Perhaps it's our freedom that Ed Balls doesn't like.

Today, there's a home education group meeting near you. Here's a party of us, and we're meeting up and learning together, without boundaries, tests or bells, over at the Tower of London.













And it's as simple as that.

I have nothing better to do. I think I will bait the DCSF

I have some new home education lessons plans. I think I will submit them to the local authority and have them assessed in line with the new recommendations. I would like the effectiveness of my education to be monitored so I can improve the life of citizens in 21st century Britain.

Today my lessons focus on British culture. I have taught the gritlets how to spit, sit in the road, drink cider from tins and shout at passers by.

Here we are, learning how to eat greasy chips while walking along an average suburban run down back street.

These practical lessons have started well, don't you think, Ed?



Next week I will model staggering home at 5am covered in vomit and dressed like a street walker. I'll be dragging a drugged up Dig with Satan tattooed across his forehead in biro. I will tell Shark, Tiger and Squirrel the police may stop by, so it would be good if they could say the bag contains icing sugar. This would be excellent for real life learning skills in personal and social education.

Then I might do drawing over our body parts to give ourselves some tattoos. After that we could kick beer cans down the back lane, spray paint the word nob all over the neighbour's garage door, and walk with our chests puffed out while we hold a bit of string with a pit bull terrier on the end.

I know Shark, Tiger and Squirrel might have a problem reaching their attainment targets regarding the pit bull terrier, so I have made a start. I have drawn out a vicious dog on some card. I have even stuck furry stuff to it in the hope the gritlets might learn to pet a real dog and shout Kill!


There, you see, I have even thought of their educational targets on a twelve month timescale.

I bet the Local Authority is going to love me.

I am never going on another treasure hunt for as long as I live

Yesterday, passed through all nine circles of hell.

It started off alright, as one might expect, with the easy clue number one of the TREASURE HUNT OF HELL being something of the sort like Can you write here what is on the sign by the lake? Well of course we could! Ha ha ha ha ha!


How we laughed, and filled in the answer, and the sunshine sparkled on the gentle ripples of the lake.

Not for much longer matey. Because the next clue was beyond the deathly River Acheron


and that next clue was GIBBERISH. Like, B4 UC GL 5 PT can U C the HEART?

And GL 5 PT is a lamp post! And lo! There was no heart! THERE WAS NO HEART. BUT THEY DIDN'T MEAN A HEART! THEY MEANT THE SIGN ON THE GRATE UNDER THE LAMP POST YOU DUMBO GRIT.


But by then it was all too late. The little grits had begun to cast themselves downward, forlorn, and soon began to weep and hold their heads in their hands with the incomprehension of it all, with the painful process of finding out EXACTLY WTF DO THESE QUESTIONS MEAN?


But we had already strayed with willfulness into the dark wood of the lamenting doomed, and now there was NO TURNING BACK.

We went on and on, FAILING to answer 50 QUESTIONS about Cardiff and rats and barns and Christian Ronaldo and all the Grits weeping louder and louder with the despair and impossibility of it all and REFUSING TO GIVE IN and all of it bringing me close to madness with the constant weeping of the damned ringing in my ears, and then I had to forsake all SANITY and have A BIG SHOUT.

I cannot then recall all the horrors.

No, not the incontinence and violence, the assailing by beasts, the wrathful fighting, the gnashing of teeth, tearing of clothes, pulling of hair, and agonies of TRIPLET PAIN having the BIGGEST FIGHT THIS WORLD HAS EVER SEEN. With mama shouting and children screaming and Here Here! Witness! An imminent physical attack with clipboard!


I ASK YOU, CAN A WOMAN SUFFER MORE?

And all of this horror and mutilation was done in the name of the RSPB TREASURE HUNT which should have taken an hour OF FUN IN THE SUN but which took Grit and the gritlets THREE HOURS OF MISERY.

As we wretched, exhausted half-beings crawled back through the festering sore that was our pain, back to the solitude of our car, the LAST CAR IN THE CAR PARK


now numb with the pain and the sorrow of it all, seeing the organisers locking up, thinking we must have given up and gone home, they produced from Satan's back passage AN OUT OF DATE CHOCOLATE EASTER EGG EACH.

