Home-educated children should be registered

SIR – Working with vulnerable children, I have to report every safeguarding concern. Over the years, several families have chosen to withdraw their children from education and home-educate them once these concerns are acted upon.

While I sympathise with Adele Jarrett-kerr (Comment, April 4), as her children receive a superlative education and she clearly feels very strongly about having to be registered and monitored, I implore her to look beyond her own family and feelings, and remember why this register absolutely must exist. Fiona Wallis

Norwich

SIR – As a former local authority officer with responsibility for monitoring home education, I cannot agree with Tristram Llewellyn Jones (Letters, April 4) that no register of home educated children should be kept. For every child schooled in a leafy suburb by enthusiastic parents, there is one whose parents chose to withdraw them following a conflict with the school. A sizeable minority of these will not be educated at all, but rather be left in front of the television or to wander the streets. The Education Secretary is right to campaign for a register so that we know who and where such children are.

We should place more weight on the right of a child to be educated than on the right of a parent to withdraw a child from school. It should be a requirement of withdrawal that a parent submits plans for the “suitable education” of that child. The home schooling lobby will object, but the safety and well-being of the child is paramount. Myra Robinson

Newcastle upon Tyne