Your choice

Couldn't decide. What should be the ultimate memory du jour?

Vote, if you like.

That is the other thing I did today. I voted. On the home education community list poll back home.

Should home educators push each other about and prove the Local Authority right? Or should we all just quit the in-fighting and organise some damn activities? [Yes. No. Don't know.]

Local politics, huh? I could tell you about it, but local politics isn't very interesting. Maybe it should be...

1. How Chemistry is BRILLIANT!

School did not equip me for the fantastic fun of this subject. Mr Smith put his efforts into 45 minutes at the end of summer term 1975 with the instruction, If you are not taking O level, sit over there and keep quiet.

But chemistry is brilliant, isn't it?


In the flexibile and practical learning that is the wondrous landscape outside school, I hope my mini-alchemists are now as inspired as I am.


The materials are stimulating, YouTube is brilliant, and today's fantastic chemistry workshop, conducted by the beautiful and calm Mrs C, is truly worth four hours travelling back and forward across Hong Kong. (A feat which includes two boats, train, a 40-minute walk, a 10-minute taxi and a 20-minute bus ride. Effortless, because Hong Kong's transport infrastructure works.)


My only complaint about chemistry so far is that Dig refuses to bring me back a 2kg bag of potassium nitrate in his cabin luggage (spoilsport).

2. How Satanic-inspired gang mothers abuse gazillions of infants every minute!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here in Hong Kong, we read the UK news. Sometimes it reads like England lives in 1635. How else can you be so easily gripped by lurid images of ritual Satanic abuse, twisted maternal minds, and invisible evil corrupting our innocents?

In something like those tones (I remember the Satanic abuse, MSPB, and Badman), we read how England's children are abused up and down the country under your very noses. Make that 10,000 children and counting.

Is it only me? I can't help feeling a little suspicious about 'facts' like this. Yes, some children are treated appallingly. Yes, a civilized society helps them. And I wonder, for this new horror, what form will a 'wake up call' take?

Will it responsibly advance our culture, or take the easy way, and generate blind suspicion, neighbour to neighbour, from which point we all cry, something must be done?

I should mark the day. From here, the media won't keep a sense of proportion because level-headedness doesn't sell as well as hysteria. The NSPCC will have a political goal it won't come clean about. The Mothers' Union will continue their attempts to install a UK firewall. And on the back of the fact void of fear, software companies with links to religious organisations will be able to commercially promote their porn control software.

Well, I could go on about this. And if they come for my home educating interest again, I will.

3. How China already won the school race. Rest of world? Give up.

How many times must I see, hear, and have an annoying buzzing in my ears about the school glory of China?

Yes, their system succeeds. And if you make success like this in England, I'm never coming back.

In Hong Kong, the way it succeeds starts at birth. A child can take their first school assessment interview (for which they undergo preparation) at age 3. From then on, the schedule for every waking hour in school-related work is gruelling. From age 5, playtime's restricted. They don't get leisure time. They don't get stare-at-walls-create-it-yourself time.

Basically, the word in my grapevine is that Hong Kong students are lovely. Just very non-thinking, non-critical, dependent, unresponsive, and they want the bullet points so they can write them out straight back at you for the exam.

Like I said, you people in England don't want to be fobbed off with this school knows best for your A* and a pile of debt claptrap.

Life can be a bit more interesting than a string of A grades. In fact, I'd say that if the knowledge is worth knowing, it doesn't come with a grade attached.

Scrap it for number 3. Bored already.

3. How I am the slowest person in Hong Kong (Grade E) for catching on.

Straightaway, I apologise to the fantastic person who spoke the words you are about to read. Truly, it is not my story to tell, and it is a sad one, but I simply must share this narrative with The World. Nowhere less will do.

'Helen died. Helen of Troy. She hasn't been well for some time. She had a problem with her bladder. In the water she's always floated on top, but Monday we found her lying flat there, face down on the gravel, and we thought Uhu, that's it.

We want to give her some ceremony, so we're going to put her over the side of the Star Ferry. It's dignified. We were going to have the ceremony on Monday but we didn't have time, then by Wednesday we thought, She's going to start - you know - stinking, so we put her in the freezer. That's why I have to leave early.'

Because I am very dense and had my mouth open (which may have blocked my ears), it took me a time to work out that if you are Helen of Troy, your fate - shoved in a freezer and tipped over the side of the Star Ferry in dignity - is totally appropriate. If you are a goldfish.

You can choose today's post. Me, I'm going for Helen.

Or the knitting circle

This is the sort of lesson that my kids get involved with. The Home Ed Knitting Circle. Presently making fluffy jumpers for toy lions.


Ah, I have a sudden twinge of nostalgia for the good old days when I could have claimed it was a secret meeting of the Home Education Anarchy Group, plotting to destabilise England and Wales with two-ply.

You make the difference, not me

I see British Mummy Bloggers is running a promotional award. Some brave soul nominated grit's day for the Make a Difference category.

It was a kind thought, wasn't it? But let's be honest. I think my role in mummy blogland is pretty insignificant. And I'm not being modest, I'm being realistic.

I can only guess the nomination comes about because I blogged about Ed Balls, Graham Badman, the NSPCC and the DCSF in 2010.

Thanks to that foul brew - a controlling government, a national charity-business, a scattering of D-list celebrities, umpteen newspapers and some aggressive local authorities who wanted a bit more power - you all heard how parents look normal, but you must never believe them, because they're just pretending.

Really, they said, some parents are extremists. They're evangelical nut jobs. They're wild and wacko. They hide their kids, beat them up, and prevent them from getting an education. Some parents, don't you know, are just plain wrong, bad, and misguided. Worse? Their kids are failed, and at risk of abuse.

The parents they talked about were home educators, like me. The children they referred to were mine, the home ed kids.

Why did those people say what they did? I can't answer in a line, but the impact was, they were cutting back the freedom for us all to choose the education best suited to our own children.

So yes, I started to holler. About that defamation of our life. About the attack on educational styles. About that loss of freedom of choice. I hollered, just the same, along with hundreds of other people around this country.

Together we organised ourselves locally and nationally. We linked groups, created petitions, challenged 'experts' and authorities, argued calmly, went berserk, sent out spokespeople, told you what we did, publicised the laws, pursued authorities. We went out and about as normal. We went to Parliament. We made ourselves a public nuisance. And we all wrote and wrote and wrote - letters, articles, blog posts.

I don't know, as a result of all that effort from everyone, how many people thought more about what they were told - about home educating parents, about home educated children - or whether people began to be more questioning or open in their own opinions and ideas. I don't know how many people took the opportunity of information and knowledge, went to their local school and demanded action on flexischool; nor how many people looked at their own children and wondered whether a different form of education would suit them better.

