What info to provide new LA upon moving/what to expect? Opinions please!

[valhala]

I HE'd my DD up until a couple of months ago, when we were living in a county a very long way from our present home. I did so because the only available school at the time was totally unsuitable.

Since we moved house in September my daughter has been out of education whilst I await an appeal for the local school. I have made a point of telling my new LA that she is no longer HE'd as I have been warned by an admissions manager that I will be unlikely to win an appeal for an oversubscribed school if the panel know that she is taught at home. For the record, she has a sibling at the local school and for many reasons I feel she would be better off there than HE'd. Oddly, although I had endless interference when I was HE-ing in one county, now that my DD is on the new LA's records as not receiving ANY education for the past 2.5 months, no-one from EW has got in touch!!!

My former LA is known to be one of the most difficult as far as HE is concerned, insisting on home visits, "approving an application" to HE, seeing work etc and I had a lot of run-ins with them over it. Eventually they admitted that I could submit an Ed Phil so just before I left the area I sent them one (six pages long!) and shortly afterwards an email informing them that I had moved. Both were acknowledged (the last remark re my Ed Phil was that it was going before their panel so they could consider whether to approve my HE!). The LA asked for my new address, which I declined to give them on the grounds that they could not offer my DD any help when we were in the county and so I failed to see what they could do when we were hundreds of miles away! I asked them to contact me by email if they had any comments and have heard nothing since.

I fear that I will lose the school appeal which is coming up very soon and that I shall have to HE again (the only alternative school is dreadful and out of the question). If that is the case I am wondering what position I shall be in. My new LA was pretty awful about HE too but I believe that it has improved greatly over the past couple of years. If I lose the appeal and HE again here in a new county can I refer the LA to my Ed Phil, written in September, send them a copy and point out that as another LA has not complained about it I can take it that they found it satisfactory and so it would seem reasonable to me that they, my current LA, has no reason for concern either?

Or will I have to jump through their hoops again?!

If anyone else has moved counties and faced having to go over old ground or has any ideas on the matter I'd be very grateful to hear about them. Thank you.

[lindenlass]

You don't have to do anything at all! I'd sit tight and wait for them to come to you if I were you. Don't make work for yourself. Having said that,if you do get asked for evidence, then your previous ed phil should be fine unless it's no longer an accurate description of what you do.

We are, as yet, unknown to our LA for our DD1 but have had contact about applying for schools for our DD2 (not yet of compulsory education age). I've no intention of contacting them to tell them I HE and, essentially, to ask them to be nosy and annoying and make work for me! I'll wait until they ask!

If you do want to get in touch with them, can I suggest you join your local group/email list of HEors and ask them what their experiences have been and how many hoops they find placed in their way?

[valhala]

Thank you Lindenlass. Believe me, I have no desire to encourage the interference of the LA but equally I have no doubt that it will happen if I lose the appeal. They would be obliged to repeat their offer of the alternative school and will, I'm sure, assume that I will meekly accept it.

When I reply with words to the effect of "Not on your Nelly!" they will then start asking questions as to how DD WILL be educated.

If I do lose the appeal I shall be doubly cross - firstly at having done so, secondly at having bothered applying for the school in the first place as I would far rather be unknown to the LA. Experience tells me that my DD and I have nothing to gain from it and that there are a lot of individuals, up to and including Director level, whose interpretation of the Law on HE does not meet that of the ministers who wrote it, much less of HE parents!

[critterjitter]

Actually, I would very much doubt if both the Appeals panel and the Home Ed (often 'Inclusions Team') department of your council/s will be organised enough to link up and compare notes. In any case, the Appeals panel are meant to work totally independently from the rest of the council.

The Appeals panel will hear a submission from the school/council and then from you. If you definitely want your child to go to the school and are worried that they will refuse the appeal on the basis of you Home Educating, then perhaps you should claim that Home Ed all got a bit too much for you/ too stressful trying to combine it with doing school pick ups and drop offs for your other child/ that you have health issues/ sick relative to look after/ no transport to get to HE social events (so unable to socialise your child/ you live in a remote area etc..

You might have to lay it on a bit thick...........