Cornwall Home Educators :: Local Services

Local Services

The Monday Club
Every Monday a group of home educators get together in Liskeard 10:30 - 2:30. We organise craft or other kinds of activity, play games, sing songs and run around madly. We also have a French teacher who gives French lessons. For further information, click here.

Bishop’s Forum Youth Activity Centre
Group Outdoor Education days can be arranged, at Penryn and Bodmin Moor. Contact us if your children are interested. For info about range of activities and group rate reduction try them at Goodgrane Farm, Halvasso, Constantine. 01326 340912.

Cycling Proficiency
Cornwall County Council are looking for volunteers who would be trained free to take children on the roads for their cycling proficiency tests. Contact the Chief Road Safety Officer, Jean Caddy, on 01872 327888.

Cornwall Health Promotion Service
Located at The Kernow Building, Wilson Way, Pool, Redruth. TR15 3QE (Tel: 01209 313218) opposite Roche Foods. You can come in and borrow materials and they will send out free leaflets and posters on health promotion issues. They lend out large plastic 3D models of parts of the human body. To join the library you need to go in there with proof of identity.
There are discussions on the subject of children and drugs, ring 01209 313419.

Cornwall Library Service
As well as books, the library service also loans of CDs, videos (weekly charge), language courses on video and cassette, and other reference books. County Reference Library in Truro, information from which can be phoned or faxed through, or photocopies posted, there is the Cornish studies library at Redruth, and the St. Ives Archive Study Centre. Also there is the Music and Dance library at St. Austell on 01726 61702. Many libraries have story times, and others can be arranged to meet demand, there are also a children’s library assistants and library officers who specialise in work with young children who can also offer advice country-wide. If there are any ways you feel the library could help, do get in touch with your local library. Various computer technology is also available at different libraries, e.g. Word Processing, Internet, homework clubs, distance learning resource facilities, computer based training on CDROM, video links to Isles of Scilly, desktop publishing plus electronic presentation/slide show creation, e-mail and fax facilities, video conferencing via the Internet, OU and NVQ support, access to local and national library catalogues. We can book in whilst other children are at school. Some libraries have a Study Support Officers to help, or other staff. Costs are £2 per hour, with session running from 15 minutes to an hour maximum usually, and free to anyone on means tested benefits, with proof. A new addition that the Library has made is the home library service, designed for any person who has internet access to reserve, renew and check books online at their website. This is found at The Cornwall Services Website and find the library link.

Early Years Service
If you want to join your Early Years Partnership (for children from 2-14 years) local education forum, which seeks out and applies for funding from various sources, try telephoning 01872 270377.

Education Maintenance Allowance
Apply to the Student Services, County Hall, Truro. TR1 3AY for weekly allowance for those in full time education 16-18 year olds. Phone 01872 322000.

Group Library Cards
Try asking your local library for a group card, which can allow you to borrow more books for a longer time.

Inset Library
We can borrow books for three weeks from the Inset (teachers) library at the industrial estate at Three-Miles-Stone, or through your local library, by using their computer to locate the title and author, then asking a librarian. There are lots of special needs books (we have borrowed a book on dyslexia and mathematics). There is a huge range of sets of fact and fiction reading books for primary and junior aged children, (more than you would find in your average bookshop), which we could inspect, and then order from a bookshop if you were interested. (You can also contact the publishers and ask for a teachers inspection pack). The library system seems to have a policy of not lending out reading schemes to parents. The Cornwall Home Educators Resource Service aims to negotiate with the library service to change this policy, and to lend out reading schemes in the meantime to our members. They also have a few old but still useful booklets:
Kick-start
For a copy (priced £2.50) of an A4 booklet, Kick-start, printed in 1995 but still useful, which lists a selection of titles with a high level of interest but a low reading age, contact the Education Library Service, Unit 17, Threemilesstone, Truro, TR4 9LD. 01872 323456, or borrow a copy from the Cornwall Home Educators resource service (contact Anna).

