There follows a guest post by Jessica Turpin, a home educator who is concerned about the Government overreach of the new Education Bill, which grants local authorities sweeping new powers to regulate home education and force home educated children to attend their own failing schools.
Who is responsible for your child’s education? It may well surprise you to learn that if you are a parent in the U.K. today then it is legally your responsibility to ensure that your child receives an “efficient full-time education… either by regular attendance at school or otherwise” (Education Act 1996 Section 7). This law makes complete sense since nobody loves a child, knows a child or is more committed to his or her wellbeing than the parent. Moreover, as a committed Christian, I believe that the Bible clearly delegates the responsibility of educating and training children to their parents, as well as admonishing us not to exasperate them! There is no space for the Government to usurp us on this point.
Most parents entrust the educational aspect of parenting to the Government. They are perfectly entitled to do so. A few of us do not.
My husband and I have seven children, aged four to 11, including two sets of twins. We have never made use of Government nurseries nor of Government schools. We have elected to give them a Classical Christian education at home and have never looked back. If you lived on our street, you would likely want your children to be friends with my children. Indeed, they are well-known and well-liked. My children will not teach your child to swear, they will not sell your child drugs, nor will they show your child how to find pornography on the internet. They will not beat up your child. I am not trying to be funny; my husband and I know the faces of the local schoolchildren who would not think twice about deliberately injuring one of our offspring.
If you would take the time to get to know another home educating family, you will meet people who may well do things differently to us. Families have differing values and differing reasons for home educating. Many, like us, have never taken advantage of the ‘free’ Government system. A great number have been burned by the schools. A large proportion have children with learning difficulties who have given up hope of receiving the support they require at the hands of the Government and elected to bring education ‘in house’.
Now the Education Bill has landed. It is being discussed in the House of Lords this week and devoted parents who typically pay twice for education (once for your children and again for ours), who generally manage on one income, who spend their evenings planning, preparing and networking instead of relaxing in front of the TV, who are raising the children whom you will want to employ ten years henceforth, are about to have their freedom removed by a Government that does not know the limits of its own power.
Before you brush us aside as an unusual and dangerous breed particularly deserving of Government control, could I ask you to ponder a few questions. What would you do if your child were being mercilessly bullied in the school playground and left the house each morning in tears? What if your child’s teacher posted explicit sexual content on Facebook and after an ‘investigation’, the school found nothing to be concerned with? What if your daughter suffered sexual abuse in the toilets? What if your bright child in a class of 25 was bored and frustrated, unstretched and unchallenged in the abilities you know he possesses? Is there a point where you would say, “Enough is enough. A line has most definitely been crossed. I no longer wish to outsource my child’s education to the Government since it has been tried and found wanting. Henceforth, I will personally oversee my child’s education and ensure his or her safety during the hours of 9am until 3pm?”
Allow me a moment to walk you through the ways in which this seemingly prudent and wise decision would open the door to unacceptable Government intrusion into your family life.
Number one, your name will be put on a register. “Innocuous,” I hear you say. The Government has lots of lists. It has a list of sex offenders. It has a list of people with driving licences. (Do we really need a licence in order to educate our own children?) What many home educators recognise is that once the Government takes control of one area of life, it does not easily relinquish it. The tendency rather is to impose ever tighter controls. A very real concern amongst home educators is that a register will open the door to the requirement to follow the National Curriculum. I would like to suggest that if they standardise us, they are discarding riches. Take my family: today our ‘book-work’ included Latin, Greek, a proof of the Pythagorean Theorem and some creative writing on an imaginary visit to Wonders of the Ancient World. We also visited the park, tidied our bedrooms, read stories to a poorly four-year-old and discussed recipes for an impending birthday cake. Every aspect of our day was an opportunity for learning and I have absolutely no idea whether any of these ticks the boxes of the National Curriculum. Quite frankly, I could not really care less, but I do know that we are thriving and that my children are receiving a far superior education to the one they would receive at our local primary school. The beautiful thing is that not one home educating family in the U.K. will have had the same day as ours. I know that a number were standing outside the House of Lords with their children, representing us all and giving their little ones a wonderful opportunity to learn about democracy in action.
Number two, once our name is on this ‘register’ the Local Authority (LA) will be given permission to require “such details of the means by which the child is being educated and any other information that may be prescribed” (Education Bill Part 436C). Take one moment to think about what this undefined, vague and dangerous statement means. All it would take is for one slightly hostile member of the Local Authority (and home educators know that we are generally treated with suspicion) to be legally entitled to visit my home and they have an open door to ask me what I teach, when I teach, how much sugar I give to my children, whether they can read, whether they belong to a library, what we teach about marriage, gender, the environment, Covid and why we read the Bible with our children every morning. This is tremendous, unthinkable Government overreach. The state has absolutely no authority to require this information of us.
Number three, if we fail (or forget) to tell the LA that we are moving out of the area, if we fail to provide some of the information required or even make a clerical error (perhaps we omit to inform them that we have changed our spelling curriculum), then based on no definite legal criteria whatsoever the LA may come to the belief that our children are not receiving a “suitable education” and slap us with an immediate School Attendance Order (SAO) (Education Bill Part 436 I). The Government can literally force us to send our children to a Government school, the likes of which the Prime Minister and Education Minister have deemed not good enough for their own children.
