Surrey
Details
| Total votes: | 4 |
|---|---|
| Helpful: | 30% |
| Honest: | 25% |
| Nice: | 35% |
| Ratings for Local Authorities are calculated using the rating scores of all staff working at that authority. Staff who have received no votes yet are not included in the calculations. | |
| Main Website: | |
|---|---|
| EHE Website: | Main Email: |
| EHE Email: |
Staff
Found 3 member(s) of staff working in Surrey.
Groups
Found 0 group(s) in Surrey.
(Please note that any groups listed are not necessarily affiliated in any way with this Local Authority. Groups are associated in the database with their closest LA purely to make it easier for people to discover groups in their surrounding area). See the HE Map to find other HE groups.
(Please note that any groups listed are not necessarily affiliated in any way with this Local Authority. Groups are associated in the database with their closest LA purely to make it easier for people to discover groups in their surrounding area). See the HE Map to find other HE groups.
General Information
No information held.
Reviews
Found 2 review(s) of Surrey.
Date submitted: Tue 16th March 2010
Surrey county Council take in excess of 6 months to respond to any correspondance, despite giving EHE'ers a 2 week "deadline for information" and despite the council policy to acknowledge any correspondance received within 5 working days. This practice has been challenged and when challenged at a face to face meeting Pam Berryman, Andrea Cunningham and Fred Mowbray seemed genuinely surprised at the anger felt when they chose to ignore a carefully worded Ed phil in excess of 2000 wrds for the best part of a year. It was suggested to them that this practice as well as unprofessional was also disrespectful and downright rude. This suggestion was greeted by blank expressions......says it all really!
Date submitted: Fri 5th March 2010
The EHE information couldn't be more hidden away on the website - the navigation process you have to go through to find it is tortuous if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. "Activist" home educators in Surrey have a long history of trying to get things changed - and we did manage to get the actual content of the web page changed from "dire and packed with lies" to "cagey and interspersed with several lies" a couple of years ago. Other than that, the literature they send out to new (or newly discovered) home educators is appalling, and we haven't managed to get that changed. For years they operated with no official policy at all, they just seemed to make it up as they went along. When we challenged them on that, they agreed that they needed an approved policy and conducted a sham "consultation" in the form of a questionnaire to local home educators in order to find out what they thought and what they wanted. I suspect the responses were binned as they came in because nothing more was ever heard about it, and some months later we found out that they actually had a new policy in draft form but refused to show us a copy. Someone FOI'd it and it was as dire as ever.
Currently the matter is with the council's Schools & Learning Select Committee who are meeting in April to discuss the EHE policy "in the light of the Badman Report"! (As if it was the new law!) A representative from the HE community will be going to the meeting and written submissions have been invited from local groups/individuals.
As far as the actual EHE advisors go, there used to be three (one lead advisor -part-time, and two advisors, one full-time and one part-time). The lead advisor retired in December and the full-time one has apparently taken over as lead. Whether they intend to replace the retired part-time post is not known, but the council is currently having to make heavy spending cuts.
One of the worst things about Surrey as an LA is their inconsistency of approach (some people get jumped on the minute their child is removed from school or turns 5, others get forgotten about for years) and their classic bullying tactics. Woe betide the person who seems unsure of themselves and/or of the law, as they will go in for the kill. If you can quote the law at them and they are left in no doubt that you can stand up for yourself, they generally keep their distance. They are also terminally disorganised, so it's quite possible that the fact that some people are left alone is entirely down to that.
What really opened our eyes to their deviousness and hostility was their submission to the EHE Guidelines Consultation back in 2007 (which can be seen on the AHEd wiki). Prior to that, many people saw them as fairly benign, and the previous lead EHE advisor tended to put on a friendly face wherever possible, but seeing their submission put paid to any illusions about what they thought about home education.
Anyway, general verdict on Surrey LA: crap. Devious, manipulative, dishonest and bullying at worst, pretty much useless at best.
Currently the matter is with the council's Schools & Learning Select Committee who are meeting in April to discuss the EHE policy "in the light of the Badman Report"! (As if it was the new law!) A representative from the HE community will be going to the meeting and written submissions have been invited from local groups/individuals.
As far as the actual EHE advisors go, there used to be three (one lead advisor -part-time, and two advisors, one full-time and one part-time). The lead advisor retired in December and the full-time one has apparently taken over as lead. Whether they intend to replace the retired part-time post is not known, but the council is currently having to make heavy spending cuts.
One of the worst things about Surrey as an LA is their inconsistency of approach (some people get jumped on the minute their child is removed from school or turns 5, others get forgotten about for years) and their classic bullying tactics. Woe betide the person who seems unsure of themselves and/or of the law, as they will go in for the kill. If you can quote the law at them and they are left in no doubt that you can stand up for yourself, they generally keep their distance. They are also terminally disorganised, so it's quite possible that the fact that some people are left alone is entirely down to that.
What really opened our eyes to their deviousness and hostility was their submission to the EHE Guidelines Consultation back in 2007 (which can be seen on the AHEd wiki). Prior to that, many people saw them as fairly benign, and the previous lead EHE advisor tended to put on a friendly face wherever possible, but seeing their submission put paid to any illusions about what they thought about home education.
Anyway, general verdict on Surrey LA: crap. Devious, manipulative, dishonest and bullying at worst, pretty much useless at best.
Have your say!
This site relies on the contributions of it's users. If you've had any contact with Surrey please take a minute or two to send in some feedback. Click here to have your say on Surrey.