Plans to visit home schooled pupils once a year postponed

A motion asking Powys councillors to back calls for home-schooled children to be visited by a council officer and/or health professional at least once a year has been postponed.

At a Powys County Council meeting on Thursday, October 8, a motion had been expected to be put before councillors asking them to support the “strengthening of safeguarding arrangements for electively home-educated children”.

The proposal was to be put forward and seconded by two Powys Independents councillors, Jeremy Pugh (Builth) and Gareth E Jones (Llanelwedd).

When the meeting reached the item, Cllr Pugh said: “What I would like is, can my motion be postponed until the next county council meeting.”

The next scheduled full meeting is due to take place in December.

Cllr Pugh continued: “During which time we can receive extra training. My fellow councillors have asked to look into it in more detail so they can have better knowledge for a better result.”

This was agreed by the council.

Figures from earlier this year showed that the number of electively home-educated (EHE) children in Powys had risen to 473, which had “shocked” councillors.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, there were 154 EHE-registered children.

Cllrs Pugh and Jones were going to ask councillors to call on the Welsh Government to strengthen the legislation, including introducing a requirement that all electively home-educated children are seen periodically, at least annually, by either a local authority officer and/or health professional to provide assurance regarding their wellbeing, welfare and educational provision.

The aim of this move would be to establish a more robust and consistent system for monitoring children and young people educated at home.

The letter to the Plaid Cymru Welsh Government would ask it to “accelerate proposals that strengthen safeguarding arrangements for electively home-educated children and improve multi-agency oversight”.

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporting Service