Finally, if we do not comply with orders to send our children to school, we are guilty of a criminal offence. We become liable to a £1,000 fine and a 51-week prison sentence (Education Bill Part 436 Q). The loving parent is criminalised, and removed from her children who are presumably put into care. What an excellent use of taxpayers’ money. It is almost as though the Government has taken offence to the fact that we do not wish to use its education system.
Before I wrap up, allow me to quickly address the suspicion that home educators keep their children home in order to abuse them. Contrary to popular belief, we are devoted to our children. Nothing turns our stomach more than child abuse and we are committed to keeping our children safe from predators. Research shows that home educators are referred at a higher rate under the Children Act than other families (which means we are held in greater suspicion) but that there is no significant statistical difference in the rates of child protection plans for home educating families and other children between the ages of five and 16. There is simply no credible evidence for suggesting that children are at a greater risk of abuse in home educating families.
There is, however, a strong argument that in keeping our child home with us, he is far safer than he would be in Government schools. Ofsted recently visited 32 schools in order to conduct a review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges. Its findings revealed that 90% of girls and nearly 50% of boys report being sent explicit videos and picture of things they do not wish to see. Moreover, it recommends that “even where school and college leaders do not have specific information that indicates sexual harassment and online sexual abuse are problems for their children and young people, they should act on the assumption they are.”
Six years ago, the Scottish Government tried to bring in the Named Person scheme and the Supreme Court in London ruled that, “The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is to get at the children, to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families, and indoctrinate them in their ruler’s view of the world.”
Dear Government, by whose authority do you presume to enter our homes, assume the right to require whatever personal information of us you so desire and insist that we use your schools?
Might I suggest that you get your own house in order before you seek to tell me what to do with mine?
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Non-indoctrinated critical thinkers are a danger to over bearing governments. We homeschooled too.
How else are they going to indoctrinate them?
We need a leave-me-alone-ist party to vote for. Trouble is, people of this mindset are all trying too hard to be left alone.
Weren’t these traditional conservative values at some point in history?
The Conservative Party is dead – its crumbling “Associations” are run by Zombies
It is now the antidote to politics and is no longer even reliable as a Marriage Bureau. Even its ‘Social Events are sad affairs indeed and its “Hot Pot Suppers” would have shamed the WVS in WW2!
But the party of bureaucracy now has such a huge constituency. I don’t know how many get their working wage from the state, or depend on such a wage. 5m is the govt minimum, plus quasi state employees, so called 3rd sector.
They all need stuff to do, and monitoring is much easier than creating.
How can schools brainwash kids if they can’t hold them against their will five days a week?
and I figured schools were there just to artificially nudge both parents into working and boosting economic rents.
A government run by a bloke who probably doesn’t know how many children he has, or what they’re called, is hardly likely to worry about your kids.
He doesn’t bother himself with education matters – he delegates that to a lackey.
Like the online security act, this is another solution looking for a problem to allow itself to gain power. We had to home educate our youngest because her learning issues and bullying made school horrendous for her. Our others went to traditional schooling. That decision belongs in the hands of parents. While there is a role for oversight (by those who are sympathetic to home education) to avoid abuses, just as more oversight was needed to avoided the establishment of madrasas, there needs to be very well defined measures, and an appeals’ process that brings abuses by regulators into the light.
I do not believe oversight is needed, there are plenty of existing laws. Legislation rarely has the intended effect either, nowadays it mostly becomes a money spinner for consultants…
More rules and regulation no one asked for and no one needs.
Coz that’s what we all want. More rules, more being bossed around. Yes please,.more!
On the one hand, the government should leave family’s alone who are successfully home schooling kids. On the other, there’s plenty of ‘home schooled’ kids who aren’t being schooled at all by shitty parents who simply don’t care. IMO, this second group does need some form of protection and getting them into school is often going to be the best solution.
Given that the education and pastoral care in actual schools so frequently falls woefully short of even “inadequate”, I suggest the government puts its own house in order first. Far more children will be harmed in the school system than by homeschoolers.
After waiting several hours for their ‘vaccination’ the ‘educators’ then go back to their dingy dwellings to home-school their children. Microwave pizza or a can of Heinz soup for lunch.
So what you’re saying is that people who educate their children at home can neither cook nor assess the safety of an experimental ‘vaccine’ produced by a company with a criminal record as long as your arm? And your evidence for that assertion is…?
I was suggesting that a great deal of parents are too thick to educate their children. Many were certainly stupid enough to be fooled by the Covid scam.
Maybe so, but school teachers have hardly covered themselves in credibility when it comes to masks and jabs.
And you base your assessment of home schoolers on?
Unless you have evidence I recommend avoiding making general assumptions.
Though I grant it could be true that many were more frightened of Covid than of taking an experimental vaccine with 28 days of dubious testing, but that wasn’t because they’re stupid. It’s because they were deliberately misinformed.
That’s doubtless because they were churned out by the same brain-numbing state sausage machine originally built to churn out compliant little cogs to feed the dark satanic mills of the industrial revolution.
