Well, that was okay – I think!

The inspection today was not too bad 🙂
J chose a few things to take along and show them and we met at the library as planned, including Bob who was able to pop out of work for a bit 🙂 They started by asking J to read something from his favourite book (cross-sections) so he chose an incredibly complex description of some minute part of a submarine, read it flawlessly and then rabbited on about it for a while. Cue impressed looks, although the inspector still asked me “And does he understand what he reads?” 🙄 I felt like telling her to ask him!
Then the inspector basically spoke to me, while the EWO chatted to J (who was sitting on Bob’s lap), which was fun as it meant we were talking across each other… The EWO was lovely and basically just there to check J was happy, which she said he plainly was 😀 The inspector was okay, but terribly school-orientated; she basically went through the NC areas and asked about our provision and what exactly we were covering. Very concerned about socialisation too, which luckily is not a problem for us at all. She was only vaguely interested in anything less mainstream that we were doing and kept bringing things back to NC and how we needed to keep up with what school children J’s age would be doing, ready for when (if!) we put him back into school. Fortunately the EWO was interested in other stuff, since that was plainly what interested J the most, so we didn’t feel that our preparation had been all in vain.
The only concern raised was that J is not doing much writing (because he hates it and doesn’t need to do much just now anyway imo – we’ll cross that bridge when it actually matters!) and she wants us to start keeping a dated record so she can see his progression next time – hmmm.
Oh, and unfortunately the subject of brothers and sisters came up, so they now know we have another child of almost school age and a toddler and are expecting us to register K as HE as soon as he gets to compulsory school age so they can inspect him as well when we next meet, probably this time next year.
Oh yes – and we got in trouble with the librarian for holding our meeting in a completely empty room in a deserted library 🙄 She said we should be aware of issues of confidentiality (surely our problem rather than hers?) and that we should have booked to use the room. We’ll know next time, anyway!

12 thoughts on “Well, that was okay – I think!”

  1. don’t think it’s got anything to do with the librarian!

    Glad to hear it went well overall anyway, guess the dated work progression thing is something you’re just going to have to figure a way to deal with. Maybe it won’t be the same inspector this time next year!

  2. Dino has hated writing until we found the pen he likes! Unconventioanl child that he is, he loves an old fashioned metal nib and bottle of proper ink – and his writing is improving daily now.

    I’m not sure how old J is – Dino is 6.

  4. Hmm, I’m not sure at all that they’re allowed to ask for evidence of progression. I wonder where I read that ….

    The inspector sounds like a bit of an arse really. I don’t think testing the child (e.g. asking J to read) is on at all. Offer them a report next year? 😉

  5. Well, I’m glad it (finally!) went ok, but I must admit, it just confirms to me that I don’t want to meet with them (we are the same LA ). I guess they can ask for whatever they want Alison, but no, assessing progression isn’t part of their role, but then neither is assessing the childs ‘happpiness’ either… But I’ve ranted a bit about that on our local list so I’ll not start off on that one again 😉

  6. My theory is that EWO’s in this siutation are always going to be lovely. Rather than the hassles of dealing with some messed up kid, awkward parent who’s kid is turanting all the time etc. they get to sit and chat for a bit with a fmaly whose kids are getting a great education., what is there to not be lovely about 🙂

  7. Sounds like the inspector was definitely unaware of or ignoring some of the boundaries to her role, but well done for handling it so well and glad for you that it’s over.

  8. Don’t take this the wrong way, but i’d be seething about that meeting. Don’t get walked on 🙂 they don’t have any right to any of this – age, aptitude and ability – all of which is your decision. We’ve never met an officer, much less two, we’ve sent reports and they’ve never seen any of our 3 children either. AND as for assessing how happy he is.. ummm… huh? Do they do this to school children???????

  9. I don’t know about primary, but certainly at secondary the welfare/happiness of pupils does come under the remit of the EWO, which is why I don’t really have a problem with this (plus all EWOs I’ve come across so far have been nice 🙂 ). When I was a deputy head of year we had weekly meetings with EWO at which any causes for concern were raised, whether they came from staff, other pupils or parents and it was the EWO’s job (along with pastoral staff) to keep an eye on things and follow up where necessary.

    I wasn’t sure about the progression stuff either, especially as she basically just wants to see that he is producing more written work and that his writing is improving – and actually lots of written work is not part of what we currently feel to be necessary or appropriate for him, which is surely our decision not hers 😕 Apparently she used to be a primary school head, which goes some way towards explaining her attitude, I guess…

  10. I’m glad you were happy with how your meeting went, especially since it seems to have been hanging over you for ages.

    They are supposed to be looking at your provision of suitable education not J’s attainment and they don’t have a right to see anything he produces, although I’m sure they’d love us all to be keeping dated written work and ticking all the NC boxes.

    “so they can inspect him as well when we next meet” – hmm, well first they are inspecting you not your children and you don’t need to register any child with the LA (only deregister if they were in school) and second, what makes them think there’s going to be a next time? What reason have they to think you’re not providing an education? What is it with this yearly inspection thing?

    I know your meeting went “well” but it would have completely wound me up!

    Btw, I’ve got your NC book from Tech. Are we still going to meet up at that farm place up here some time?

  11. Oh, I wasn’t questioning he role of the EWOs in general, I was speaking in particualr about the LA’s use of them as a general check on the welfare of home educated children – which is not part of the role of the LA with respect to home educated children. I think I just tend to think that the LEa ‘pushes the envelope’ when it comes to their approach to home educating families.

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