What I do know, is that any parent, any adult, who did not accept passively what they were told in that hard time, but who listened and thought, for a moment, about the politics, the media, the culture, the education we all want our own children to have - you made a difference. Not me. You.

The moment any of you stopped to think about what you heard from those in power, stopped to consider options to school, did not dismiss people like me and my family out of hand - you made a difference. You made a difference to the culture we live in, to the acceptability of our chosen education, to our ability to build a lifestyle in our community, to my kids, to me.

I won't canvass for a vote. I like to see any positive publicity for choices in education. But ultimately I couldn't care less about any award culture or any tick in a box. And I don't deserve any nomination any more than any other home educator or any other thinking parent who actively chooses their child's education, whether it's mainstream, off beat or unique.

What I do care about, more than anything, is that we all have freedom to choose. I want those principled unschoolers, radical autonomous, and all their kids to be left alone to get on with life. I want the flexischoolers who need both worlds to be encouraged. I want the school-at-home to be left to choose the support they want from a local authority. I want, for people like me, who wander from one end to the other of the spectrum, who try it all, to be left without judgement to follow our path. And I want the people who choose mainstream school to choose it because they want that service, not because it's there and it's free childcare.

Probably, I'm naive. But I think, you vote for freedom of choice, not by a tick in a box, but by what you do and say, every time you meet a child outside school involved in an education which is non-mainstream, every time you meet a home educating parent, and every time you think, Yeah, all those varieties of education? That's normal.

You want to go and vote? Go and vote for someone who actually gets off their arse. Go and vote for Making it up by Live Otherwise.

I upset a receptionist, become an anarchist, and shoot myself in the foot

Yesterday and today, Shark, Squirrel and Tiger have been booked into art workshops.

The workshops are great. The kids work with artists, and make stuff.

Meanwhile, I make a nuisance.

To book the kids into art workshops, I must present myself at a reception and give my name and contact. That is OK. Tiger might burst into tears. Squirrel might fall out of window. Shark might self-combust.

But perhaps I am not the right person to be asked for any more. The receptionist hands me forms requiring permission to photograph, information about allergies, permission to take off site, agreement to emergency medical treatment, my contact details, all emergency contact details (evening and daytime), our doctor's contact details, my agreement to policies and procedures, all our names, dates of births, addresses, how far we travelled, agreement to email contact, agreement that payment is nil.

For a two hour kid workshop making patterns on paper.

When the receptionist hands the second lot of forms, I snap.

Snappy Grit slaps the forms back on the desk. In a tetchy voice I ask why should I provide details of ethnic origin, whether any of my children are disabled, whether any of my children have special learning needs, how I heard about the workshop, whether I need information about disability access, or whether I would like this information in large print. Why.

The receptionist narrows her eyes and says - as if all this information is casual, is nothing much, just a little about you, who you are, how you can be counted - she says, with a shrug of her shoulders, It's just if you want to be on our database.

And her tone and her manner could have said, 'If you're the sort of parent who doesn't dump your kids and run, the sort of parent who wants these services to continue, the parent who cares, then of course you'll fill in these forms.'

I lay the pen down and grimace. I am bull at red rag. The receptionist flicks at her hair and glances away. She is unsure. I am too difficult. I do not fit. I am a parent who is a problem.

Yes I am. I am proud to be a problem parent.

I stand, and smile a chill you to the bones grimace smile.

If I had a soap box right now, I would whip the thing out from my handbag, stand on it, and shout that I have had enough. Our compliance as parents is essential to how this society is governed. Our readiness to hand over all our information, to accurately complete all forms, to give unquestioningly our agreement to be databased, to accept this is how we are counted, to be passive in the face of further and further information collected about us, as if all this information is casual, is an outrage against who I am.

You do not fit me inside your institutional boxes. You do not define me. You do not describe my experience. You do not tell me who I am. You do not hold my actions to account. You do not describe what areas of weakness I have that can be addressed by your attention. You do not identify the areas of my personality which are deficient to your system. You do not improve me to your better fit. You do not own me. You do not control me.

Who is describing who I am? I describe who I am.

And right now, I am angry.

I glare at the receptionist, and in this moment of awkward tension, she turns away, and busies herself collecting papers.

Two hours later, Shark, Squirrel and Tiger burst from the wood workshop declaring this is one of the best art sessions they have done. Delighted, I ask the artist how we could buy his time for a workshop with a happy mixed-age group of home educated children to learn about cutting, shaping, and decorating wood.

He waves me in the direction of the building opposite. No problem, he cries. Just go to the building over the courtyard, and book it through the receptionist.

quid pro quo

My mother worked in the National Health Service. She worked in a hospital laundry, and high summer days nearly killed her. The temperature gauge would edge ever upward, and she would dread the afternoon. She would come home and drink pints of cold water to replace the hot sweat that poured, literally, from her, as she fed bedsheets into steaming presses.

She taught me that if you take something out, you give something back. This was the way of a community. This was how things worked. This is how life is.

The women at our local Toy Library volunteer far beyond their hours; they greet everyone with smiles, and there's no effort they won't go to if the toddler likes a playmat, if the baby wants bricks to bash, if the five year old needs something else to cling to.

They helped me something extraordinary, at one of the most trying times. I'm teaching the little grits that when we borrowed all the toys, walked up there and back again every Friday with purpose and focus and goal, then that was a service we used, time and time again, and it's a service we support, back again, when we can.

This year, while we can, we do this strange thing. We look through old clothes and trawl the £1 rail once a week for fabrics that we can cut up, reuse and recycle. We bring them home, and sew them into toy bags: bags that the Toy Library can use to carry and store toys, and bags that can be played with, as play items in their own right. Every other Friday, we drop off what we've made. You can see this record over here.

For once, I don't feel smug about this. I think it's just a way of saying thank you. And here we are, at our particular point in history, and I need to feel what a community is, once more. Because I also know how vulnerable they are, and how quickly they can disappear.

Finding out about the life you damage is probably a tedious sort of responsibility

I've written some fifty comments now. I've posted none of them. You should be glad about that. They run the entire emotional gamut. From fall-to-my-knees and wring my hands, through to kickass smartass, bouncing back via plague upon ye all, then lifting my hand politely with the excuse me's, before falling backwards in a ditch swinging punches, yelling blasphemies that would rip the skin off your ears.

But over here it's my blog. I need to mark how I feel.

I am bewildered as to how a thinking person could look upon this world so busting with knowledges, so filled with ideas, spilling out with people and their lived realities, experiences, ways of seeing and ways of knowing - and then discount the lot of them.