Future generations face an even worse fate as grist for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, on a cradle to grave treadmill of endless learning/training, courtesy of Pay for Success ponzi schemes. Plus ca change.
Rubbish. Theoretically true, but practically rubbish.
Scary
there should be a bit more rigorous oversight on home education but not to the extent of being overly burdensome.
some record of what is being taught and some measurements per term should be a minimum.
Why? Only a sham version of this exists in State schools. I for one believe a grounding in the classics of English Literature (yes, even if written by ‘priveleged white men’) is preferred to ‘the language of text messaging’. Also, who would ‘measure’? Surely not an Education Department with a vested interest in proving that the Woke pap it serves up is more nutritious than wholesome home prepared fare?
‘Also, who would ‘measure’? Surely not an Education Department with a vested interest in proving that the Woke pap it serves up is more nutritious than wholesome home prepared fare?’
Exactly!
Sadly some irresponsible people will abuse the home education concept and ruin it for everyone.
some system needs to be put in place to ensure the kids are actually being educated.
I assume that 99% of home educators are genuine. It’s that 1% that needs to be weeded out.
Would also be good to see some kind of measurement as other parents may be encouraged to do likewise, we are not all blessed with reliable attentive schools & more parents may be willing to give if a go if they see how well other parents are getting on.
Intrude on and inevitably restrict the 99% to ‘weed out’ the 1%? Hardly a democratic solution.
Anytime I hear ‘a solution has to be put in place to ensure’, when associated with Government it fills me with misgivings. In what world would an Education Department admit that independent parents were doing as good or heaven forbid a better job than ‘the professionals’.
Given that ‘mission creep’ is baked into any government initiative it would only be a matter of time before minimum parental qualifications etc would be brought in.
Absolutely. As usual, the solution to a small number abusing the system is to punish the collective.
and keep ignoring the excuse to meddle.
I’m not sure why you are receiving down ticks for pointing out the obvious. Whilst parents like the authors are aggrieved at this, there are children out there who are being ‘educated’ in unregistered unchecked jihadi faith schools and we have to stamp them out.
These ‘faith schools’ are our planned future – look at the constant steam of arrivals at Dover .
It seems we are the planned “Extinction” ‘Extinction Rebellion’ was ranting about!
I assume you mean the schools, not the children. If there are “jihadi faith schools” they should be monitored, not home educators.
“I assume that 99% of home educators are genuine. It’s that 1% that needs to be weeded out.”
It’s 50-50 with the state’s taxpayer-extortion funded schools.
So what?
If, as you say, 1% of homeschooled children are taught absolutely nothing, how will they stack up against the average state schooled leaver?
At an absolute minimum, the UK would have to be producing high-quality school leavers in order to make your argument hold water. They do not.
I got much more from Orwell and J. D. Salinger than from Shakespeare.
Shakespeare is garbage, but English in general is taught abysmally at school. Grammar doesn’t seem to be taught at all. The correct construction of a sentence doesn’t seem to matter, as long you are understood, but if there are no rules, then it is just by chance that you are understood. Misunderstandings happen all the time as a result of poor language skills.
I agree shakespeare is garbage – also Chaucer which I believe is part of the curriculum.
I don’t think the state should have more rigorous oversight on home schooling – that will be the thin end of the wedge. I think the state should stop interfering with people’s choices.
It was dreadful when the State insisted on sewage systems and other public health measures – it was good in the Olden Days when you could educate your child in your hovel and then they’d die of cholera, typhoid and tuberculosis at the age of 20.
Stop being so binary, EF.
And by the way, we don’t have State to thank for better health and sewerage systems.
Why? Surely the minimum is to ensure the children are not harmed. Parents do not want to harm their children. Sure there are some psychos, but no amount of intervention will prevent that sort of thing.
Psychos do very well at blending in. They wouldn’t stand out by home educating their children.
The parent-child relationship is sacrosanct.
The right to control the education of your own children is fundamental and there should be no compromise on this.
The problem of abusive parents (leaving aside the inherently subjective nature of that term – what was once almost universally viewed as legitimate discipline is now widely viewed as abuse) is not well addressed by shifting children to abusive institutions.
Undoubtedly a significant contribution to the centralisation of control of our schools and their curriculum has been mass immigration, and the controls introduced in response to the issue of muslims educating their children in ways we view as inconsistent with our interests.
This is inherent to mass migration and the poisonous cultural divisions it introduces into a society.
They have used the neglect and bad parenting of a few as an excuse to take away parenting rights from everyone.
It’s the modus operandi of the collectivists. What they essentially want is to tell everyone how to live their lives and they use the bad example of a few to justify setting rules for everyone.
Every time something undesirable happens in our society, there is a rush by the collectivists to make new rules and regulations to “make sure it never happens again”. There is no analysis of the cost and implications of these new rules and regulations. Or even whether they are effective.
And bit by bit we end up with a society that resembles living inside a water tank with a slowly rising water level, slowly but surely thinning out the space left to breath.
Very true. The only way that the powers that be imagine they can hold together a naturally fissiparous society – and any “multicultural” society is certainly that – is by busily indoctrinating the masses without exception and without respite.
