How We Support Home Education

As part of our innovative hybrid primary school, we offer an additional resource to support those families who have taken the leap to home educate their children. As part of our physical school, it also provides reassurance to those parents who have concerns with the home education aspect of the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill that is currently passing through parliament.

There are numous resources available for home educated children with many being accessible from the internet either to purchase, via subscription or free as well as online schools, the use of private tutors, local community groups, learning collectives and targeted sessions that further supplement home education. Whilst their usefulness and quality

various enormously, they do help parents to provide a 'suitable education' as currently required by the local authority.

There is however, considerable concern with home educators that this will change when the Children's Wellbeing and School Bill becomes law, when specific safeguarding powers will be given to the local authorities and where, if they consider children to be at risk or, if it is felt the learning environment is unsuitable, a complusary School Attendence Order will be served, forcing children back into school. Whilst the underlying principals are honourable following the tragic death of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson, there is considerable worry of instances where local authorities will act ultra vires or unreasonably in refusing to provide consent to those parents who, for a host of genuine reasons, are already home educating and where emotionally and physically affected children will have to return to mainstream school.

For those parents who are considering this pathway but who have not already taken the decision to do so, vulnerable children cannot be withdrawn from school into home education until it is confirmed this would be in their best interest and that the education provided outside of full-time school is suitable.

As Mont21hub will be an independent registered school with the Department of Education, those children who enrol under the HomeEd support pathway will, we believe, be seen to be receiving a suitable education given that this will be provided under the oversight of the school. It is however likely these children will still need be registered on the local authority's Children Not in School register as they will not be attending full-time education.

Our HomeEd pathway, provides unlimited access to our AI learning platform which automatically records attendance, sequential progression and time spent on content delivered, and assessment including learning outcomes achieved of the national curriculum core subjects of English, Mathematics and Science. This is regularly monitored by the school with optional one-to-one tuition with a QTS primary teacher and a mandatory weekly catch-up call for each learner to additionally evidence a suitable education. There is also the option to attend weekly physical support sessions held at a local venue in Cambridge.

As digital AI technology becomes more prevalent in education, we believe it can be effectively utilized to support parents' desires for home education while also addressing the crucial need to safeguard the most vulnerable children in today's society.

To learn more, visit www.mont21hub.org/homeeducationsupport