:22.488)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (38:32.047)
But this is a thing, it's a whole other perspective. And this is where the idea of perspective really comes in, I think, and what I emphasise to my MPs, you've got to get into the heads of a different way of being. Like, I'm listening to that thinking how fascinating and how interesting that could be. like at such a young age to be showing an interest in forensic science and like the crimes that they could resolve in the future, the amazing good that comes from that. But also just like how fascinating it is, even just if they just enjoy.
Wendy Charles-Warner (38:36.236)
you
Kelly Rigg (39:01.515)
the process of understanding how all that works and learning about it. Like, okay, yeah, a bit creepy, bit strange, but they learn like that. They like to come up with strange things to learn about. It's fine, it is what it is. But we love watching CSI. It's not like any of us don't enjoy learning about this stuff, is it really? Like we all love it. But it's interesting how from my perspective is that our children should be learning about whatever random thing is curious to them. And that that obviously leads to an amazing outcome for them as individuals. So they might, they'll go somewhere interesting with it.
But if we've just got this idea that children...
Wendy Charles-Warner (39:34.702)
Education is sitting down and doing the work.
Kelly Rigg (39:38.529)
Yeah, like this is just what it is and this is an excellence and this is what they should be doing and if you're not doing that then you're a weirdo or you're whatever and I think we've just got such a strange perspective in this country and in any country really that are kind of stuck on set goals. We've just kind of been, for want of a better word, brainwashed by experiencing school ourselves, going through the motions of that ourselves that we have forgotten that we're actually allowed to choose to live our life how we choose to live it.
Wendy Charles-Warner (39:47.992)
Yes.
Kelly Rigg (40:08.309)
And I mean, even just the idea of having to sit and record all of that information to make sure I've remembered to update it. mean, you're talking to quite, I don't know, a fairly large amount of people in the homemade community being neurodivergent. I have ADHD. I am not going to remember to do these things on time. And I'm not going to be, I'm going to be so stressed all the time that have I remembered to update it? my goodness, I completely forgot to change this one three weeks ago. They're going to be mad at me. Like we've got to be.
As you say, that walking through our lives and thinking about how these things will affect me and truthfully, that like look at my life as a different perspective. I asked them to look at your life and think, what would it be like if I'm simply a family got a father who's doing full-time work in a government related job. He's a good man. He's, he does, does his job. Well, I'm an entrepreneur. pay my taxes. I pay my bills. I own my own home. I'm.
I'm just living my life and I've got two children who I want to educate myself and use and therefore safeguard by checking that they have DBS checks, that they're qualified to do what they're supposed to be doing. That like if I hire people then I do those checks. You've got the power, as you say, yes, okay, I prioritise all of my headspace into prioritising my two children. And I understand completely that the government are never going to be able to.
give each child individual attention in that way, never under any circumstances are they going to have the capacity to do that. And that, yes, they want to make sure that every child is safe, but it's almost like this argument that if they take over all this control, that they will somehow have that ability to keep an eye on every single child and stop every single possible bad thing happening in the world, it's just propaganda. There's absolutely no way.
that that will happen. But I ultimately take on the responsibility as a parent of checking that my children are safe in whatever things and endeavours they do, that no child is going to ever be able to receive that much attention in any kind of state-funded thing. So ultimately, it doesn't matter how they want to put it, most parents home educating their children are safeguarding them better than they would be safeguarded in a school and will absolutely flag and notice anything.
Kelly Rigg (42:32.451)
that's awry. I talk to my children constantly about consent, about recognising that if anybody ever tried to do anything to them, like for example touching them in the place where their swimsuits go, if someone tried to grab them at a park, if someone tried to offer them sweets, like all the different things. I talk to them constantly about stranger danger, about ensuring that they're safe, about telling a trusted adult, even if that isn't me in that situation, even if they don't feel like they can talk to me. I talk to them all the time about
trusting other grownups, but also being aware that they don't have the right to do XYZ. I I've got an example of my child. think he was four. I can't remember, he was only little. We had to go to the doctors because I thought he had might have had a urine infection or something. And she wanted to have a look at his genital area. I'm trying to think of the word I want to use on a podcast. She wanted to have a look to make sure that he wasn't red or sore.
Wendy Charles-Warner (43:11.758)
.
Wendy Charles-Warner (43:20.076)
Pops.
Kelly Rigg (43:30.575)
She said, let's have a look, shall we? And just pulled his pants down. And he instantly grabbed his pants and went, no, you have to ask. And I was so proud. I literally stood there going, thank you, yes. Do you reckon maybe we could try with some consent? Like, yes, he's only a child, but you of all people as a doctor need to be emphasizing to him the importance.