Worse, this thinking person appears unable to put together a coherent argument which explains why all these people should be ignored.

Maybe it's because 'if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear'. Perhaps the real issue is the 'safeguard'. It might be education, especially 'language learning'. It could be 'Muslim girls'. There we have it: home educating Muslim families need inspecting, so we'll inspect the lot of you.

Then what happens if so many ordinary home educating families present coherent arguments, rationales, questions? Dismiss us. Better make it flippant. Home educated children clearly need help if they are so foolish as to worry about a stranger entering the house to inspect them.

All incomprehensible, then. And I am filled with dismay. Sad, too. Yes, because these people have power over my life, and care not one bit for the damage they do.

How are you judging us so far?

You know the British like to judge, right? And they don't do it directly. They do it politely.

Your best friend says, Where did you get that choker? (Trans. For god's sake lose the choker. What is it? Cut here?) Or they might say, That dress is an unusual fitting! (Trans. Walk three paces away from me.) Or, Did you do much over Christmas? (Good Grief! You've not been to the gym! Look at that enormous ARSE!)

Because you are BFF you let them get away with it. And you will have your revenge. On their wedding day.

But then! Disaster! You have kids! Your BFF disappears because Sorry, can't come to chat, am soooo busy at work. (Trans. God you're Booooring. It's all babiesbabiesbabies with you.)

This leaves you alone with dopey 17-year old Chardonnay who only comes because the NNEB tutor forces her, or the Asda instant coffee group, formed mostly of antenatal mums who sit in a circle and cry about their divorce.

Now you're a parent, judgement continues to pour in. Because you're vulnerable, you feel isolation, insecurity, guilt and misery. Are you going to feed the baby? (Trans. You baby murderer.) Does any baby really need that? (Trans. You baby murderer.) Would you hold the baby like that? (Trans. You baby murderer.)

It is hard enough to rip the damn squealer from your body in the first place without the rest of the world dropping judgement on what to do with it.

Now, while Grit has observed this huge and intense judgement that falls on new mothers - mostly via the technique of commenting on other mothers - she has largely escaped herself, on account of a thick skin and blasting beyond the knowledge of most people by popping out three at once.

When they see the indescribable Gritx3 coming, the opinionated hordes mostly shut up: they know they are out of their depth. And, quite frankly, my brass neck gets in the way of my hearing, so if there was an opinion offered to me by someone who hasn't any experience of what she is talking about (hello, Raquel!) then of course I don't listen. I ignore you and grunt uhu?veryinteresting. uhu?veryinteresting uhu?veryinteresting.

But then, I began home educating, and my perspective on those judgements widened. The world I now inhabit is filled with judgement, and most of it is ill-founded crap delivered, under the belt in a side-swipe, just as it was for the baby years.

At this point reader, relax. Because in my experience, judgement is not usually from other mums. Yes, I give credit to you school-choosing ladies. By this point, be honest, most of you couldn't give a toss. You discount me as beyond rational fringe hippie weirdo already. I appreciate that. Because it means you simply leave me alone to dream up a new home education type of insanity. Like, taking my own kids to the British Museum on a Thursday. If you hear about it from us, you just murmur, uhu?very interesting. uhu?veryinteresting uhu?veryinteresting.

So on the whole, I admit you school mums are pretty cool, and non-judgemental towards home ed. At least not blatantly, face-to-face, nor on my blog. I assume that is because we all share this rule, right, that we do what we think is the best for our kids. Even if you think what someone else does with their kids is crazy and not good parenting, you don't tend to yell it in my face. I thank you for that. I even try not to judge you in return! How nice am I?

Only one lady has ever gone in for the kill about my educational choice. They'll remain nameless. (Oh, what the heck. Hi Raquel! Let's see, was your opinion based on no experience at all? Not of school? Not of education? Not even of kids?)

But my point is, judgement is so ingrained in British culture, that we simply cannot be left alone to wear that black choker, feed a baby just like that, do our own thing in the British Museum. There is always someone out to judge.

There are plenty of folks who want to use your judgement to swing things in their favour. They would really like you to judge me. Negatively. And they are working hard to get you to do that. The headlines that we home educators are child abusers, didn't work on you. So they try something else.

Like in the response to the 5,000-plus people who gave an opinion about home ed. Mostly those 5,000 people said, we're doing fine, thanks!

But that's no good. People can't judge that, eh? So you need to be told what to judge. Here it is, because it will probably filter to you through the media, worse:

We received 5,211 responses to the consultation document of which: 2,222 were from home educating parents; 436 from home educated children/young people; 83 from local authorities; 40 from organisations representing home educating families; 40 from other organisations with responsibility for children. A further 2,390 replies fell into the 'other' category including anonymous responses, those who did not specify a respondent type; and 'campaign' type responses which were received after groups including the Christian Institute, Education Otherwise and the British National Party lobbied their members to reply to the consultation via their own websites.

See that? There are no explicit words which say We are discounting nearly 3,000 of the responses because they are written by home educators who are anarchists, illiterates, support extreme agendas, far right, far left, narrow-minded antisocial bigots, evangelical, and like to sacrifice dark skinned babies.

But did you get that distinct impression? From the positioning of those scare quotes? The use of the word 'other' to reinforce the idea of those who are different: the fringe loonies? The placement of the world's most reviled political party at the flourishing end of that long sentence, so that you just recall that name, more than any that went before, the BNP?

But now that your mind is introduced to that negative judgement, I guess they hope you'll discount this. They certainly will:

The majority of respondents said that visits to a family home by local authority officials were an unwarranted intrusion into family life and were completely wrong. Many felt that the visits would contravene Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights and were also discriminatory because officials did not have a legal right to entry to someone’s home without a court order under any other circumstances.

[...]

The majority of respondents, 4,217, disagreed with the proposed level of monitoring and thought that it was excessive, stating that Ofsted inspections of schools occurred much less frequently. 1,238 thought that the current law was clear and adequate and that the systems already in place would pick up where home education was failing. Others thought that where a parent had elected to home educate then the state/local authority should have no further responsibility regarding that child’s education.

I guess the point I can make from this document in full, is that you need to keep a very independent mind to cut through the judgements in this society, the judgements we all have an interest in you making, and simply think things through for yourself.

And make your own decision on the choker.

Bringing down the Balls Wall

Thousands of people have had a go at knocking down the Wall of Ed Balls. And yet it still stands!

They even have a special place for this great manly challenge - the floor of the House of Commons.

