response to my complaint.

You may recalled I complained about Waterloo Road.

I’ve just received a response.

Thanks for your e-mail regarding ‘Waterloo Road’ broadcast on the 18 February.

We understand you objected to the programme’s portrayal of home education.

‘Waterloo Road’ takes the issue of Education very seriously and in order to tell this story about Home Educating, the topic was thoroughly researched by the editorial team at Shed Productions. In order to fairly and responsibly reflect the way Andy Harker was home educating his daughter, we used the website resource for home educators “Education Otherwise” which advises that “There are as many ways to educate, as there are families home educating. The method of learning which you choose to adopt is entirely up to you and your child. You can use any approach that you consider to be suitable.” Our aim was to show that Andy is part of an educational community in the fact that there are other kids learning in his home and although we are unable to go into vast amounts of detail about the daily ins and outs of this our intention was to give the impression that this is not an isolated/odd environment.

Most of the negativity about home schooling comes from Danielle Harker, his daughter, who is angry with her father for personal reasons and is using the forum of home education as a place in which to assert herself. We have always represented Waterloo Road as a school which has a mixture of virtues and social problems. Amongst its virtues are that it stands for inclusion and community, and Danielle is arguing to be allowed to remain with her friends as part of that community. However when Andy visits the school, he is confronted by teenage pregnancy and a French teacher who can’t conduct a conversation with him in French. This is all preceded by Andy Harker showing Eddie a newspaper article about the gun siege at Waterloo Road. He is rightly concerned about his daughter going to the school. By contrast, Eddie was ultimately impressed by what he saw at Andy Harker’s home and even goes as far as to suggest that Waterloo Road would benefit from his teaching methods were he to agree to taking on a role in the school. Taking all of this into consideration, we felt we were setting out a balanced view.

As regards deregistering a child from school our information is as follows: While there is no obligation to tell the LA directly (usually the school would do this), Trafford council encourage parents to do so. The DCSF Guidelines for local authorities on elective home education, also state “Local authorities may encourage parents to inform them directly of the withdrawal of a child from school, but have no legal right to insist that parents do so.” So, in taking this step, Andy Harker has actually showed himself to be going the extra mile, like a responsible home educator.

Finally as regards the term home schooling rather than home educator, it’s fair to say that “home educating” seems to be the preferred and most commonly used term, however, some government websites use the term home schooling when discussing the subject.

We appreciate your views on the programme and we’d like to assure you that we’ve registered your comments on our audience log. This is the internal report of audience feedback which we compile daily for all programme makers and commissioning executives within the BBC, and also their senior management. It ensures that your points, and all other comments we receive, are circulated and considered across the BBC.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us with your concerns.

Regards

BBC Complaints

!! I’m not done.