My eldest daughter was mercilessly bullied, by the Head Teacher of a prominent Grammar School. The local authority and I eventually had the bitch sacked. Fortunately my daughter is as bloody minded as me and came through it unscathed.
I’m in full support of home schooling, but do think there should be some means by which children are seen occasionally to establish their welfare, not to judge the education, unless the children are obviously falling behind is critical areas such as language progression. I would imagine just talking to a child and judging their vocabulary would be a reasonable indicator of their progress.
The United Nations enshrines the welfare of a child solely to its parent’s/carers, but then anything UN is used at government convenience. For any practical purposed is largely meaningless for individuals.
Meanwhile, Boris is threatening to sack rafts of civil servants. Where does he expect to get the staff to undertake all this jack booted intervention into family life?
As I mentioned the other day, there are long lines of civil servants lining up at their bosses door every morning desperate to persecute the public for their personal pet hate.
Home schooled? Independent thinking? Christian?
You are dead right to be worried. Make no mistake, this Bill is aimed directly at people like you and your children. It will not help kids being abused at home or those deprived of an education. But it will bring a swarm of blinkered, hostile government busybodies into your lives to try to change everything you believe in and replace it with woke, lefty, half baked, dogmatic codswallop.
Keep fighting. All power to you.
My kids are all grown ups now and making their contribution to the world. They all have academic qualifications, jobs, friends and all.
I home educated the younger three of them. My youngest daughter I took out of school to travel round Europe in an old school bus. A number of family crises had brought us to our knees and we needed a complete break and rethink.
Her education at that time consisted of visiting the galleries and sights of Europe, which we paid for by busking (mum, dad, eldest daughter and younger daughter singing trad british folk sung acapella in 4 part harmony) in the streets of towns like Vienna and Prague.
When we returned to the UK I didn’t send her back to school. The trip had radicalised me – seeing a real world education in action.
My two boys, considerably younger than their sisters each spent a week to try out in nursery class before they were removed and the local authority informed that they also would be educated otherwise.
Our local education authority kept a register when we were home educating.
We were on this register because my daughter had been to school and been withdrawn. A friend never sent hers to school and was not on this register until her neighbours reported her to the education authority.
We were periodically sent an intimidating form asking us to time table every half hour through out the day and evening for the full 7 days of the week.We never filled one in, just sent it back marked inappropriate. There were no further consequences.
We were inspected by offsted every year.
I have no idea if this was an attempt to intimidate us because the inspectors that turned up loved visiting and talking to the children – who loved having someone to show off what they’d been up to. They said things about how nice it was to be in a place where people were actively engaged and excited by what they were doing. We didn’t have a formal timetable and as both the boys are dyslexic – we found other ways to approach literacy etc. I had the feeling that everyone was a bit relieved that the boys were being educated otherwise – that the local authority wouldn’t be burdened with the additional expense and resouces.
Despite our unorthodox approach to their education – based on what does a well rounded person need to know to live well and what would inspire a child – we were never instructed to do things in another way or threatened. Neither was anyone else I know. The wording as I remember it states that the education has to be suitable to the age and needs of the child – it doesn’t prescribe what that should look like. Has that changed?
What you describe sounds threatening but I imagine the local education authorities are stretched and overburdened as much if not more than they were in my day – and probably just as willing to leave well alone. We shouldn’t have to rely on our ability to get round things or slip through the cracks unseen, I wholly agree. I hope that – like so many things over the past two years – this will be a paper exercise, as I found it to be in my time.
Best wishes to you and yours.
Hear, hear!
Travel is The Best Thing Ever. Proper travel, like what you did! All the best!
Sadly, people believe travel is 2 weeks in Benidorm every year.
I always think of it now as ‘grand tour’ and mobile encounter group:
Dimensions of coach – 28ft long, 8 ft wide, 8ft high.
Home to
2, sometimes 3, teenagers, one of whom was just recovered from life threatening mental health issues
two under 3’s in nappies, one of whom might be described as sharp but ferral
1 slightly deranged and grieving woman,
1 kindly but out of his depth and overwhelmed man driving a 28′ coach after a couple of goes round the country lanes here in Norfolk.
We ‘travelled’ on lots of levels – and we were transformed…for the better I like to think
All the best back to you.
Sadly, I guess you were never refunded the Taxation you paid to have your children educated by the state.
No, and we were very poor in money terms. But its all swings and roudabouts isn’t it, over the years? I pulled on state provision when it was needful in ways that other people might not have needed.
I guess that’s been one of the scariest things over the past two years – that the somewhat tattered safety net we could access was removed.
I pay tax and have no children, but I don’t complain.
It is to my ( and society) benefit that people are educated.
“We were inspected by offsted every year.”
“Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education”
I don’t think I would have been able to teach my kids A-level Geology / Mathematics / Geography / Biology / Physics / History / Art / English Language / Music / German-French-Russian-Spanish / Chemistry.
And I can just imagine taking a 12-year old to an art gallery and the child saying “Boring!”
I know who Offsted are, thanks. The inspectors who came to our house often spoke of what they encountered in state schools while they were with us. They applied the same standards to us that they used in school situations.
Education otherwise – according to the legislation then – in the 1990 -2000’s doesn’t require a child to sit or pass exams – just that they receive an education that is ‘suited to their age and aptitude.’