See those bleary-eyed, late-night educationalists, glued to their TVs, watching the great Wall of Ed Balls lump up yet again to deliver yet another Education bill? As Nick Gibb, the little con from Bognor Regis and Littlehampton points out, it's another year! There must be another Education bill! Listen to everyone involved in the practice of education cheer.

Look at them, poor sods, hunched before the embers, sipping on their late night cocoa, watching the debate of the Second Reading, hoping that this time the Balls Wall truly comes tumbling down.

Will anyone do it? Will anyone hammer through? The Balls Wall tactic is to stand up, framed in that enormous rectangle grey tarmac suit, and fill the small stage with the great concrete breeze blocks of impenetrable Blokey Wall. When the Balls Wall speaks, it uses a great big voice with the endings missing on all its words, so it sounds like pipe hammer, bang-bang-banging away at the side of your head.

But first, bring on the lightweights to try their strength!

Here comes the weedy con, Andrew Selous of Bedfordshire South-West. He squeaks as a governor of a Church of England primary school who wants to talk about sex teaching.

Pah! The big Balls Wall bats away small distractions like that, because the Wall says everyone wants kids to know about sex, so the concrete government is already doing that and everyone supports that! Yeah! Even all those people who do not support it. They support it too, because as everyone knows, if they use a double not in a sentence it really means yes.

John Hemming, the LD for Birmingham Yardley, tries to throw his weight about with a cracking joke pulled out of the hat with his line, 'It is clear that there is little support for the details of the Government's proposals.'

This blinder had the Balls Wall jiggling up and down looking like a great chugging Wall in motion. It showed it has a rough, urban, graffiti humour breeze block or two, because it became all matey in a laddish, rectangular way, a bit like Fred Flintstone but without the charm, saying the best way to get a result was indeed to piss everyone off.

But those educationalists sitting at home had more to come.

Michael Gove, the con of Surrey Heath, who looks like someone inflated a balloon in his head, tried a different tack. He tried to destabilise the Balls Wall with a lot of tricky questions. What that means in the context of this and does it mean this and that and then when it doesn't does it mean something else?

These were designed to outwit the Wall and bring it crashing down, when all they achieved was to make the balloon-head sound full of helium. So really he should have livened it up for the poor sod bloodshot-eyed educationalists, and thrown in some curve ball questions like Hey, Ballsy Wallsy! Does it mean you have shitforbrains and shitfordinner?

Feisty Mr. Nick Gibb came out ducking, weaving and fancy-footing again, trying to poke the Balls Wall with a bony pointy finger; trying to gouge out little powdery holes round the brickwork, complaining with stabby stabby attacks on the proposed primary education of 'a programme of study with 84 objectives stab stab running from E1 to E24 stab stab from M1 to M29, and from L1 to L31 stab stab'.

Nothing like this will affect the Balls Wall of course. Only running at the Balls Wall with a big bag marked BOMB might do that.

Hero Graham Stuart did that, but first he ripped off his manly double-breasted grey worsted suit, pulled his great crumple-free polyester mix BHS shirt asunder with his mighty ripply biceps, then delivered a speech that left the home educating ladies and gentlemen of England swooning equally into their late night cocoa.

He spoke of all the things that make England the gloriously maverick, individual, eccentric, off-beat and downright nutty place it is, resistant to the concrete breeze blocks of Labour education policy. He spoke of the duty, commitment, loyalty and pride of the ordinary non-school choosing folk of England. He asked, 'Ministers should ask themselves whether they want to bring such help to families who are so adamant that they do not want to receive it.' Now there was a warning to the Balls Wall that defiant bloody mindedness would stay fast to the last ditch of England.

But did it work? Did anything bring down the great Balls Wall?

It is a true fact that none of this, no blasted cannon shot, no stabby skeletal finger, no excoriating armoured attack, no Superman, nothing, will yet have any effect on the blustering Balls Wall.

It does what it always does. It stands up, expands its own concrete chest, and offers everyone pork pies made of statistics, and these numbers go on and on relentlessly, bang-bang-bang, and they sum up 1,600 schools, 30 per cent of pupils, five exams, one hundred per cent more boxes to tick, two hundred per cent more bits of paper to pass around, 45 teachers bludgeoned half to death, 116 spineless heads and only one bully boys like Balls.

And do you know, says the Wall, soon there will be 12 resisting, and then only eight, and by 2011 there will be no resistance left on planet Earth because all resistance against the Wall is pointless!

Thank goodness they don't put mugshots in Hansard

The Children, Schools and Families Bill moves through Parliament today, so it's all up for debate - and not only by a gang of home ed parents huddled round the back of the hired scout hut. This time, by Members of Parliament looking like a selection of grey suits hanging from coat racks propped up against the benches.

Valiantly I ignore the first bit of this televised debate with a la-la-la and fingers in my ears. Mostly because I feared that if I saw Ed Balls' fizzog on the box I might become hysterical, take to the screen with a hammer, and destroy the developing media career of my daughters forever.

But then of course all those winking twitter messages on home ed speeches in the old House broke down my resistance and drew me in.

So I started to watch parliament on and off, glad that we had a television thing called democracybox and being interrupted and irritated by demands for food and showers and reading the next installment of story while cuddling up in front of the fire. And now worse I have to stop talking TVdemocracy with Dig and put things to bed and kissykissy and all that.

But I just want to take this opportunity to dab at myself with a hanky, because from what I've heard this evening, some of the MPs speaking are extremely well briefed on home education. They provide for the record all the salient points on why this part of the Bill is so fundamentally destructive.

So here's a big BIG thank you, to you educators who have worked so hard to put your voices forward, apply pressure, keep the debate coherent, understandable and relevant to everyone.

I am grateful. Let's keep the pressure going for the committee stage. The more people who know, the better.

And tomorrow I will be swotting over Hansard, where I don't have to look at Ed Balls' mug.

Intellectual lightweight toady sticks to party line. She'll go far.

I'm trying to take Diana Johnson seriously.

I guess - unless you live in Hull or you are sat unemployed on the sofa watching the parliament channel - you won't know who Diana Johnson is. You probably couldn't give a stuff.

That is maybe the right attitude, and I salute you for it.

She's an arse.

There you go. I just cannot take her seriously.

OK, I'll try again. Because she's part of a mechanism that has the power to impact on us quite significantly, so I am duty bound.

I'll rephrase. She's not an arse. She is very concerned. Not about education, obviously, because Diana Johnson's a Schools Minister and lackey for Ed Balls. She's concerned about knowing the numbers.