And then the little grits all calmed down and clambered with vigour into the car and went happy home as if nothing could possibly have gone wrong with such a splendid day out.

10 top tips to survive school holidays with kids

It's July, and I see the kids are off school.

The word from Grit is, ignore the crappy kid-on-holiday advice you read in Femail.

Most of it is written by some London journalist who looked after her own kid for two hours and thinks Judgement Day has come. She will suggest weedy stuff like Get out a bead box! It is great for sorting activities! Pathetic.

If she wrote the truth, she would say When the childminder got chickenpox, which made me miss the first night gallery opening, I threw the fucking bead box at the wall. Anyway I made Tinkertop pick up all the beads. And I realised it is great for sorting activities!

You see? She thinks ten minutes with her own child is a form of torture. But she will create motherhood-martyrdom out of it, scribble down her pathetic idea, earn herself a monthly wage, then shove the kid in childcare and go buy shoes.

Listen to an expert. I have my kids 24/7.

When it comes to child exposure, I know what torture is. Home education means holiday solutions must be much more radical than getting out the bloody bead box.

Follow Grit's ten top tips for surviving the school break. If you make it to September with a smile on your face, you might even considering chucking school altogether.

Ready? This is what to do with your children.

1. Give them away.
We do this more than once a year. There are some excellent organisations* who will take them, submerge them in rivers, throw them down mountainsides, and suspend them on wires over the nettle bed.

The advantage is your offspring are out the house for an entire week. Now you can have sex on the stairs again like you used to.

The disadvantage will be that Tinkertop comes home moaning and groaning with a face like a slapped arse because your miserable parenting does not involve activities like zip wire and raft building.

You can threaten to hold her over the nettle bed, or go immediately to top tip 2.

2. Ignore them.
In the trade, we call this fostering independence. It means slapping down a cereal packet, a pot of yogurt and a jigsaw puzzle with a missing piece all on the kitchen table at 7am, then retiring to a safe distance, possibly behind a locked door. Tinkertop will very quickly starve, or sort herself out. Soon she will be utterly bored and wander off somewhere to make her own amusement.

Caution: do not adopt this technique and then complain the cereal packet is floating in the bath stuffed with tampons, the yogurt pot stuck on the dog's head, and fifteen jigsaw pieces stuffed in the DVD player. You must accept this as the price for independence.

If you do not want to pay the price for independence, go to top tip 3.

3. Throw them out of doors and ignore them.
Then tell yourself that little kids should play with hoses, soil, gravel, twigs, sticks, stones, plants, and the cat, if they can catch it.

When kids are older they should play with the washing machine you have dumped in the garden for the council to collect.

Older still? Play with someone's old sofa found down the back lane.

Let them play freely with kids of the neighbour's, even though you don't approve of the neighbour. Remember, kids teach each other. Best done not in your company but in a pack-like formation led by someone else's older brother. Of course you may just want to slyly check the pack leader is not mad, one-eyed, or carries a lighter and a knife.

But what can possibly go wrong with this one? If you are bringing kids up to be safety conscious and street wise, they will stay clear of Mr Spooky and should not set themselves on fire. They may set up a primitive society but in ten year's time my bet is, it will look like yours.

If, however, you are one of those risk averse parents who worry about wobbly pavements and dog shit, try number 4.

4. Stay at home and argue.
This is good. We do slamming doors, flouncing out of rooms, pointing fingers, throwing puffins, shouting, more shouting and saying things like That is it! I have had enough! This is your final final warning! You will be grounded if you say that once more! Just try saying that again missy!

But relax. Remember you have to do a lot of really bad stuff before you reach the point where you kill them, psychologically damage them or throw them out of a top floor window. And one poxy argument about how plaster of paris got down the sink does not bring on the end of the world.

As we say around here, the argument takes a second, the making up takes the rest of the day. And quite frankly we don't have the rest of the day, so can we avoid the argument in the first place.

However, if you find yourself arguing, be that home educating parent you really aspire to be and try top tip number 5.

5. Visit somewhere educational. Make sure it has a coffee shop.
If you creep along here 11am Monday term time, you may find a cosy group of home educators chatting about how they can source lessons in Latin and where do you find Ancient Greek tutors these days? This is just a cover, entirely for your benefit. When you are out of earshot they will go back to discussing what is the best way to access child porn when you don't have broadband.