My kids found they didn’t require A levels for their first degrees. Later, one of them was required to get a maths GCSE when she started her midwifery career.
We didn’t have a tv in our house while the kids were growing up- or in the bus – and we didn’t have a computer or mobile phones until my youngest were teenagers. So my kids were limited, I guess, in what was offered to them – but they were open to what was offered.
Some things they liked and carried forward – my eldest daughter is quite a successful pro folk singer and musician, my boys don’t play or sing though the rest of us are all gigging muscians, they’d all go to a gallery or museum, historic site in whatever town they visited. They all read widely.
I think the ‘boring’ response is a question of what value they see adults around them give to things together with a child’s innate temperament. Just as well, don’t you think? T’would be hell if we were all the same wouldn’t it?
“I know who Offsted are, thanks.”
Then why are you spelling them as ‘Offsted’ instead of ‘Ofsted’?
A mistake. Heavens above! Shoot me dead – sitting there as I was this morning in my nightie.
My apologies.
I still know who they are
Bless ya!
One f too many and the green chicken rustler is ready to pounce.
From reading your remarks on the DS, I don’t doubt your lack of ability to teach most of the subjects that you have listed, but English Language?
I have no qualifications for teaching English, but was asked if I could teach some English to employees of Helsinki City Transport in the 1990s, and this I did – 36 evening lessons for a year and a half (ending with a 9-day trip around England in a mini-bus), and a continuation for about 3 years at their driving school: ‘Customer Service English’ for new bus, tram & Metro drivers.
All seemed to go OK. A lot of work and I lost many of my free days (got extra pay, of course), but I did it, and everyone seemed happy with what I did and the results.
I had to teach using the Finnish language.
You don’t need qualifications to home school. I can’t tell, from your comments, that English is not your mother tongue; in fact I assumed you were an Englishman living in Finland. Your arguments against Christianity are, on the other hand, no better than those of a fourteen year old schoolboy. I guess you can’t win them all.
As I have written before on here, f*ck with my children and I will f*ck with you. I don’t care who you are.
We are home educating (in the official sense) our two since October 2020 when it became finally crystal clear to me that the LEA, the “government” et al really don’t care a rat’s arse about even basic safeguarding of minors, never mind education.
Our days are a lot like the author’s. Well done, Jessica! Hope, strength and tenacity to those who think and judge for themselves!
Schools no longer educate or seek to build character and self-reliance -they indoctrinate in Mask wearing, Globalism, Gender swapping, and Carbon Neutral fascism.
Worst of all they cage children pointlessly and waste their precious time in school days that are 80% worthless, boring and time -wasting.
In the face of this abdication of responsibility by the State to educate, it is becoming a matter of pure Common Sense and even a “duty of care” for people to seek to educate their children at home if they have the means.
Man after my own heart. Nor would I have stopped short at physical violence.
My kids are up and gone and were educated conventionally, and rather well to be fair. But I was the parent from hell and every teacher/head teacher tippy toed round me very carefully.
This rotten Johnson Government is becoming an endurance test for the British population in fighting off their constant attempts at totalitarian over-reach.
What does the quixotic Johnson think he is doing with his tub thumping war mongering, crazy globalism, loony Extreme Green Carbon Zero nonsense and deliberate destruction of our economy our basic freedoms and our entire way of life?
He needs to look at the ridiculous and laughable figure of Schwab, sounding off at Davos this week, waving his arm in the air in a comically accented ‘Ve are zee masters of zee future now!” rant!
The Übermensch has never looked so pathetic and yet Johnson kneels at his feet while we suffer the deliberately demoralising and fear generating consequences – from censorship, to lockdowns, to inflation, to engineered food shortages, enhanced monkey pox hysteria, threats of a smallpox “pandemic” from Gates, to Covid vaccine induced injury and death denial .
Abuse by Government! Abuse by Globalists!
Our politics is dead – we have no political parties worthy of the name and we desperately new a New Party and a new politics to stop the Johnson- Starmer rot and represent the people of this country and not the World Domination Fantasies of the corrupt elites, currently parading their self-importance via the WEF and the Tedros/Gates WHO.
“My husband and I have seven children, aged four to 11, including two sets of twins. We have never made use of Government nurseries nor of Government schools.”
But the Child Benefit payments have come in handy, eh?
Now, how are parents out all day at work, so that they can afford to pay the rent, and pay the electricity bill, and pay for petrol, and repairs to their car, supposed to be educating their kids at home?
Or does this ‘home education’ only apply to wealthy housewives? And in what way are they qualified in all the subjects (Chemistry, for example – do they have samples of lithium and sodium and sulphur in their own homes? – Biology – they got dead rats to be cut up for anatomy lessons?).
“we read the Bible with our children every morning.” – and there you have it, God-bothering nutters.
“Ned has the odd habit of attaching “diddly,” “doodly” and other nonsensical phrases to his sentences.”
All you say is true, and of course there are many benefits to the provision of free state education, and child benefits and the like, and it is an excellent service to offer to the general public.
However, the help that is provided through this use of taxpayers’ money doesn’t even come close to a justification of a legal requirement to follow a specific curriculum and system set by a handful of elites, who, as the author above pointed out, have deemed this very system to be unworthy of their own children!
