Lovely. Just lovely lovely lovely.

Get your coat. We're going out.

Shark, Squirrel and Tiger are being educated properly, in society.

I know what you're thinking. The smugbastard home educator voice is back.

You're too right. We don't get days like this very often. And when we do, I'm milking them.

Let's just say it's the sort of day* I can shove granola down my moralhighgrounded sanctimonious homeknitted knickers.

Now come along on the perfect child-focused journey of an ordinary day down the home educating range.

Tonight, Shark Squirrel and Tiger are out at a drama club with schooled children for signing, singing, and dancing. But let's start the school day here. At the art gallery.


Did you hear that? THE ART GALLERY. Because over at MKG they have an exhibition on Nasreen Mohamedi. This is the sort of thing we home educators take for granted. That someone else will organise the gallery tour, talk and workshop. And they will be much better organisers than Grit.

They are too. In fact the gallery workshop people are so enthusiastic, working at just the right levels, and the home ed group of kids so occupied and involved, that Grit wanders off and gets artsy Mohamedi style with the phone camera.


When she gets back, the gritlets are all absorbed in making Mohamedi picture lookalikes with bits of wool and pencils.


So absorbed in fact, that I need to threaten them with the radiator to make them come away.

We must be on time for the afternoon education in a field. This is also a large group event not organised by Grit, for which she is truly grateful.

Here is the afternoon home ed group, getting ready to explore the natural world under the faultless guidance of a real unbludgeoned teacher who is free to respond in warm ordinary human language and totally unencumbered by worksheet 3 key stage 2 because it's Thursday.


Her first activity is to blindfold the children and send them off into the wood. On any other day I might say that at this point I ran off to the car and hid, but this home education group is having such a good time and my children are so accommodating, I might stick around to see the smiles and hear the laughter.



The walk is so successful all round that I will not even comment about how Shark, Squirrel and Tiger look like they are interrogating a tree in the style of an OFSTED inspector. No. They are making their own identification sheets.


This small insight should prove that home education children are not only quite normal children, what with the sensitivity, understanding and competence to hang around an art gallery and become inspired and enthused by the work, they are also inquiring, interested, well adjusted children who can read, write, make friends, have fun, talk to trees and go home happy.

I think it might be called a primary education suitable for a child.

Smug bastard.

* Don't mention the problem with the tap. I'm taking advice from Heather. The washer will grow back. After a day of pure education like today, it will see that this is a house of perfect parenting and total righteousness and make that decision to fulfil its destiny of tapturnonable and tapturnoffable. It's just been that sort of perfect day, I almost believe it.