Wendy Charles-Warner (43:34.328)
No, no.
Wendy Charles-Warner (43:41.57)
Good boy.
Kelly Rigg (43:58.455)
of consent-based things happening to his body. And she was horrified. I've never seen a doctor go so red in my life and was very apologetic and obviously proceeded with his consent in the end. But I was just so proud of him at such a young age for actually standing up for that. I'm just like, I really want to emphasize how important it is when you're raising children to allow them to have the critical thinking, to question adults, to push back on adults.
to ensure their own safeguarding for themselves. And that's not something we're necessarily encouraging in schools. We don't want kids pushing back all the time.
Wendy Charles-Warner (44:31.63)
Take school, example. Consent in school. Whatever your view on vaccination, I don't think I should go into it, some parents do not agree with vaccination. So when vaccinations were offered in school, parents were allowed to opt out of their child. And what was happening in the schools were the schools were taking the children to the side and saying,
Kelly Rigg (44:53.775)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (44:59.222)
your parents say that your mother or your father says that you're not on the list to have this but you are allowed to have it if you want and this is why you ought to and take into account just even something different from that if your child is in school and a teacher tells them to do something they don't have a choice so if that teacher going back to the data we have for abuse by teachers if that teacher is abusive and
Kelly Rigg (45:10.351)
Mmm.
Kelly Rigg (45:28.463)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (45:29.614)
Children in my family have been abused by teachers in school, physically abused and emotionally. So if that teacher is abusive, they have absolute control over that child. That child does not have any right of consent because this person is in power over them, actually has the ability to affect their lives. So of course it's obvious that a decent parent is going to be a better
Kelly Rigg (45:39.695)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Rigg (45:47.203)
No.
Wendy Charles-Warner (45:58.616)
person at safeguarding, you just care more about your child. And we've got to, you touched on it a minute ago, if you look at, I've seen circulating since yesterday, I've seen online circulation of lists of Labour Party MPs who have abused people, committed sexual offences, that's not the point I think we should be making. I think the point is that every single cohort
Kelly Rigg (46:02.542)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (46:28.974)
has its bad apples. So you cannot say that you are going to, this bill will save thousands of children from abuse. It's not going to. It's not going to make any difference whatsoever in most cases because there are MPs who abuse their wives and children or husbands and children. There are government ministers who'll do so. There are judges who do so. In every walk of life, every cohort of parents includes some.
Kelly Rigg (46:38.223)
No.
Kelly Rigg (46:47.151)
Mmm.
Kelly Rigg (46:54.969)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (46:58.914)
who are abusive to their children. And that fact will not change with a bill. the other aspect of it is right now, local authorities, including Children's Social Services, have an awful lot of powers that they don't necessarily use well. Children's Social... I'm not talking necessarily about education officers. I've been presenting...
Kelly Rigg (46:59.597)
Yeah, of course.
Kelly Rigg (47:06.265)
No.
Kelly Rigg (47:20.462)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (47:26.126)
professional development sessions to education officers throughout the country for a couple of years now and I know that most of them really want to do a good job. Most of them are actually decent human beings but you've got some who are not, just as you do in every cohort. But you look at children's social services, how many times have children's social services failed children, failed to actually save children despite being aware of them?
Sometimes it's incompetent, sometimes it's lack of resourcing, sometimes it's just that you simply cannot save every child. So what we're saying is the existing legislation gives them the power to act but they're not doing it. So let's give them more power to act. That's simply not logical. How can they get more? What the problem is...
Kelly Rigg (48:05.955)
No.
Kelly Rigg (48:13.327)
Hmm.
Kelly Rigg (48:18.063)
Yeah.
No.
Wendy Charles-Warner (48:23.918)
is that they're not using the regulations and legislation they've got already. If they were doing so, we'd be sending more children, but they're not. And these are all good points to make.
Kelly Rigg (48:29.198)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (48:33.581)
Yeah. No.
Kelly Rigg (48:39.405)
Absolutely. And I think, I think if we're kind of really kind of really kind of summarizing the concept of sort of just reassurance here is it's just recognizing that none of this yet is happening. We're not having to do any of this yet. So please don't worry that you are going to have to suddenly kind of start doing these things, but do definitely find yourself just thinking, okay, what would it be like if I did? And then just sit and having to think about kind of, okay, what do I really want to emphasize to my MP? So like I think you're saying,
the message the other day, like be mindful of templates. At the end of the day, your MP is going to be seeing dozens of like, because as well, some of them, I think actually block when they can see that it is literally just a copy and paste template from something like if they see so many coming through, they're all the same. So do send a message that comes from you, your experiences, your worries, your thoughts, yeah, your heart, like don't like talk about the things that your children went through, especially if you've got a story that's
like really going to make them stop and go, wow, okay, that's a really good point. Because ultimately, we as parents allow far too many kind of, I don't know, oversteps from schools and other kind of areas where we allow them to kind of set rules and set kind of all sorts of different things for us as parents and.