If I knocked on your door and offered to educate your child, flashing an impressive portfolio of credentials in your face, and offered to do it for free or at the rate of taxation, you may think “nice offer”. But would you think it normal for me to enact legal proceedings against you should you decide to turn me down?
This is where I draw the line: The state interfering in family life to such an extent that if one strays just a little bit from the prescribed curriculum, set of moral standards and beliefs prescribed by a self-righteous coterie of bureaucrats, they are considered to have something wrong with them.
Every parent I know takes full responsibility for their children. I don’t know whether the full outsourcing of a child’s education and development to the government is a good thing or not. I’m just saying there’s no way it should be mandated.
Comments asterisked.
Now, how are parents out all day at work, so that they can afford to pay the rent, and pay the electricity bill, and pay for petrol, and repairs to their car, supposed to be educating their kids at home?
***Pre 1960s most families were single-income. Nowadays, many are single-income when the children are small. Sure, not everyone can afford to home-educate. Many more could though if they gave up certain things they’ve become accustomed to, eg Sky TV, takeaways etc. There are many low-income parents home educating. And did the writer say anyone that everyone should home educate anyway?
Or does this ‘home education’ only apply to wealthy housewives? And in what way are they qualified in all the subjects (Chemistry, for example – do they have samples of lithium and sodium and sulphur in their own homes? – Biology – they got dead rats to be cut up for anatomy lessons?).
***The children are 11 and less. Let’s see how it goes, eh? Perhaps if a child is very interested in chemistry a tutor could be employed? And yes sure that costs money. Or…could be that a Chemistry qualification isn’t essential to be a reasonably happy human being? Oh my goodness, could be that A-levels aren’t essential? Just putting it out there. How on earth did children manage to be contributing members of society pre…1945? How was that done?! (And no need to cut up dead rats for Biology either.)
“we read the Bible with our children every morning.” – and there you have it, God-bothering nutters.
***And, yes indeed, there we have it – that comment says SO much more about you than the writer.
I’m a teacher. Now a tutor. I used to be sceptical of home education for all but the wealthiest with enough resources to employ tutors. I’ve changed my mind. Yes I think there should be certain safeguards, eg for basic Maths and English, as with some parents it is unfortunately ‘the blind leading the blind’, but your particular comments/jibes hold little water.
Whilst one may present themselves to the world as an apologist for atheistic rat-disectors, there is little virtue in foisting their atheistic rodent-mutilation ideology upon the world. There are also myriad other pathways to the betterment of oneself than the systematic meddling with corrosive compounds in a personal basement-laboratory.
There’s nothing stopping parents from sending their kids to school AND then helping them out with their homework and extra education at home.
Children need a social life: ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’.
With our kids we gave them pocket money once a week – part of that was set aside and was to be used ONLY for buying reading material, and we would take them to bookshops now & then to see if there was anything they fancied. Also lots and lots of books in our house (very cheap from charity shops) so that kids could browse a wide variety of subjects.
It’s not easy bringing up children and although ‘home education’ sounds all very cosy with tea and cake, it’s much tougher than many can imagine.
I like the idea of being able to help my 3 grandchildren now – the eldest is 11 – but we live in the Time of the Smartphone and it is nigh on impossible to rip them away from these devices. Are things getting better or worse for society?
I agree that home ed is tough – and bits of it can be quite boring.
My grandsons come to stay for a few days on their own and are given very limited time on their phones – my house rules. They get twitchy without them I notice.
But they’re quite keen on the dangerous and naughty distractions provided here – going down to the sea at midnight to howl at the moon, chopping wood with hatchets without obvious supervision – how they love a hatchet, burning stuff in the fire basket, watching old un pc clips on youtube – the pub landlord, Monty Python etc as well as making candles, working in the veg garden, drinking the odd stubby, making their own pizzas from scratch for our movie nights – when I get to show them great films that manage to tell a story in 90 -120 mins. That they think I’m a bit bonkers helps…and this is a wild place, with the North sea a bare 200 yds from the door and no roads or street lights.
Always interested by that comment on home ed – that kids need a social life.
Its an odd kind of social life that consists of 100s of people round about your own age, doing more or less the same things at the same time and with almost no one outside the one particular institution you’re forced to attend.
Home ed is not just keeping your kids at home and trying to replicate what’s done at school. Its a whole way of thinking about education – a rethinking if you like.
All the chopping and changing – half an hour of this, an hour of that – just when you’re getting stick into something interesting drives my grandsons wild. I could never work out what the value of colouring for several hours a week was to my eldest daughter’s early school education. It seemed to me that a lot of what went on was simply ‘crowd control,’ the colouring, doing things by the bell etc. Seemed more like prep for the factory floor to me…
Good luck with the grandchildren. I’m sure you’ll find a way.
I agree with your post.
My kids did fine without school exams – they now hold Phd’s etc – not that any of them are currently engaged in the things they initially studied.
We did hire tutors for some things – latin classes, historic fencing classes with a Professor of Fencing when younger daughter took a notion to be a fight director, as well as the usual piano classes, dance classes etc.
