Over the years I have at peak times advised up to 20 families a day, and also received many enquiries from across the country by desperate families seeking help, although I have generally been unable to assist these. In 2018 alone I responded to over a thousand enquiries, offering information and support in the vast majority of cases.
Apart from the last two years I also ran a professional and complete school appeals advice service, using local knowledge on a unique basis in the country. This proved extremely popular, with up to a hundred clients a year, predominantly in March. I stepped back from that a couple of years ago, and have since continued to run the telephone service for clients who sought more than the limited free advice I was able to offer to all. I have also offered informal advice to many governors, headteachers and teachers who have run into problems with the system and seen positive outcomes in a large number of cases.
It is with great sadness that I have made this decision, knowing that there appears no similar alternative source of individual independent advice in the county, or indeed across the country. I hope that the KentAdvice website will continue to provide information and advice for those with difficulties and plan to extend its scope to help meet the gap.
In particular I am very grateful for the many informants, both professional and by virtue of their position as parents, who let me know of education issues across the county that often serve as the basis for news stories and investigations and campaigns affecting the education service. Many of these have changed practices for the benefit of children, in a few notable cases on a national basis. Please continue to support education in this way.
Peter
