Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 1:59 pm on 13 December 2017.
Cabinet Secretary, I'm pleased that you said that you respect the decision of parents who do wish to home school their children. It is a viable legal option and works very well in many cases. But you're also quite right to point out concerns that children who are home schooled need to be monitored in the same way as children who can also disappear from the system when they're actually in what you would call a conventional school environment. Given what you've just said about the way that a register may well miss some of those children, what other potential is there for making sure that children—I think under the age of five you mentioned—don't slip through the gaps, whether they're in conventional schooling or home schooling, and that we are looking out for all our children?