We lived very simply and went into debt to give them their education – but we knew we’d be good for it once they’d flown. Our house held lots of equity so we sold when they were all gone, downsized and paid our debts.
It wasn’t easy but if I had the time again I’d do it all over – just harder and with less fear. Worth every penny, watching them now: brave, bold, thoughtful, funny, kind and competent men and women (a touch of mother’s bias lol.)
I studied biology at school to GCE “A” level without ever dissecting a rat and that was a long time ago, before the age of the internet. And I’ve learned more about cell biology and molecular machines in a few brief internet videos than I was ever taught in a school laboratory.
As for your stupid description of people who study the Bible as “nutters”, I know any number of Christians who would run rings around you in a debate, though in a contest of flippancy, I admit, you’d win hands down.
The decision to educate your child in a certain way is something our government have nothing to do with.
Agreed – provided they aren’t educated in such a way that the become a drain on the taxpayer or worse, they become a threat to other people.
As usual the government is targeting everyone rather than the tiny minority they should focus on and leave everyone else alone.
Fourth Industrial Revolution in action, i.e. surveil, track, intrude, mark, interfere, standardise, regulate, quantify, enumerate, dehumanise, demean, degrade. I don’t home school but if I did, I would be feeling violent reading about these proposed laws.
Having said that, I would like to offer a bit of a defence of the child indoctrination camps, or schools, described by other posters. Just this – we all went to one and look at us! We need to have a bit of faith in kids to be able to have their own minds and discern facts from propaganda. The technocrats likes to thinks they can get inside children’s heads – come the revolution, I suspect they will discover otherwise.
We all rebelled to one degree or another when in school or shortly thereafter.
When the children of successive generations realise they have been lied to about climate change in particular, there will be hell to pay. Faith in authority will plummet even further than it has done of late.
Whilst we often bemoan the march of technology, it’s also given the sceptics amongst us the means to communicate and gather in public squares like DS.
The government know home education families do an outstanding job, covid has exposed the failures in the school system , and we are growing in numbers , so rather than fix the failing system , it’s cheaper and easier for them to try to squash us, there’s a huge element of surveillance and control , we are the parents , not this failing government!!!!
Exactly, it’s the socialist way (and this under a conservative government). If there is a 2-part system where one doesn’t work, abolish the one that’s working (grammar schools anyone?)
This woman needs to think carefully what she wishes for – if the brats don’t go to a proper school how are they going to be indoctrinated with christianity? Let’s face it, without the church running education, christianity would be dead in the water
If children go to government school then they get indoctrinated with the same secular worldview you seem to embrace. Which explains your response to the article.
Agreed, religion is just a widespread cult.
It should have no part in education.
I read this book back in 2008, and remember Dawkins writing that, in some respects it was a pity there was no Hell, as that’s where a lot of nuns should be sent to!
OMG, The God Delusion, in which Dawkins makes a complete fool of himself and fails to understand Thomas Aquinas five ways. Even atheistic philosophers have found Dawkins’ arguments in that book to be a source of great amusement.
By the way, Dawkins said in River Out Of Eden that there was in reality neither good nor evil, so his moral objection to the actions of some nuns is completely illogical.
So you say. I disagree. Now what are you going to do about that?
Great article…parents should be the ones who decide who gets to educate their children.
who checks the Parents are suitable?
BBC et al are all are busy distracting the public with ‘Partygate’ BS while our freedoms are being stolen by the evil UK regime. Yet, next week everyone will be out celebrating the establishment with their Union Jacks.
Meanwhile we have a new scam on the scene going by the ridiculous name of Monkeypox. There’s growing evidence they’re using the ‘vaccine’ adverse effects as a vehicle for this scam.
Apparently, it is admitted by Pfizer that some people will spontaneously break out in shingles any time after being jabbed.
And just like the covid scam, this new “pandemic” was planned and exhibited at an event back in November last year.
We’re living in the calm before the storm here. They’re bringing about a global holodomor at the same time as tightening their control over us.
We must prepare and push back with everything we’ve got.
Mmm, what about abused children kept at home which there is no trace of? Yes health agencies should be on top of this but they are not. It makes sense for there to be a register of all kids who are not officially taught. You may view it is as sinister, I don’t – I view it as safeguarding.
When schools are closed (lockdown), that is a very bad thing, as Children don’t learn and become socialised. There are thousands of comments on this site saying so.
So why is is bad for Children to go to school, as this article suggests?
You can’t have it both ways.
Too pathetic a point to be worth debating.
Here’s the thing. I can see a common thread of home schooling as wanting to protect children, whether from state or society in general. I don’t decry that at all. As parents our primary responsibility is to protect our children and nurture them. However, bringing up children isolated from the realities of modern life has its own dangers.
Education is not just about teaching the stuff you want them to learn, but the stuff you don’t want them to learn. We raised our kids with State Schooling, but made plenty of time around it to add context and nuance to their thinking, literally to get them thinking critically about issues, and to understand that there is never one easy solution to anything, only trade-offs and compromises. We also ensured that they had lots of social time with other kids but within a controlled and positive framework, such as Scouting, Sports teams and the rest. They were lightly supervised, but supervised none the less.