Anyway, visiting educational sites like museums and art galleries is fantastic. You can set the kids a mission like go and find twenty things that are shades of green, and meet back here at 4pm. Then you can relax and scoff chocolate cake.

But if your child hangs on to your ankles and starts bawling when you try and abandon them in the British Museum, then you might like to try warden baiting.

Many museums and galleries employ wardens to stop you doing things you really want to do, like pick up that silver teapot and run off with it. But baiting them is excellent fun, child friendly, and gives everyone something to talk about at home.

You must first pick your warden. They will wear a blue nylon uniform, a hat slightly too large for them and a plastic badge which makes them feel important like Supervisory assistant visitor attendant. They may have a sticky label which reads here to help or something like that. We all know that is not true. They are there to keep an eye on you and look down their noses at your child like she is bodily fluid.

Next, judge your context. If you are in an art gallery, find a priceless oil and squat Tinkertop directly in front of it with a pile of paper, crayons and a pair of scissors. If you are in a museum, produce from your bag an assortment of old packaging and encourage Tinkertop to model the thing she's looking at, e.g. Stevenson's rocket, with two old baked bean cans and six empty tampon boxes.

In all cases, the nylon warden will be horrified. He will hover. Talk edubabble for his benefit. He will not know what to do. You might be a teacher. He is scared of those. But you are not breaking any rules. You are not following any either. If you edubabble in a foreign language his confused face will be a wonder to behold. Tinkertop might like to try and draw it.

But of course you are busy during the day and cannot possibly take Tinkertop to the museum. Try top tip 6.

6. Make the food your child chooses and eat it.
This is very educational, and you could find yourself winning the school gate uber parent competition if, when you arrive back there in September, you can poke Tinkertop into showing off her knowledge about the 27 varieties of wholesome apples she has eaten in various forms.

If your child makes all the wrong choices, you won't win any awards, but go with it. You may have to make and eat pies, pastry elephants, cake, more cake, several varieties of cake, biscuits, sweets, and lollipops.

The downside of top tip number 6 is that both you and Tinkertop will weigh two stone heavier.

If you can't stomach the thought of this one, try top tip 7 and you can still be uber parent.

7. Involve your child in household tasks.
Number 7 has never worked in this household, possibly because I don't do these household tasks, but I include it here because all children are different. Some, like you, may be born to be house proud.

Of course you can encourage your child to straighten cushions and vacuum the carpets for a few hours, but inevitably she will conclude this is not the exciting work she wants to do daily until she dies.

Eventually she will want to do something more exciting and make a big untidy mess. This is where you have to use your imagination.

Imagine we live in a world where we do not have appliances. Equip Tinkertop (outside) with a bucket, an old dress, a bar of carbolic and a stone. Tell her this is how your granny washed clothes at the riverside. So long as you don't want your dress back, this is a good one.

Alternatively, equip Tinkertop with a nailbrush strapped to a stick, feed her an anti-allergy tablet and ask her to sweep the entire house, collect all the fur mice from under the bed, and make a big dust ball to show daddy when he arrives home. If you have petite, charming, compliant, agreeable and biddable children they will love this one.

As I said, top tip 7 has never worked in our household. But number 8 works.

8. Switch on the TV.
Do not bother agonising. Just do it. Teach her how to plug it in without electrocuting herself, switch it on and use the remote controls. Two weeks of wall-to-wall Cbeebies won't kill her.

When she is totally bored or you have a developed a complex fantasy about stabbing and dismembering Tinky Winky, extend the repertoire to all other electronic equipment including dvd, cds, cd-roms.

Then you could try ripping The Cure onto your ipod, giving her that, and seeing if you can induce early onset teenage misery, where she locks herself in her room for the next month and you can forget about her.

Number 8 might make her dull though. You could try top tip 9.

9. Travel around on public transport.
This is a great one to do. We once travelled all the way to Bletchley by train, then transferred onto the train travelling in the opposite direction going home. We never even left the station! We did it just to say Today we travelled on a train!