Wendy Charles-Warner (49:56.643)
Yes.
Kelly Rigg (50:04.163)
Those of you who might be listening who are just interested and keen on this because you may be considering home education, you've got children in school right now and you're actually feeling worried about this, please know that we seem to be fighting something like this every couple of years and we have one on the last occasion. So hopefully we shall do so again. But also recognize that ultimately schools and the various different kind of powers that be around that are already calling the shots in ways that are not appropriate and
helpful and safeguarding your children, you are allowed to stand up to it. Like at the end of the day, these teachers or schools, like you maybe once had to sit there and just go, yes, miss, no, miss. You do not need to do that anymore. You are a parent. You are responsible for your child's education. You're responsible for their welfare. Well, welfare? Welfare. And taking care of them in general. And so if you do not feel good about something that is happening to them or you or in the school,
curriculum or anything really, you have got. Yes, you were allowed to object, you're allowed to push back, but it's not something we just have to sit up and just put up with.
Wendy Charles-Warner (51:13.806)
Sorry to interject there, I didn't mean to talk over you, I just... Something that people don't realise. Welfare checks. If your child is not in school, the school says, we have to make a welfare check. We have to come to your home and check that your child is safe and well. I asked the DfE because I could not find any basis, any legal basis for a school making a welfare check. So I asked the DfE to please ask their colleagues...
Kelly Rigg (51:16.044)
No, it's okay.
Kelly Rigg (51:23.503)
Mm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (51:43.116)
what the basis is, where is the legal basis for a welfare check? They couldn't find one. So schools are actually going to parents' homes when their child is off school to check on that child's welfare. It teaches insisting on seeing the child to check that they're safe and well. I don't have any legal basis to do so. But parents all over the country feel intimidated. Everybody knows that
Kelly Rigg (51:47.567)
Mm-hmm. No.
Wendy Charles-Warner (52:12.662)
If you go into a school room to talk to a teacher you feel just like you did when you were a school child. And people are intimidated. Don't be. You are the parent. And that brings us to another point. Actually, as we've been talking I've thought of some wonderful ways of dealing with this. If every aspect of this bill became law, think of the wonderful things you can do. If every single home-educating parent inundates their local authority
Kelly Rigg (52:18.415)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (52:42.69)
with every single little change, every day they make it, you're straight.
Kelly Rigg (52:46.967)
I know it does make you laugh doesn't it just the thought of their little brains just being like I'm going to just ahhh just get away from me not another email
Wendy Charles-Warner (52:54.126)
But that aside, even if every aspect of this came to pass, for most parents, the worst that would happen is they'd have the burden of providing more information. And actually, when we sought legal advice, we were told, well, there's no reason why you should provide that information, because the only punishment for not doing so
Kelly Rigg (53:10.639)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (53:23.382)
is that you'll be served with a notice to satisfy, in which case you simply send information about the education. You don't have to send all of the data that's being requested because it's not a notice to prove all of that information, it's a notice to satisfy that the education is suitable. And so you...
Kelly Rigg (53:42.733)
Yeah, so it actually doesn't even make sense as a process. That's crazy. But what's I did have a thought as well, he said about welfare checks and they're not having the legal grounds to come and do it to us. But if you were to just say, okay, well, I am convinced that my child is not receiving this, that, the other in school. So I'm just going to come and sit in and just watch his education for a couple of weeks and just wait and watch them say, well, no, you can't come and sit in the classroom. That'd be disruptive or
Like, no, you're not allowed to come in here and tell me what to do. I'm the teacher or that's undermining me as the teacher or whatever. It's like, okay, so who's in charge here? Like who's actually responsible here then? So you're saying to me that like, I'm basically beholden to you that I've got to do everything you say. And so I think when we are dealing with children here who are not happy in school, who are not okay, and we are worrying and we're thinking about home educating, but we're fearful of being kind of...
having all this to worry about. And therefore the insinuation that comes with that, that obviously it is a less than or it is a fallback option or whatever, which obviously as we've discussed before is absolutely not the case and that home education can be chosen as 100 % legally equitable and often as we discussed here, a very wonderful way of educating a child that ultimately you as a parent have the right to push back on this.
