Surrey County Council

Surrey County Council EHE staff are currently working to an unpublished* DRAFT policy (pdf) which unfortunately was not written in consultation with local home educators and which has yet to be ratified by the council (*obtained through a Freedom of Information request). In light of this and dissatisfaction with the policy itself members of the SW Surrey group drew up a petition and submitted it to the Schools & Learning Select Committee on December 2nd 2009. We the undersigned call for an Official Surrey County Council Elective Home Education policy to be drawn up in consultation with local home educators and in line with existing law and guidelines.

A reply was tabled and the chair of the committee also said that the policy will be put on the agenda next year.

If you read it you will see that the reply claims the September 2009 revision was done 'following consultation with local home educators'. If you're wondering why you weren't included don't worry, as far as anybody can tell it never happened. There was a questionnaire (doc) and the cover letter (doc) said that "the Local Authority is hoping to form a working group from members of the home educating community and the EHE team to look at ways to support home education" but unless it was done in secret they didn't get around to it. In fact the the promised publication of the results of the survey "early in the Summer Term" didn't happen either.

If you are a current or potential home educator living in Surrey with SCC as your local authority and would like to join a mail list to discuss the policy and what you want from SCC please contact Firebird for details.