Garbage falls out of Johnson's mouth like a blind badger overturned your dustbin. In the All Party Parliamentary Group on Home Education (Wednesday 6th Jan), she claims the new parental licencing scheme is really about registration. We need numbers, but we need to monitor. We will get the numbers, but we need to monitor.

So what is it about Diana? Is it about the numbers? Or is it about the monitoring?

Because I note those types of phrases she's used here and elsewhere, like we will get... we want to know... we need to find out... Why do you need to know Diana? Is it so you can monitor us all the better?

Diana would say of course not, smartfatarsegritturd, it is because the government simply wants to help you.

And then she follows it with stuff like Refusal to allow child to be interviewed would be taken into account when deciding on registration. Failure to allow such a meeting would be one factor taken into account. Instances of non-cooperation and concern would be taken into account when considering allowing registration to carry on. Disallowing registration would be a final sanction.

And after that threat, she feels she can then add, It really is about developing positive relationships.

Arse.

Notes here.

The ruddy petition

This is possibly one of the worst days of my year.

The first thing to get me heaving is the dread and icy thought that today I must deliver the home education petition of evil to the member of parliament for pointlessness.

How do I explain my involvement in this? Where do I begin?

To my wide (and thinly spread) audience out there - many of whom I know do not give a toss about home education - all I can say is this is just one more example of Grit attempting to take a responsible role in our democracy.

We are all entitled to do that in this country, theoretically, and Grit wants it to stay that way, thank you very much.

Suffice to say, apart from turning out in the rain to scrawl an X in a box once every four years, you can do other things to make your voice heard, like deliver petitions about anything you want to your local MP, and arm twist the bugger to read it out in parliament.

In theory, becoming involved in petitions and parliamentary procedures on the streets is great fun.

You can go round with an excuse knocking on doors.

When your neighbour opens up, you can say Hi! Nice to see you! Shall we have an argument? After fifteen minutes, shorter if you are lucky, you can reach the point of seething resentment and near blows after discovering your neighbour is a closet Nazi when you thought they were nice. It only took the issue of gravel extraction or speed bumps or Tesco to reveal the profound chasm of non-negotiation. When the neighbour has told you to shove your poxy petition where the sun don't shine, you can contemplate creeping back after dark and shoving rotting sardines through their letterbox. This is an example of our political life bringing the community together.

In a moment of madness I actually volunteered to be the local idiot bringing the community together, by taking on the job of delivering the home education petition of evil.

If you are a home educator you know which petition it is and I won't need to explain.

If you are not a home educator, I guess you couldn't give a toss about the petition. You just read to find out if this month I end up in prison or in a ditch. I may yet do both, and for you there is hope.

So I take the petition of evil that no one will sign, because apparently it is not taking part in a democracy, it is written with ink made from the festering BILE OF SATAN and it is EVIL and DANGEROUS, and I have to deliver it by hand to the constituency office.

If you have a local MP like ours, they will ignore you. They never reply to your emails, and all contact becomes strangely 'lost'. Well I am one of the constituents here and this little Labour party creep has turned their back on me. They are probably much more concerned with their own career and position within the local party. We have got to the point where I could stand in front of them, disembowel myself and hand them the throbbing gristle of my steaming innards and they would be gazing somewhere to the left of my shoulder idly reading the bus timetable pinned on the wall.

This is not only my experience. Take a read of these words used by another appellant to describe a visit to our lovely MP, and you have a flavour of what we're up against: 'they were confrontational, unenlightened, unsympathetic, were small minded, weren't interested in developing understanding to better understand our concerns, talked of HE parents controlling their children, and HE children not getting opportunities to interact with others'.

So this is my day today. I arrange for the petition of evil to be hand delivered to the MP of pointlessness.

I want to forget it, because it is so miserable. I want to remember it, because when I come to scrawl my X in the voting booth, I want to score it with venom and acid revenge, and know exactly WHY.

Here's one mother who couldn't care less

You see? This is the cavalier approach I take to safeguarding my children.

Here's Squirrel, handling DANGEROUS TOOLS.


And this took place in a totally NON-REGISTERED environment.

Now guess what? We filled in no forms for any type of RISK ASSESSMENT.

That's how little I care.

Better still, this dangerous and alarming environment is the workshop of a local woodcarver and he works with SHARP CARVING TOOLS. At any moment, any one of those tools could KILL YOU or GOUGE OUT YOUR EYE.

You would think that was bad enough, wouldn't you? But this shows how far Grit has gone, because she cannot give a gnat's piss whether the oldcurledupwoodcarver - who is probably made of oak himself - she could not care less whether he has been entered on the VETTING AND BARRING DATABASE.

And WORSE. He is not even a registered and licenced teacher! NO! GET THAT! He is a WOODCARVER. TEACHING WOODCARVING.

I can hear the OFSTED inspectors tut tutting now.

Grit should have done this lesson on woodcarving PROPERLY. According to the government. Like, NOT AT ALL. Who approved this type of thing in the National Curriculum? Really, she should have BANNED the activity altogether.

But you know she's bloody-minded. The very least she should have done was hire a biology teacher with fuck all experience and interest to cover the lesson in a proper CCTV controlled classroom while Squirrel and 30 other kids watched a video about woodcarving and answered the questions on whether wood comes from a tree or a motorway.

Then, just as you thought it was as bad as it could be! Not only do I encourage my kids to enter dangerous environments, wield banned tools, and interact with people who are not rubberstampedgovernmentapproved, MICHELLE IS HERE TAKING PHOTOS.



And you know what that means.

NEITHER OF US may be CRB CHECKED.

And what is Grit's attitude?

Pah! Kiss my arse! IGNORE THE LAW.

With that sort of attitude, you'd almost expect the government to try and close all home education down.

That's the third person today who says...

... Oh dear! What can we do?

And my answer's the same.

If you don't like the sound of it, tell someone. Write to your MP.

If you want to sign the petition, do so.

Use your blog.

Print off this leaflet and stick it up on your local library notice board.

Read around, and get informed.

Do I sound tired? I'm tired. I need a break.

Timetables are crap really, aren't they?

Apparently I should be spending an hour playing a board game to help Squirrel with her times tables. She'll no doubt get out that board game and play it with a sister soon enough.

And I don't worry; she'll learn her seven times table on another day.

Instead I am writing emails about petitions. And if this comes near you, dear reader, you can sign it if you want, or not sign if you want.

Personally, I blame the government for intruding on my educational provision, messing with my timetable, Squirrel's times tables, and trying to stick their foot into my door.

And if you think I must be that crazy woman to take things personally, then please call me crazy. It's personal. And this is why.

But what do I know? Gerald could secretly work for MI6.

Recently I left a comment on Jax's post.