Just try and remember that all the while we support each other, we recognise how this affects us and we do push back in whichever way that is. If you have a meeting with your MP, if you send a letter to your MP, if you simply just when there are any petitions and stuff going around in the near future, sign it. Whatever you feel capable of contributing to it, contribute. Please do not feel pressured or scared and feeling like you have got to do
all these things if that's not something that you feel capable of doing, but also don't stress about getting the wording right or whatever else, just say something, just do something and every little contribution will add to a message and a vision. And I think whether it's simply you posting something to social media and tagging the Department of Education in about your story, whether it's posting things regularly, whether it's writing a blog, like whatever it is that you feel capable of doing.
Wendy Charles-Warner (55:51.745)
Exactly.
Kelly Rigg (56:07.545)
that puts some information out there into the world about how you're feeling about this and what it actually does to our lived experience. And it might seem crazy to think that sort of a lot of the pushback on this is simply going to be the fact that it's a load of extra paperwork and admin for home educators and stress and strain of having to prove ourselves is not going to be conducive to most people enjoying it as an option. And we should be allowed to enjoy raising our children.
and enjoying educating them. We shouldn't feel so beholden to a state kind of curriculum or oversight that we can't actually do what we do best, which is simply to raise our kids and to enjoy doing so. That it shouldn't be getting in the way of that. And I think hopefully with everything that you're doing, everything that everyone is doing, all the MPs that are fighting for us right now, let's just keep supporting them.
and trying to convince others and hopefully we'll get enough people objecting to it in the end or getting the wording right because I'm sure there are elements of that bill that are good. There must be some bits in there that we do need or things that do need to change. But the truth of matter is when they lump a load of different things together into one thing, they try and squeeze things through, don't they, at the same time. And we just, it's good that obviously people are watching and waiting and paying attention because otherwise these things...
Wendy Charles-Warner (57:30.39)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (57:30.787)
would be left unchallenged. So let's make sure we're challenging them and standing up for yourself.
Wendy Charles-Warner (57:34.36)
So, could you... Yeah, the sum up on it really is every parent counts. And if you write to your MP and say, don't use a campaign letter, write from the heart. And one thing that lot of parents are worried about is the MP might say, share their details. The MP shouldn't. They might do forward it to another department. But if you actually specifically send the letter, please do not share my information.
Kelly Rigg (57:53.71)
Hmm.
Wendy Charles-Warner (58:03.692)
I'm writing to you confidentially, please do not share my information. You can share the facts, but don't share my information. Just make sure that you don't want them to do so. Then they won't share your information. So write your MP, talk to people. If you've got contacts in the media, talk to them, educate them, get them. Because if we can get the media on board understanding how much this undermines parental rights, then...
That is a huge part of the argument one, because once the media is on board, it whips up the public to be on board. So if you've got contacts, if you happen to be somebody who knows a celebrity who would be on board, boy do they get influenced often that they shouldn't, but they do. Talk to them, see if you can get them on board. Anybody you know, talk to them. Because your circumstances, you as an individual,
Kelly Rigg (58:40.643)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (58:52.739)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (58:59.362)
You are that brick that's going to build this house of trying to persuade people that actually this isn't all that good. And a bit of reassurance, how good reassurance it is, I don't know. But in my last meeting with the Department for Education, and I have one again tomorrow, I believe, I was raising some of the concerns and the service lead said, we are aware that there are some difficulties with the bill and we are talking to our legal team.
Kelly Rigg (59:02.575)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (59:07.151)
Yeah.
Wendy Charles-Warner (59:29.046)
about amendments that could be made. So the DFE isn't, they're not deaf to parents' Know that they are not going to change everything, they're not going to delete it, for example, but, they've got to do what their masters in government say, but they do have a lot of influence and they are aware of our concerns. So we do know that. But please, please, whatever your bit is,
Kelly Rigg (59:35.95)
No.
Wendy Charles-Warner (59:57.698)
just do your bit, don't panic, for most of you, for most of you out there, this is not going to cause you harm, it's just going to cause you annoyance. And even that annoyance you could have great fun with by just, as we said, inundate your local authority with so much information that the whole system breaks. So if worse comes to the worst, we've got that.
Kelly Rigg (01:00:09.38)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (01:00:18.895)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that the truth of the matter is no local authority is going to be able to take the weight of receiving that much data and processing it and updating on any kind of system themselves. So it's, it's, it's short sighted and it's something which I think they just don't quite grasp the concepts themselves, that the people who have written it in the first place just do not seem to understand the magnitude of some of those, sort of sections. And so I think if we can help to explain it to them from a real experience, like what that would actually look like.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:00:27.448)
No.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:00:32.291)
Yes.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:00:50.188)
Yep. Yep.
