with the flood of press releases today.
We’ve had the government’s full response to the Graham Badman review.
We’ve had the announcement of a forthcoming review into the definition of suitable education for home educated children.
We’ve seen Graham Badman’s latest attempt at proving that home educated children are more at risk than those in school (download link).
All on a Friday. Odd time to be releasing this type of thing. They probably hoped that no one would notice, except of course for this annoying minority of EHE who keep rattling on about civil liberties. And don’t get me wrong, this is about civil liberties, and I’m going to go on rattling on about it.
Let’s take a look at that first response.
Wherever a child is educated, local authorities (LAs) need to be assured that each child is safe, well and receiving a full time education, suitable to their needs and abilities. The safety and well-being of all children is of the utmost importance and where local authorities have concerns about the safety and welfare, or education of a home educated child, effective systems must be in place to deal with those concerns.
Um, no. That’s not the LAs responsibility. That’s the parents’ responsibility and it is only up to the state to get involved if everything else failed. And I also refer you to my previous post, as safe as necessary, not as safe as possible. Given that LAs can’t educate the children in their institutions according to the guidelines above, and manifestly do not keep all those children safe, I think that they should concentrate on getting that part of their house on order, and stop trying to add all home educated children to a massive haystack which will actually have the effect of making all children slightly less safe.
And as for the idea of a review into the definition of a suitable education, what precisely are they going to review? I’d love for this country to have a debate about education, what it means, what it is and what it’s for, but I can’t see it happening, really. This looks to me like another stab at taking responsibility away from parents, who are the right ppl to decide what is right for their children. If your kids are in private school, don’t worry, I’m sure you’re next on the target list.
But I’m not about to run away from this, or any other battle over my children. They are my children. I carried them, I birthed them, I fed them, we have clothed, fed, loved and educated them and we will continue to do that. If we were to neglect them, then fair enough, there are systems in place that should protect (but all too often, sadly don’t) but choosing to home educate them according to our beliefs and philosophies, while obviously very scary to the government, is not cause for concern on grounds of either neglect or abuse.
This is where we live. This is how we live. This is my line in the sand, my family, and you will not affect them adversely any longer.
So please, just stop it now. You’re boring us.