I have not time to do much analysis of this but I thought readers might be interested to see the response of the Catholic Education Service (CES) to the Government's proposals for registering and monitoring homeschooling families.The CES agrees with proposals for registration, agrees that someone should have the right to visit and inspect (though suggests this should be OFSTED rather than the Local Authority), but disagrees with the right to interview children alone - suggesting that a "trusted person" should be present.
The CES also wants a share of the monitoring arrangements:
We have also been told of parents describing their home schooling arrangements and curriculum as being “Catholic home schooling". There is no such model or programme of which we are aware and it is important that monitoring authorities are aware of this and feel able to revert to diocesan authorities and/or CESEW for advice if such queries arise. We would also find it helpful to be kept informed of the extent of the use of such a term, ie for what numbers of children and in what areas.It would be a service to the Catholic Church in England and Wales, I am sure, if readers were to provide links in the combox to Catholic Homeschooling programmes - particularly any that have the imprimatur.
19 comments:
I agree with what you're saying, but would point out that the arrangements already exist for local government to arrange an appointment to visit a home-educated child in the presence of a parent. In fact, there are hundreds of reasons "officers" can demand entry to your house, down to and including examining your plants for alien parasites.
setonhome.org - "Seton Home Study School is an accredited Catholic home schooling apostolate under the Roman Catholic bishop of Arlington, Virginia."
olvs.org - Our Lady of Victory traditional home schooling programme; they are again recognised on a national level in the USA.
Motherofdivinegrace.org - Based on the trivium and quadrivium (classical curriculum) and the natural development of children's thinking, this allows for a lot of flexibility and helps parents to devise their own curricula. Accredited again in the USA.
I know families who've used Seton and MoDG and both programmes teach through Catholic content (especially for the Arts and literary subjects such as history); they also provide a complete curriculum with the possibility of having work marked by their teacher consultants (important at high school level for accreditation) and options for extra help from tutors (via email etc.) if this is considered necessary. There is a fee for this, but it is considerably lower than private school fees in the UK.
So the CES thinks that, wrt Catholic home schooling, "There is no such model or programme of which we are aware."
Surely the Holy Family is the model of Catholic home schooling?
http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/
http://www.motherofdivinegrace.org/index.cfm
http://www.olvs.org/index.asp?PageId=758
http://www.setonhome.org/
http://www.staa-homeschool.com/
Home schoolers use some of these programmes or a mixture of both.
[Received by email]
Here are a list of Catholic homeschool distance learning curriculum providers that I know of:-
Kolbe Academy.
Our Lady of Victory.
Our Lady of the Rosary.
Mother of Divine Grace.
Seton Homeschool.
Classical Liberal Arts Academy.
St. Thomas Aquinas Academy.
Regina Coeli Online Academy.
Mercy Academy.
Angelicum Academy.
There is also Mater Amabilis which is in process of development.
All these correspondence schools (many of which also offer online classes) are explicit in their loyalty to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church (see their websites). Seton Homeschool has on its website a copy of a letter of endorsement from the local bishop, the Bishop of Arlington. Angelicum Academy has a letter of endorsement on its website from the local bishop, the Bishop of Colorado. He agrees with the description of the school as "Catholic" according to "Canon 803".
Our own choice, Mother of Divine Grace, was founded by Laura Berquist. Her husband is a distinguished professor at one of the most renowned and orthodox Catholic universities of America, Thomas Aquinas College, and she is the daughter of Donna Steichen, who wrote the seminal work on feminist dissent in the Catholic church, "Ungodly Rage". Other British Catholic families I know personally are homeschooling with Seton, Mother of Divine Grace and Saint Thomas Aquinas Academy. All provide an academically rigorous and totally Catholic education in complete compliance with the Magisterium of the Catholic church. Many also have state accreditation (including Seton Homeschool and Mother of Divine Grace) which in the US does not imply any compromise with religious freedom but does guarantee that national academic standards have been met.
My seven year old is studying the Baltimore Catechism for his religious education classes, reading the Bible and compiling a book of saints. My twelve year old is studying the history of the early church, completing a detailed chapter by chapter study of The Acts of the Apostles, giving talks on the lives of the saints of the early church and learning apologetics. She can defend controversial tenets of the faith quoting chapter and verse of the Bible by heart. The rest of their curriculum is similarly rich and infused with Catholicism. I do wonder whether the CES would approve: we do not, for example, introduce explicit sex education at the age of five, though older students do undertake a study of Humanae Vitae and other sources of Catholic moral teaching.
It beggars belief that an organisation with "Catholic" and "education" in its title should feel able to offer a response to a government consultation on home education and freely admit ignorance of the existence of this wealth of Catholic homeschooling programmes available to anyone in the world. What planet are they on, or is this supposed ignorance disingenuous?
Jane (a British Catholic home educator).
[received by email]
On the subject of the rights of parents then John Paul II’s Charter of the Rights of the Family says this: "Parents have the right to choose freely schools or other means (my italics) or other means necessary to educate their children in keeping with their convictions." (Article 5). The Second Vatican Council speaks in similar but more detailed terms and defines the rights of parents over their children’s education as ‘inalienable’.
The CES comes across like an organisation whose function it is to explain and justify the government to Catholics, not as one that should defend the rights of Catholic parents. One wonders whether the CES has consulted any organisations that are representative of Catholic parents such as the National Association of Catholic Families. This government is actively promoting homosexuality in schools from the age of five and is arranging so that every secondary school is able to offer contraception and abortions to children without the knowledge let alone the consent of parents. The idea of a so-called Catholic organisation like the CES allowing government appointees anywhere near children is amazing. That it should consider the government as fit to “licence” home-schooling beggars belief. The police will not question children without their parents being present but the CES approves of government inspectors doing so, thus making England resemble even more Soviet Russia, East Germany or Communist China.