Kelly Rigg (01:00:51.993)
then it will make them stop and think and go, okay, that's not going to work. Clearly that makes no sense. There's no point in us having the legal right to have this information if we can't actually monitor it or do anything with it because there's no way we can all input it ever. Like it's never going to work. So I think they're hopefully going to start to recognise that actually it wouldn't be like, yeah, there's so many conversations we could go on on this one. won't go from the tangent, but there's a lot to think about, but there's just, just pick a point.
any point you like that you've read something and it sparked a thought with you and it's made you think there's something I could say on this and just talk about that if necessary. You don't have to cover off the whole bill. You don't have to understand the whole thing. But just if there's something which resonates with you, then speak to them about it. But as I say, to talk from the heart, talk about what your experience is and hopefully it will help them to understand that there are real people out here living a life and that like they'll sort of phrase that the MPs are using, like we're using a hammer to crack a nut.
that they're trying to take too much power and seize too much control to solve something which truthfully, let's be honest, is to some degree unsolvable. That you can't keep an eye on every single person every single day and know everything they're doing. And so of course things happen and stuff does slip through the cracks. And sadly that will mean that children will get hurt. And we have got to work very hard to try and protect each other, protect our children, teach each other to be kind.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:01:58.83)
Good one.
Kelly Rigg (01:02:15.927)
It's a big part of the community. It's always going to be a part of a community of humans, unfortunately, but we can support each other with that. And I think that ultimately the government needs to start thinking about how they can work with us and those of us who care and want to do the right thing rather than kind of trying to ever build control over those people instead. think they need to start recognising how we all actually want the same thing. We want a good, safe, wonderful community and we want to raise our children.
well into that and that we're not we're not all trying to fight back against them and so we don't deserve to be put under a thumb and and controlled even further we deserve to live our life and to do what makes sense for us.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:02:57.814)
Yep, exactly.
Kelly Rigg (01:03:00.825)
But thank you guys for listening. As we said earlier, do make sure that you are following Education Otherwise on their socials, on their Facebook group, find their website, make sure you read the blog, keep up to date with what they are putting out there about this. They're running sessions that kind of give you details on how to respond to it. And we might try and come back and do some more podcast episodes on this and get some of the thoughts as things develop so that you guys are kind of kept up to date with it as well.
do make sure that you are just reaching out to someone like education otherwise that you trust that is actually going to provide you with proper information that is not just be whipping you into a frenzy and stressing you out. But people who know what they're talking about and are actually doing the actual fighting right now. They are reading the bill, they are talking to MPs, they're talking to the Department of Education, they are not just...
blogging online somewhere, they are actually doing something about it. So they are the ones who know what they're talking about. So do make sure you're reaching out to them if you're concerned or you have any thoughts that you need help processing about it all. But yeah, we're all here for you. Those of us who've been in this for a little while now know that this is part and parcel, I think, of being a home educator is you start to really understand how important it is to fight for your rights as a parent and for your children. So embrace that. Feel the empowerment that brings you.
in knowing that you are doing something that actually works very hard to safeguard your children and their rights for the future too. So it feels pretty good to do it. And I think if you try and let the stress go out of it and start to recognise it's just a good thing that you're pushing back and this is the point of diplomacy. This is what we're supposed to be doing as humans in a big community like this. So fingers crossed we can fight the good fight. But thank you so much, Wendy, again, for coming and chatting to us about it.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:04:45.774)
Thank for having me.
Kelly Rigg (01:04:47.543)
Yeah, we'll certainly probably speak again, I'm sure, than we think, but we'll get through the process. I'm sure the next reading will be soon, I suppose, and we'll have more to go from there. So thank you, everyone, for listening.
Wendy Charles-Warner (01:04:58.176)
It's gone from committee to committee. The bill, so that people know, the bill next goes to committee in the House of Commons. It then comes back for the final reading with amendments. It then goes off to the House of Lords and it goes through the same process again in the House of Lords. And we have got quite a few peers onside in the House of Lords. even Mike Storey, the peer who brought some of the previous bills forward.
feels that it lacks support, I know that he would be supportive for example of providing access to examinations because despite him disagreeing with us he does really actually care that children have that access so even someone who you felt might not be on our side can be to a degree. So thank you ever so much for having me and for everybody listening.
Kelly Rigg (01:05:42.116)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (01:05:47.299)
Yeah, that's all right, you're very welcome.
Thank you guys, take care.
