MORE is being done to work with parents of home-schooled children to keep them safe and ensure they are learning.

That is according to a new Bury Council report that explores how the borough’s 111 home-school students are monitored and why they quit school.

There is no suggestion that any of the children are at risk or are not being educated properly, but the council’s Children’s Safeguarding Overview Project Group wants to provide parents and schools with more support.

The report said that the council’s home education officer Susan Morris and the council’s school attendance manager Debra Wood recently updated members of the group on the subject.

“The majority of home-schooled children in the borough are of primary school age,” said the report.

It added: “Some leave school because of bullying, a breakdown in the relation between a school and parents, poor communication or dissatisfaction with the support given to special-needs pupils.”

Under the law, parents do not have to inform the council if they are to home educate their child and inspections.

Criminal records checks and inspections are less formal than those applied to childminders, nurseries and school staff.

The report suggests that, up until recently, information packs the council gives to home-schooling parents were too “legalistic”.

“The packs have been updated. They are now more welcoming and less legalistic,” the report said.

Outlining the changes, it added: “A member of the home education team will conduct regular visits to parents to offer support and guidance.

“The council has the power to issue a School Attendance Order if it is believed the child is not receiving an appropriate level of education.”

The project group expressed concern that children can sometimes leave school because problems within schools are “quickly exacerbated and too easily escalated (and) parents feel they are left with no other option but to home educate.”

The council accepts in the report that such problems could be alleviated if there was better pastoral support and a more inclusive attitude within schools.

Any home-school child who is subject of a child protection order can be educated at home, but “concerns within the plan are shared with the home education team to ensure the child’s wellbeing is safeguarded,” the report said.

Visit tinyurl.com/homeschoolingbury to read the full report.