Education Authorities

[coemgen]

My sister in law and her husband had this mad idea to home educate their kids and not teach them anything except how to paint pictures.They have now separated, and the mother wants to send the eldest who is 9 to a proper school.Unfortunately she does not even know her alphabet, any basic maths or anything really. The problem is that my sister in law cannot get her into any school, can they legally refuse to take her? At the moment she is having to pay �12 per day to send her to a private school, as she is on benefits, she can only afford to send her once a week. Can she get help with these fees? Thanks.

[PaulYukochan]

When you home educate your kids under a different system than the state's one, then you automatically make it very difficult to ever put them back in to the state system. Would the 9 year old be happy in a class with 5 year olds learning the alphabet? Some sisters in law eh?!

[bimsey]

Pretty irresponsible set of parents Id say .

[Eddiecurrent]

Your sister-in law should be kicked right up the backside and sent to school herself, she is quite obviously a poor parent and through her lack of foresight has robbed her children of a decent start to education, as for the "she's on benefits and therfore her kids have a right to 'free' education", she should understand that her children will now cost taxpayers (so much for free) much more to re-educate her children and the likelyhood is that her children will end up on benefits themselves because of the quite appalling education she has provided for them (I do not see why the state should pick the pieces up of this case). Incidentally I would like to see her prosecuted for not allowing the children to attend school ,normally you can only home teach if you are going to provide the children with an education equal to or better than the education they are likely to receive in school. As for help with private fees- you reap what you sow.

[coemgen]

I don't disagree with anything you have said, Eddiecurrent. I myself reported her to the social services and education authorities, however it is not illegal to provide zilch education at home, it should be but it isn't. Thank you for your comments but it doesn't really answer my question.