To the effect that it's easy to confess I am followed by a giant iguana called Gerald. Much easier than rationally explaining the fears I have about the future, and which she and many other explain so well.

My fears are not whether Squirrel will fall out of that tree; nor whether Shark's desire to dive will be the death of her; nor whether Tiger's teenage years will wreak havoc on us with anorexia, bulimia and self-harming.

Those fears I put down to the normal range of anxieties pouring from the heart of motherhood. I may yet do self harming and substance abuse myself. Then I'll call it coping strategy.

My fears are outside that range. But admitting any fears beyond the conventional is a hazard though, isn't it?

It's worse in the world I inhabit. Let's call my world the one where our kids have education other than everyday 8-4 at school.

Some people hate people in my world. Even though the people in my world are not all granola eating hippies, knitting with their own hair, or living in communes. As I've said, some people in my world are engineers, scientists, drama practitioners, artists and health workers, but I won't get distracted by that here. Whatever we are, some people resent us, because they believe every child should be in school, and if we keep kids out of school, we are damaging those children, full stop.

So, as a home educator, passing any comment about anything is like holding out a stick which someone can grab and beat us with. At the first sign of vulnerability, like expressing fears, some very judgemental people leap at the chance to attack.

Horrible comments stick around. One commenter I recall, whose voice leapt off the page and stuck inside my head, burst out - probably from a discussion about How nice is your cushion cover? - that home educators are a load of smug bastards who think they own a moral high ground because they home educate.

I wasn't standing on any moral high ground when I looked. Swamp, maybe. I had a bloody exhausting day of hard work, a heavy sense of responsibility, a broken bank account, and no idea why my cushion covers were in the freezer. Despite it, I still think home education is worth the trauma, pain and misery. So maybe they're right about the label smug bastard.

But really, I'm feeling battered enough without attracting that kind of comment, so I'll say at this point that Gerald is a lovely blue green colour, likes to eat granola, and goes to sleep at night outside the kitchen door.

And I can confess my fears are not coming from my role as a parent, and not just for home educators. My fears come from my place as a citizen, and they are about what you are allowed to do, and be, as a parent.

Because I believe right now we're heading for a life where the law will make provision for every parent to be vetted or checked; where the right of state entry will be automatic to every home if you have a child of any age; where the right of a parent to make decisions about the upbringing of a child is increasingly fragile and within a whisper of being removed.

Now some folks can read those fears and say Grit is a nutcase. She is clearly followed by a giant spiny tailed iguana called Gerald. Voicing that sort of They've all got it in for me! attitude, she deserves to be suspect. With that mental condition, she is placing her vulnerable children at risk.

And who knows what will happen to Gerald then? He will be homeless, and he is not a bad sort when you get to know him.

All I can say in my defence, before the evil lords of power come to get Gerald, is that home educators have to be closer to the coal face when it comes to discussing the law, our legal rights, and the statements from local councils. We have to think carefully about our arguments; we have to take responsibility for our positions; we have to weigh up the pros and cons of any scheme, any help offered by any council, any statement made by anyone in power. We have to read the tons of stuff, from OFSTED, government, local authorities, advisers.

We simply have to be closer to it as a means of survival. Any day as a home educator we may be stopped by the police and by truancy officers. We may be challenged in the supermarket; or called upon to defend our decision in the park, or playground. We have to walk around the world knowing as best we can what rights and responsibilities we have and be prepared to argue for them at the drop of a hat.

That does not make us any more moral, nor better parents than anyone else. It just makes us aware.

Now excuse me. I have to go. I must bath the kids, and Gerald says when he snuggles down for the night, he wants the blue blankie, not the yellow. The yellow makes him itch.

If you're coming to this blog looking for evidence against home educators, add this

Here is Shark, outside BHS in Milton Keynes Shopping Centre.


You can say Evidence! This home educator humiliated her poor daughter by forcing her to face the wall in a public place to complete her homework!

Proof. Home ed should be banned, to protect the vulnerable.

My fantastic list of crimes, misdeeds and madnesses is coming along nicely, isn't it? I might do unicorn horn chopping next, or driving round Leicester, naked.

Well, it's a better line than saying this is a geology lesson.

This BHS wall is faced with marble, which you all know is a building material also used for gravestones, ornaments and worksurfaces. And it's a metamorphic rock, which is mainly why we're here, looking at the patterns and talking about heat and pressure under the earth and what that does to all the minerals and chemicals and fantastic bits that make up rock.

Not as exciting a story as driving round Leicester, naked, huh?

For me, the most wonderful rock is Travertine. Here it is.


Imagine a huge bubbling bath that you're going to leave for thousands of years. Every so often the water is just the lovely right temperature for lots of algae to grow, and they're joined by great gloopy lumps of bacteria and little creatures, having a fantastic time swimming about in that lovely warm bath.

Then someone turns on the tap, and out pours a load more water, mud, silt, and tiny carbonate particles like bits of melted pearl or crushed up snail shell.

That tapload bashes the surface, ripping up and killing off the algae, and lays down a new top layer of mud and silt.

But don't worry, after a few more thousand years the algae's grown back. Then you can turn on the tap again.

Give it long enough, and the whole lot solidifies. And now you can see it in Milton Keynes Shopping Centre. It's called Travertine. It's a sedimentary rock, and here it's all over the floors and walls. Can you see those layers? The darker lines are mud and the lighter lines are algae. It's fantastic. I love it.


When we've done with Travertine, we go off and look at Gabbro, and a pretty pink granite and a blood-red granite.


It's all thanks to one of those experts we know from this education world, fantastically filled with opportunity, should you take it. So a public thanks to Jill Eyers for one of her walking guides, Rocks Afoot.

But I know a geology lesson is not a crime. And if you've come here looking for that evidence of our sordid lifestyle, then this is bound to be a disappointment. Sorry. I promise to do better with the madness and naked driving thing.

But look on the bright side. You can always accuse me of being a smugbastard highhorsed granolaeating homeeducator who definitely lives on the fringes of society because we went all that way to CMK and never even bought an acrylic jumper.

I think this means I'm not dead yet

Travelling this home education road over the last few years has been an eye-opening and challenging experience. It has taken some toll on me, emotionally and intellectually. And physically, it has trashed me. My withered face now scares horses.

I found an old photograph of me yesterday, one taken way before the responsibility that is children, and I just looked at that open smiling expression and thought such awful innocence. Call the last few years scary, isolating, fretful.

On the plus side, I can find exhilarating, satisfying, rewarding.

And fortunately, my mind can add, never boring.

But you can bet over the years on this home ed journey with triplets, I've seen some things. I've met some wild and wacko parents. And boringly normal ones too. All with as many approaches to education as there are kids.

