Tony Mooney and Myra Robinson - both, I understand, freelance elective home-education inspectors - raise concerns about home-educating parents, making vague claims about educational neglect and their apparent powerlessness in the face of parents’ rights (TES, March 30).
“Who”, asks Ms Robinson, “is going to stand up for the rights of the child?” Actually, as a home-educating parent,I can tell her, although I’m rather surprised she doesn’t already know. It’s home-education inspectors.
They have the duty to investigate any apparent case of educational neglect and have the power to request school attendance orders. If she and Mr Mooney haven’t been doing that, they have been negligent in their duties.
Elective home education (EHE) inspectors require no more powers than they already have to discharge their lawful duties. If the inspectors that Eunice Spry invited into her home twice a year raised no serious objections to her regime, that is their failing, and no amount of rights to enter property will make it any easier to stop such cases happening again.
Peter Darby
Ruthin, Denbighshire