I totally defend this. It is not mad, it is just a good way of being out there in society, watching the world slip by and dreaming this is not the delayed 12.44 to Watford smelling of vomit, this is the Trans-Siberian express stopping at Vladivostok.

Do it, and discover the world.

Or until the police arrive because, to the non-converted, travelling aimlessly everyday on public transport is distinctly suspicious behaviour.

If you don't want to have to justify anything at all to anyone, you could always choose top tip 10. My favourite.

10. Behave like a child.
Drop trying that control thing. Forget about authority. Let everything go. Break rules. Drop being a parent. Blow raspberries at the required reading the school wants you to do while the teachers are on holiday, in therapy, in rest homes, or in prison. There is a reason why they are there and that is the crap they do everyday. Of course they will get you to do it if they can.

But screw that. Relive your teenage rebellion. Stick up two fingers to the system.

Take your child and run around together in the park, roll on the grass, show your knickers, eat ice cream, sing badly, chase butterflies, pick your nose, scratch your bum, fart in public, lick your own noses, lose your shoes, wear a torn tee-shirt with raspberry jam down the front, scream and laugh and cry when you need to, eat chips, read the Beano, put icing sugar in the bath just to see how it feels, go somewhere together because you want to, and do something because it feels good, and makes everyone laugh and be happy, because really, what else are kids and school holidays for?

All of this applies unless you are a home educator. Then you will know that home educators never take holidays. No. We only ever have learning experiences of life.


* PGL. And if they are giving away free weeks, I deserve them. Oh yes I do.

I was poor. Now I'm poorer.

Because today I spent working and probably earned around £50.

Then, to take a break from this screen, I dashed to Waterstones with Tiger, just to take a look, and lost control of my speech, limbs, sense and wallet.

I hope somewhere there is a therapy group for people like me who've been templared.

Tell everyone the positive, you miserable old Grit

School is not compulsory. Education is.


Learning about neolithic cutting tools. Feeling the polished stone. Thinking how a smooth, gently curving surface can swiftly cut and chop through wood.


Learning how chalk is made, how it is porous, formed under the sea, and rolling around the sounds, downlands, coombe and winterbourne.



Longing to step inside the coach made for the Film Anne of a Thousand Days. Imagining how Anne Boleyn stepped inside, arranged her dress, clasped her hands, and watched the outside world.


Feeling the width and breadth of a chariot made for the film Ben Hur. Thinking, what would it be like to create a film or write a story that might be seen and read all over the world?


Touching the carved wooden crest of Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII. Realising that the hollow shape above the split pomegranate once held a tiny carved crown.

And walking in gardens.

Thank you Stockwood Discovery Centre for supporting our education today.

But it's difficult concentrating on blowing things up

The morning was spent taking Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to a science workshop for some twenty home ed kids where, through active experiments, they explored low pressure wind patterns, combustion, sodium polyacrylate, and Bernoulli's principle.


When we returned home, I should have been laughing, throwing the beach ball about over the hairdryer, ripping apart nappies, and blowing up icing sugar.

Instead, I went back to worrying and working over the Badman review. So my kids lost the two hours I wanted to spend with them working through some of those science ideas.

For that alone, you can fuck off, Balls, along with your little goat friend.

On the plus side, higher resolution cards, which should support the campaign nicely. Thank you Dani.

Aware that I could have handed out a dozen cards already, we rekeyed the text, kicked out the vicar and put in a tennis coach and sailing instructor. They're ready for the printer.

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, these cards form part of a national campaign to raise your awareness and inform our MPs.

Contrary to the crap you may have previously read in the newspapers - written by people who probably don't home educate and have gobbled up that government spin - we can tell you that a decision to home educate, home school, flexi school or refuse a school place for a three-year old on the basis that they are TOO YOUNG, does not mean that you are any more likely to beat, abuse and psychologically damage your offspring than anyone else.

Actually, according to the statistics, there's less of a chance of child abuse in home educating families.

And if you fancy home educating your child, have no doubt that there are some very strong social networks around running some great outings, activities, and science workshops.

Two sides to every story

A garden day. And doesn't it show?

Those weeds could signal how much we are out of this house, how much we are engaged in the company of others, how busy these days are, how they are filled elsewhere, how much we have to do which is not here. Could I seriously stay at home and look on a garden like this?

