Making another complaint.

I wish to make a complaint about the episode of Waterloo Road shown on Weds 18/02 on BBC 1, and also available on IPlayer.

From the BBCs own impartiality and drama guide:

“When drama realistically portrays living people or contemporary situations in a controversial way it has an obligation to be accurate and to do justice to the main facts. If the drama is accurate but is a partisan or partial portrayal of a controversial subject we should normally only proceed if we believe that its insight and excellence justify the platform offered. Even so we must ensure that its nature is clearly signposted to our audience. When a drama is likely to prove particularly controversial we must consider whether to offer an alternative view in other output on the same service.”

I can only assume that you did not consider your portrayal of home education in this programme to be controversial, although I assure you that it was. I suggest that further research is called for, and recommend the work of Alan Thomas and Paula Rothermel as starting points. There are many home educated children in this country, and I doubt very much that any of them are sitting in age limited groups being hothoused with multiple PCs around a dining room table, while another similar age group is suffering cramming in the living room as well. Home educators often choose instead to follow an autonomous education path, in which the children follow their own interests with the parents acting as facilitators. This can mean young children learning alongside much older ones, where they learn in group situations at all. We do choose to gather together in groups very often, to pool resources or expertise, to share activities and to socialise, both parents and children, although it does not resemble the groups shown in the programme.

I’ve never yet met a home educated child held back from going to school if that is what they want to do, and those who do choose to try it are usually extremely successful, despite the low expectations of teachers limited by their own prejudice who do not believe that home educated children can possibly have reached their potential without trained intervention.

I find it disturbing that this programme giving such a negative interpretation of home education has been aired at precisely the same time that the government is conducting yet another review into home education, this time alleging that home education is being used as a cover for child abuse, domestic servitude and forced marriage, without producing any evidence for these allegations whatsoever.

I would like to know what you intend to do “to offer an alternative view in other output on the same service.” I would also like for you to apologise before the next episode of Waterloo Road, explaining the lack of accuracy of your portrayal of home education, and to display an explanation of this on your website alongside the IPlayer episode. There was certainly neither insight nor excellence involved in this episode, and your drama has been damaging to the reputation of a law abiding minority of the population who are already suffering media slurs regarding child abuse that can be directly attributed to both the government and NSPCC.