Some home educators opt for school at home, with timetables and exercise books. Others go for autonomy - and take that to levels of child freedom which to watch at times has both scared me witless and knocked me sideways for the assumptions it has challenged, and the ways forward that approach has confidently found.

Many more people, like me, swing between goalposts, trying this, negotiating that, feeling our way, joining this group, trying that, working with the local authority here, backing off there, hoping this, working towards a future. I am sometimes blindfold, with soapbox, weeping, raising two fingers. Some days I have insisted on worksheets and stuff we need to know, but I do not know why, and some days I waved my kids away, saying Sure! when I am not sure. Pleading, Come back if you need!

Throughout, the huge variety of people and approaches in this world have been a support to me. It has only improved with time. Whereas once I used to feel home educators might be hard pressed to agree about anything, now I think there is such tolerance for each other's styles and ways, the latest attack from the government in the UK can only have helped us overlook our differences; now the loudest voice is about the need to protect our freedoms to choose.

I have seen a wide range of ways of working with local authorities too. Some home educators work closely alongside, supplying information, arranging meetings, building trust, teaching their local authority staff about the huge variety that is education. Others have found ways of working directly with the local authority through schools and local groups, drawing down funds and building flexischool schemes. Other home educators maintain a courteous distance, watchful, reminding authorities of good practice. Yet others refuse to deal with local authority staff, bruised perhaps, bullied, having met a system that has already failed them.

The thing is, what I want to convey, is that this education world is so very complex, so fantastically varied, offers so many options and avenues, that all is possible, and can be much much more than this government would have you believe.

This government wants you to think only in terms of types. Home educators are on the fringes of a normal society. They want you to eliminate all the shades and tones and nuances, all the people and personalities, all the possibilities. They want you to think in black and white, cut and dried, us and them, divide and rule.

The truth is, home educators are drawn from all society. We are you. We are professors of education, builders, teachers, diplomats, caterers, administrators, doctors, journalists, drivers, artists, visiting scholars, office workers, engineers, managers, cleaning staff, community workers, nurses, lawyers, volunteers, people who run their own business, people who employ others, people who work hard for a wage.

We cannot be picked off, isolated, controlled; we are this society.

'The problem Graham Badman, Delyth Morgan and all the other idiots who started on this crusade against Home Education, is that their ignorance of what Home Education really is was deeply profound. I say ‘was’ because now they know that there are a substantial number, probably the majority, of Home Educators who are highly qualified, trained, successful and professional people, who are more than capable of defending themselves, their philosophies, choices and methods of parenting.

They erroneously imagined that they were dealing with a bunch of uneducated, defenceless and deviant people who they could easily steamroller, like they do with every other disadvantaged group. How wrong they were. Out of the woodwork come PHDs and every other type of lettered academic and professionally accredited person, all of whom either Home Educate or fully support Home Education.

They poked their stick in a hornets nest, and now the angry Hornets are coming out and vigorously buzzing around them. There are THOUSANDS of other hornets waiting to emerge if they are needed. And when they get their stingers out, there will be NO MERCY SHOWN.'

If you are finding out today why people are defending this fantastically varied world with all the opportunities, choices and exhilarating ways to make education our own, then take a journey round these thousands and thousands of voices.

You could start from the place where the above quote is taken, here.

Yet another reason to blog

These last few days have been so wretched, the first thing I think when I'm opening my eyes in the morning is how bad will it be today?

It would be OK if I meant triplets or home education.

Neither of those for me has been the wonderful fulfilling experience some may want you to believe. I have been in states of sadness, anger, loneliness and despair about both, but I have found ways through those impossible states, and found that there are joys, and triumphs, and pure feelings of satisfaction to be had; and certain knowledge that I am building loving relationships that will work.

So today my plan is normal: to get everyone to Mad Science, drive thirty miles for drama, then come home, cook, clear up, guide Shark to a new maths website, help Squirrel with her writing, and find that book I so faithfully promised for Tiger, then make a project book on Mexico. Throughout the hours we'll read, listen, talk, argue, and kiss nightnight before bed.

But managing triplets through this home educated day all pales into nothing when I imagine what new horrors and attacks Badman and the DCSF can dream up for me today.

This endless daily cycle of stress here has really brought me low. It feels like I am alone, and struggling. And right now, it's not with the education. I just want to be left alone to do that. It feels like people in this government must hate me for the choices I've made, for what I do, and I don't know why.

To prove to you that they are right to be suspicious, what will they tell you next? They've already said home educators are child abusers; oppressive evangelicals; we force our children to miss out on education; we're on the fringes of society; mentally ill. What will they tell you next? What next?

It's an act of resistance then, to tell you all, to tell anyone who wanders past this blog, that in the past few days this is what we've done, this normal home educating family. These are the things we've done, and I never said, because I was too busy with Badman and Balls.

They won't win, because I have stronger ammunition.

I have taken Tiger, Squirrel and Shark to playgrounds.


We have joined a local group for a lecture at the Open University on the Magic of Oxygen. I have taken my children to join a local nature group to search for fungi. With the help on an expert guide, they found chicken of the woods, King Alfred's cakes, strange and wondrous fairy bells.


They made their monthly evening outing to their wildlife explorer's group. We went to see Pixar's Up, and afterwards talked together about characterisation, animation, and about the story, Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. We had a wonderful discussion wandering over interpretations of truth, power, colonial ambitions, obsessions. The responses from Shark, Squirrel and Tiger were staggering; mature, insightful, thoughtful, unchildlike.

They joined a group in St Albans to listen to stories, and make wigwams. We came home and pored over geography books and talked about the Americas, the New World, colonisation, the conquistadors.


They joined their regular classroom group for French; Shark went to her drama group. We have pinned up a giant skeleton on the wall in the front room; found out about Mexico's Day of the Dead; made icing sugar skulls.


We have read more of The Hobbit; cooked food together; listened to music; talked, made bad jokes, laughed, and flew kites.


Those are our activities of the last few days. Is that normal? That seems normal to me, to us. That's normal, and to do it, and tell you about it, is my ongoing, daily act of resistance.

Doesn't it make you wonder where your money goes

Last week I bought three new pairs of boots. They were all size 4, so didn't fit me. But they do fit our three flap-footing replicants, who stride down the street with great smiles springing on their faces; their feet no longer bound in bandages and the wet pavement not leaking up their legs.

I bounce those smiles right back. Even though they are replicants, my heart flips from seeing Shark, Squirrel and Tiger happy and well shod.