Being married to a teacher, I can also tell you that kids that don’t learn from the national curriculum, don’t get the depth and richness of teaching. If they don’t then they don’t have GCSE’s to take to Universities or employers, and so don’t fare well as independent people. You have to accept that they will have to go and make their way in this messy, corrupt and compromised world, and nothing you can do as a parent can stop that happening one day. Better to give them the tools to fight the fight, than to try and keep them safe and protected. One day you will be gone, and they will have to do it for themselves. The sooner we all come to terms with that the better.
I am educating my daughter in 2 languages. She is 9 and fully bilingual (mother tongue level). She is more advanced that her peers in reading, writing, maths and science. You would think I should not feel threatened by the new school Bill. However, I do feel threatened, and the more I think about what it means for the future of home educated children, the more I worry. Why should my daughter and the education I provide (which is far superior to what is offered in any school) be scrutinised by an LA officer that has no appreciation for homeducation and no qualifications to support HE families? I glanced at a few job specs and adverts from LAs looking to recruit HE officers. They are quite a grim sight to be honest. What if said officer did not understand / care about my provision and decided it was not good enough? What if my daughter decided (which would be in her right) that she did not want to have said officer in our house for a meeting, show them her work, or engage with them etc. What if I made a mistake in filling in paperwork, was delayed in replying to information request (maybe cause I am ill or away) and I was issued with an School Attendance Order with no opportunity to respond, appeal etc. Why is the government focusing on home educating parents instead of investing more resources into failing schools? I feel this is a pure abuse of power and an incredible invasion of privacy for families. A punishment for not “conforming” by sending their children to government schools. A punishment for people that are simply striving to do what’s best for their children. Surely that’s not very democratic? Why are the parents of children that attend school not complaining about the waste of resources the bill would result in, resources that could be used for schools that their children attend – tight budgets, understaffed etc. It really does not make sense to me. We are doing just fine, schools are not and need help. Put your money and efforts where it’s needed.
This is another symptom of immigration being out of control. Because the government is concerned about Muslim madrassa home schools, the indigenous British have to suffer too.
I despise our governments and politicians.
They may be targetting madrassas using such a blunt instrument. Certainly they dare not attack them directly.
Christians are seen as an easy target, but that is because they do not know of the Power behind them.
The last thing we want is any more power, of any description, being given to local authorities. They invariably use those powers to push people around.
Many years ago we took one child (out of 5) out of school and home educated for a few years. Most opposition we met was from teachers and those who felt threatened by the idea that an amateur could do the job of a ‘professional’. An amateur built the Ark but professionals built the Titanic. Loads of other parents’ responses were more of the ‘I wish I could do that but I’m not good enough/couldn’t stand having my child around all the time’ variety.
“Moreover, as a committed Christian…….”
And that is why they don’t want you teaching your children.
Whilst you may not be home educating your children to abuse them, others may be. Some may be using them as free labour in sweatshops or teaching them to be suicide bombers. Many (including Christians) may be failing to educate girls to the same standard as boys because they believe that they should do nothing but marry and produce ridiculous numbers of children.
Regulation and inspection is entirely justified. What do you have to hide?
You’re right. There are growing numbers of people in our country with very diverse ‘cultural’ views and the girls especially might not benefit from home schooling to the level required in the UK. Perhaps not many would be home-schooled – who knows? But home schooling would serve to keep their ‘culture’ alive.
But, as you say, regulation and inspection is justified, so long as it’s not intrusive. As for the assessors’ qualifications though – no doubt that’s a different matter.
And while you may not be using your car to speed or your pockets to carry stuff to litter or your brain to hold thoughts that may be seditious or your house illegal items. Govt should check all those on frequent intervals to make sure that you are being a good boy/girl too.
After all what do you have to hide?
The Labour Party systematically destroyed high quality schools that enabled pupils from poorer backgrounds to climb out of that poverty cycle. The result is an education system full of mean, marxist rules and regulations that have effectively destroyed everyone’s opportunities. The result is a country full of low calibre ideas and people who are now employed in the public sector.
The UK has dumbed itself down to such an extent the clever, the curious and the capable have either left for pastures new or they have kept their heads below the parapet and hope they can get through on standing outside of regular society.
How long before they require a home educator to be quacksinated?
Jessica, a great and frightening article. What org do I need to join to help fight back this overreach?
The Education Act 1996 requires parents to ensure their children get an ‘efficient full-time education’. Logically therefore the Govt should be prosecuting all parents who send their children to a school which Ofsted deems to be “requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ as clearly those schools are not providing an ‘efficient full-time education’.
At the same time the Govt should keep out of homeschooling and only interfere when it has reasonable grounds to believe that the children are not receiving an ‘efficient full-time education’. Innocent until proven guilty and Govt does not have right to monitor us all the time for driving or littering and should not for homeschooling.
I used to be very suspicious of home education. My thoughts were, what kind of education are the children getting, how do the parents know what to teach? And I thought that the local authority ought at least to check on the kids’ progress. After the last few years seeing what the poor kids are being subjected to in schools I’ve completely changed my mind. This Bill must not succeed, it’s just a charter for ensuring all kids get brainwashed.
committed christians should be kept away from children if in any way possible .
they are as dangerous to children as paedophiles.