Hogwarts letters Re: Choosing sides

[macfotuk at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 119906


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Annette Hamel" 
<annettehamel at h...> wrote:
> 
> Del wrote (regarding muggle-born wizards):
> By the way : I'm wondering what happens to them on a legal level in
> the Muggle World? After a while, their abscence from the MW must 
look
> suspicious, the administration must be starting to be concerned. 
How
> do they deal with that ?
> 
> 
> Annette now:
> 
> I'm glad Del raised this issue.  A question I have often 
pondered ... a 
> child is required to attend school up to a certain age, either a 
state 
> school or a private one.  If the WW is "hidden", wouldn't there be 
a truancy 
> issue?  <snip>

Am amazed at how few people know that home education is legal in UK 
and undertaken by parents of 1 in 100 kids for a huge variety of 
reasons. Being 'different' (and, usually stigmatised at school as a 
result - e.g. Asperger's or ADHD) is just one of these reasons. 
Bullyinging, religious differences etc are others. The authorities 
seem quite happy to get these 'difficult' and 'resource-intensive' 
cases off their books. So, education is compulsory (in the UK), but 
school is not. The authorities ARE supposed to check, but are 
remarkably (well, not really, given high workload, voluminous 
paperwork and extreme resource limitations) slow and infrequent in 
making such visits.