That pleasure was only compounded yesterday when we visited a local charity shop. Within a twinkling of an eye and £14 I had equipped each offspring with a beautiful autumn weatherproof coat; two pink and one blue.

Squirrel leapt on a candy pink and purple duffle style coat like it might run off if she didn't instantly pounce and glue it to her body. Tiger found a perfect pale pink coat which replaces one that the mother unit stupidly lost months ago, and for which I have yet to be forgiven. Shark chose a seablue coat. I'm not telling her that actually that is a ladies coat size 10 and Shark, it is wrapping round your tummy like a perfect cocoon. I said that the colour is fantastic, I would wear it myself if blue suited me, but on you it looks perfect. And then I rolled back the sleeves up her arms.

Boots and coats apart, I have yet some way to go in restocking the autumn wardrobe; not only are their enormously sprouting feet extending over all pavements, their legs are growing in all directions and their tummies are rounding, stocking up puppy fat for the body changes that are to come next.

But if only it were about growth and fashion. Do not replicants need to be kept warm and dry and protected against all the cruel winds and rains of winter? I thought that was so, and maybe some people call wrapping up these mini people just good parenting. Or maybe some folks will nod that's another sure sign of my mental illness.

Underneath all this shopshopshopping is the real hard fact that shoeing and clothing these growing human types costs money. And they wear their own choice of clothes everyday, due to mamma not having the steel plate fixed in my eye which would let me clamp them into uniform.

I take the cost of daily clothing on the chin. It's another small consequence of the conviction about home education: I guess it would be cheaper to invest in nine interchangeable, non-distinguishable, stain-proof, rust-proof, crease-free, fold-free, non-iron grey school skirts. Round here, that plastic uniform would be pennies by comparison to a daily choice of pink coats and purple dresses.

But if only home education stopped there! I won't stray into the costs of Amazon, craft materials, maths and science resources, lessons, annual passes, entry fees, train tickets, petrol. Believe me, there isn't much room left to buy those much needed boots for me.

Maybe the point of this roundabout post is that home education costs me in many small and big and ordinary ways, and not just in the cut to my salary.

And it's not going to get any easier. If, thanks to the Badman recommendations and new restrictions upon us all, then I would expect a lot more private companies, database service providers and publishers to leap in there. I'd expect those companies to offer inter-agency services; packages for local government; materials for home educators. I'd expect market growth for home software, educational products, study texts, monitoring solutions. Something for everyone.

Home education will then be a business opportunity, much in the same way that has happened from the national curriculum at school: how many publishing companies now produce thousands of Help your child at home with SATs books? How many do you own? Home education, if it were tied down, would be a wide open new market.

Will Nektus benefit from this? I don't know, and we're yet to find out.

But I'd better warn those companies who'll target me directly that with all their goods and services, they're competing for my limited purse. I reserve the right to ignore all of you. And I may choose to go out with Shark, Squirrel and Tiger, and buy new boots.

Now I have Munchhausen's Syndrome by Proxy

Seriously, anyone would think we decided to home educate these triplets like we choose pizza for lunch. Shall we have mushroom? Or just cheese and tomato?

I don't know about you, but we went through agony of thinking about the education of our kids, because like you with yours, we love ours. Like you, we didn't take our decisions lightly.

And I don't know whether when you made your decision, you were able to sit back and think, That's settled for the next few years. We don't have to think about that again until 2012.

If you did, that must be cool. I would like that feeling. And I envy you that.

Round here, the agony of debate continues everyday. Because everyday I wonder if we make the right choice and do the right thing; whether this worry I have about Tiger's maths, or Squirrel's reading, or the general reluctance of these kids to write, whether these worries are justified; what I should do about them; how I can best approach life so that everyone's encouraged in their various ways.

And then there's all that laundry to be done, so get up early and go to bed late to fit that in your educating day, Grit.

Doubts, fears, worries, laundry. These are my everyday. And to a large extent, I live with them because I have various convictions. Not religious ones, although sometimes I think this would be easier if I believed in that god; my beliefs are about people and education. And I am prepared to see through my convictions in practical ways by taking on that individual responsibility towards my own kids.

Having done that, and lifted that enormous weight on my back and shoulders and head and heart, I would like one part of my day to be able to heave a big sigh of relief.

I would like a part of my day to feel safe and free from worry, to know that I am supported, and trusted, and respected for my choices.

I would like to think that you, seeing my kids everyday, would know that my choices and responsibilities have some substance; you can see that Tiger, Shark, and Squirrel are happy kids who engage in activities, events, who enjoy life, learn new things, and look forward to everything this world has to offer. They appreciate their home education, and they're learning all the time about the expectations we have, and which I share with you. I want my kids to be responsible; to be resourceful; to be respectful. Those are our 3Rs. Through these, I want them to grow wise, learn independently, and learn how to learn all the time, so they have that to guide them throughout their lives.

But I rarely have that room to breathe. I rarely feel that I am supported, and trusted, and respected for the choice I've made.

When I read this today, I confess to sitting down and bawling out my eyes and howling from the top to the bottom of this house.

Memorandum submitted by Dr Paula Rothermel FRSA, Educational psychologist expert witness

1. I am one of the leading academics in the field in the UK and the only expert witness specialising in court cases where home education is an issue. My 2002 research involved 1099 children and remains the largest and most in-depth and authoritative independent of home education carried out in the UK. The research involved 419 survey questionnaires to families and 238 targeted assessments (with 196 different children) to evaluate the psychosocial and academic development of home-educated children aged eleven years and under.

2. I was invited on two occasions to meet with Mr Badman.

3. At our first interview Mr Badman was interested in what I had to say. His opening question was to ask me if home educating mothers suffered from Munchhausen's by Proxy. ...

4. At our second interview Mr Badman was dismissive of my work. He insisted that my study covered just 30 children. He indicated that someone had told him this and insisted that my conclusions and findings, therefore, were of little significance. Nothing I could say would sway him from this view.

This government should know that I have judgment, I have sense, I have a heart that can break a thousand times over and I will have strength in me to mend it again and again and again.

But I cannot for the life of me understand what motivates this attack of me and mine; what drives this cruel campaign; what informs this frame of reference used to judge me and my choice.

Today it's just another day of standing up and finding the strength to take this on, this hurtful and cruel way of describing me and how I live. I will do that, and I will fight for the choices I make and to keep the way that we live. They are my convictions, my family, our way of life, and no person will shake them.

But sometimes people, you will have to forgive me, or join me, when I climb to the top of this house and scream with all my lungs that you, you destroyer of choice, you corruption to my family, my life, my kids, you attacker of me, of mine, of us,

FUCK YOU.