God bless and keep up your important apostolate,
Yours in Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Eric
They would say that, wouldn't they? Asking the CES to comment on home education is a bit like asking a butcher for his view on vegetarianism.
In any case, as has been said before, what's going on in most Catholic homeschooling families is a great deal more faithful to the magisterium than the CES. Connexions, anyone?
I can't add to the excellent list of accredited programmes already mantioned, but just wanted to say that in my experience (I have seven children and have home-educated them all from birth) Catholic home-educators in this country are by and large keeping their children out of the Catholic schools precisely because the Faith is no longer being taught there. It is unbelievably insulting to us to suggest, as Ms Stannard does, that we may not be able to teach our children the Faith (or, worse, that we might just manage it with plenty of guidance from the Catholic education services). All the UK Catholic home-educators I know of(and that's nearly 200) will be livid about this betrayal.
Whilst there are some excellent Catholic programmes and curricula, many families choose to pick and mix the bits that that they find most useful from various programmes. One of the strengths of home education is that the education is geared to each child at each stage of his or her development, avoiding the "one size fits all" mentality that blights much mass schooling.
Even home educators who do not use any formal methodology or teaching at all -- autonomous home educators -- can legitimately claim to be providing a Catholic (home) education if the environment in which their children learn is an authentically Catholic one (something that very few schools under the auspices of the CES can claim to have).
The CES's response is more than a betrayal of Catholic home educating families in the UK, it is a blatant admission at they have no depth of understanding of home education, and would rather suck up to the DFES than defend the rights of the family. A sorry state of affairs indeed.
I am outraged by their blinkered pro-government response. Having tried to get a response from them about their approval of government sex-ed proposals for 5yr olds, I did get one standard reply, which stated that they did not have the resources to enter into correspondence with parents.
I wonder if they were angling to do the inspections? I'd just love to show them the Baltimore Catechism and see their faces.
Sorry for the rant, but not only are they instrumental in causing several devout parents to loose faith in Catholic schools, but they are now supporting government proposals to severely restrict our parental right to educate our children at home.
Is it worth writing to our local bishop for a response as to why the CES are undermining the rights of Catholic parents in the name of the Church?
I agree with all the comments and actually use MODG for my 8 children.
Something I feel that needs to be pointed out is that true catholic education comes from living our faith. We can all throw book after book or program after program at our children but if they are not living in a loving home that practises the many riches of the catholic faith daily then they will not truly learn about their faith and are likely not to practise their faith when they leave home.
This is true of all children whether they are educated at home or in school, but the difference with catholic home education is that this is the reason most of us DO educate at home. It enables us to live our faith daily and teach our children within a truly catholic environment.
Verity, last year a whole bunch of us sent two very polite but clear letters to every single bishop asking them to review (or even justify) their acceptance of sex ed in Catholic schools. We even accompanied the second letter with a petition with 600 names on it: we received three replies, none of which actually said anything at all of any use.
It's depressing, but I am now a little secptical about the amount of support we can expect from the hierarchy. After all, as home-educators, we are implicitly criticising the way they run the catholic schools, aren't we? I've found very little support on a parish level, never mind a national level. Sorry to sound so negative!
Question is " does the CES broadly support the Catholic Church and its Teaching Magisterium?"
Broadly speaking with some years of experience (6 children through the 'catholic' education system), I would say an emphatic NO!
The CES have consistently let us parents and most importantly the children, down on too many issues over the years to mention.
They are hopeless and this latest limp comment from them proves it again!
Authority in what?
I look back through my folder of polite, well-prepared letters to bishops, e.g. about material in which masturbation was to be presented to 11-12 yr olds, for discussion in pairs. We have been repeatedly told that the man at Southwark DES responsible for that particular material is a particular expert in assessing materials for schools. He is still in post and paid to deal with these matters 'on behalf of the Archbishop' (confirmed by letter from Archbishop McDonald).
Archbishop Nichols may have expressed his full confidence in Oona Stannard (Herald letters 27/2/2009) but is there any other evidence that the CESEW is an authority on Catholic education?
PILGRIM PARENT
Whilst the reponse of the CES is both saddening, but predictable, there is, I wager, little real concern for home-tutors (at the moment).
Should the government ever get around to passing legislation on the matter it should be very easy to circumvent. Just form a 'private-school' by banding together with a few other home-schoolers. By the time Ofsted ever get around to inspecting and then trying to close the school your children will probably have left schooling age. Trust me, as a teacher, I've seen how slow, for instance the courts are in dealing with absentiism.
The enemy within. How can these people sleep?
Thanks Kathryn. I know the banging your head feeling. As a priest once said to me, "You may feel you are getting nowhere, but a seed has been planted." I've been advised to simply write to my own bishop with a clear pastoral concern relating to the wellbeing of my children and family. I have to pray for humility and perseverance.
Looking at the CES response again, OS probably thought she was being reasonable and supportive (given their mindset). The government was sly to link EHE with safeguarding concerns, because that produces a kneejerk reaction - no-one dares to object to the main proposition in case they are perceived as being against child protection. Even the Badman report was unable to substantiate the link, but the suggestion is still made. Very clever, very nasty and very infuriating for EHE parents.
On the way home this evening listening to the PM programme we had Ed Balls who kept on emphasising that his proposal for sex education to me made compulsory was backed by the Catholic Church. (5 or 6 times)#
I can only think of two options for this statement; either Ed Balls was lying of the CES is not Catholic
Thank you Fr Tim for your support of catholic home schooling families.We have our children fully enrolled with Seton (Scot).We are deeply hurt and offended by Oona Stannard remarks and lack defense and support for Catholic parents.
Christina
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