Local History
If you want to find out more about the history of your village, town, or your house, try booking a visit to the Cornwall Record Office, County Hall, Truro on 01872 273698, where you can view a (1843) tithe map of your area, although these are very delicate, so parents should go on their own for the first visit to it check out for child suitability. You need to book in by telephone and bring some ID in order to get your ticket and a pencil and paper for writing down your research. You can find out field names, who owned what, and who lived there by looking at the censuses from 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891, and this year you can see 1901. You can purchase a copy of a bit of the tithe map, and this is a good start to your research.
Other places of interest are the Cornish studies library, above the Redruth library, which holds more records and maps, (photocopies again can be purchased), and the Cornwall Family History Society, 5, Victoria Square, Truro, have research facilities.
Other interesting people with local knowledge (apart from the neighbours) are members of the Old Cornwall Society, ask your local library for your local contact, and we have also telephoned for an appointment to see various experts at the Royal Cornwall Museum, River street, Truro and the Royal Cornwall Museum Library, above the museum, 01872 272205.
We have also made an appointment with the Cornwall Archaeology Unit, Old County Hall, Station Road, Truro 01872 323603, with various funds, and then we were referred on to the aerial photographs of Cornwall (when looking for a potential ancient village site), housed at Cornwall County Council Offices, County Hall, Truro.
On the Internet, some good websites include one for family history, which can help connect up house, occupants, and census information: Family Search. For the very keen, Censues can be purchased on CDROMS, where you will save a considerable amount of money on telephone bills.

Local Services - Cornwall County Council
Home-educated children have only been removed from the school system, not their community, and some other services are still available to them. These services, listed in the Citizens’ Charter for Education, are available for children educated otherwise than in school. This information was received by telephone, so please double check for accurate and up-date information.

Museum Workshops
The Education Service for the Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro, produces a bulletin, which they will send out to you if you phone during the week, 01872 272205, full of news of different workshops for groups of children in the school day, which we may be able to go on if there is enough interest. There is a Saturday afternoon art club for children at the Museum, which costs £2 per session payable in advance, starting at 2pm, phone the office as above for more details, during the week.

Outdoor Education
Reading the small print in their brochure, the hirer needs to have a public liability insurance policy. Contact Kate Sergeant for a brochure for the different sites and activities, on 01872 322448. May need organised groups, contact us if you need help finding more children instead.

Parent Partnership Co-ordinator for LEA (Local Education Authority)
According to the Cornwall Dyslexia Association, Jill Nicholls is new in this role, and she is organising Special Educational Needs training for parents with special needs children free of charge. She can be contacted on 01872 865158.

Special Education Support
For free assessment of learning difficulties, behaviour problems, gifted children, etc. contact Steve Colwill, Chief Education Psychologist. Telephone 01872 322000.

SK8 Park Project (Youth Service)
Mount Hawke, Skateboarding facilities and pool table, open everyday for over 11’s. Ring 01209 890705 to check details. Winter opening Wednesdays and Fridays 1pm to 9.30pm, Weekends, 10.30am to 7.30pm, with more days and hours in school holidays. Entry fee £4.00.

Teacher Previews of Museum Exhibits
In the case of home education, parents are teachers, so ring the Royal County Museum, Truro on 01872 272205 and ask them to send you their news bulletins, which can tell you what exhibitions are on and when the teacher sessions are, which might help if you take your children around (usually we are busy reading the signs and have trouble keeping up with them!).

Work Experience
Those home educated children in the equivalent of the last two years of compulsory education who wish to do work experience, are supposed to apply for their work experience weeks to those employers on the LEA for health and safety. The employers have insurance to cover themselves against harming the child, and it is possible, according to the Norwich Union, to cover the child against damage to the employers premises under the parents household insurance, under the public liability section, which should cover all members of the family. This bit is usually covered by the LEA, but not in the case of home-educated children the LEA says. The insurance company can provide a letter to the employer confirming that the child is covered, if they know the dates of the work experience, so phone up your own insurance company and ask if you want to set up work experience for your child and phone the LEA for a list of approved employers, or get one approved. Connexions are helpful here.

Youth Service
Youth Centres are open to all, some with a membership scheme, for young people 11-25 years old, at Newquay, Camborne, Redruth, Hayle, Saltash, and smaller projects at village halls. There is a mentoring scheme, special detached youth workers, advice, information, counselling, workshops covering a wide range of issues. For your local key staff, telephone the county youth service manager, John Appleton, on 01872 322496. If you want a home-educated-children-only event, you can set one up, or ask Anna.

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