But I know that to Mrs Gradgrind and her coterie, these weeds signal just another sign of neglect.

And these willing gardeners, demonstrating not active learning though play, but a poor example of little more than childminding.

Message to local authority staff. Are you sure about this?

'Local authorities should ensure that all home educated children and young people already known to them are ... visited over the following twelve months' - Recommendation 1: Badman Review of Home Education.

Let me take you on a journey.

First you must make an appointment.

Scrub that.

You must make at least three appointments because we will forget about the first and second appointments. Did you not know that home education means everyday leaving this house for lessons, activities, social meet ups, sports, workshops and visits?

We don't have time to hang around at home waiting for you.

OK, if you manage to make an appointment and by accident you catch us at home, then we won't let you in.

Of course not. We're not stupid. Where's your ID? Anyway, that's no use. This is Smalltown. I have to know you personally to issue an invitation into our home. But, since you're here, we'll try and help.

Go round to the side. Yes, the tradesman's entrance. We try not to call it that. We find it spares blushes.

When you're there, wait.

Admittedly, at that point, I did once forget. It's what happens if I'm interrupted by a Squirrel making beetroot cake.

Where was I?

Oh yes, if I remember, I'll let you in.

Only to the yard though.

First I need to move the ironing board. You can ask about that, but I'm not telling. Let's just say Dig knows better than to make smart remarks.


Then there's all the locks and bolts and stuff. Like I said, this is Smalltown.


Now follow me.

Climb over the vegetation. I've been cutting brambles and the garden bin is full, so I'm piling the spiky monsters here. I hope Glastonbury will take them with him when he comes to chainsaw the ivy. Those thorns do go up your trouser legs though don't they? Razor sharp, too.


Can you get past the pinch point? That low building there, it's actually an underground room. Unfortunately, we took up all the space in building it, so you must squeeze between that and the wall. Those tiles are a bit sharp. They'll slice the skin on your ankles if you misjudge your step.


OK, never mind the blood. Here we are.

You'll need to lift the bike away, obviously.


And that trellis panel there? It's not hinged, but it does hold up a shelf above it, so you must dismantle the trellis and shelf in the right order or you'll smash my antique plant pots and I'll sue you.

Ah! There we are! Found it!


To the member of staff at the local authority who will be given the job of visiting children not at school today. Please note, this is how we treat the gas man.

Now you might like to read this.

And we'd entirely understand if you then wanted to tell central government, Not bloody likely.

Someone needs an image change

Shark, we home educators are engaged in a battle out there. For hearts and minds. Because right now, across England, school-choosing parents have been drip fed crap about how home educated children live.

Like how they never leave the house. Or they cannot socialise. They are unable to achieve academically. They are controlled by their parents. And they never meet other children.

Shark, when those school-choosing parents see you, that means they see a typical home educated child. And in what ways could the typical home ed child help change those minds, and swing things in our favour, Shark?

She could be charming, couldn't she? Well mannered, pleasant, erudite, able to articulate herself clearly and be respectful to all people? She could tell everyone that she takes part in many different activities with many different people of all ages, couldn't she Shark? She could be a model for the home educated child!

And all that might help those people we meet change their ideas about home education. Because we know some of those ideas are put there without any real experience or thought, and some of them are just plain wrong, and crazy, aren't they, Shark?

Now. Come and finish dressing properly. Knickers would be nice. So would a dress. You could even put on some shoes. Help me brush your hair and wipe the strawberry jam from your face. And please stop screaming that Squirrel is a poopy bum and you would like to pelt her with rocks. Do not scowl again at the window cleaner.

And please, please, please, now come down from the tree.

Apology to Stockgrove country park walk-and-talk

The reason the little grits did not show up today at the Butterfly walk-and-talk - which I know would have been 100% instructional and entertaining - was entirely THE FAULT OF MY SISTER IN LAW.

OK, I know I said three days ago, through misty dew eyes, that Aunty Dee was the bestest sister in law EVER. I will say that again except with the qualification that she must learn from this triplet management moment.

Because 30 minutes before we are due to leave this house to attend that fantastic outdoor educational experience at Stockgrove, Aunty Dee produces, contrary to all sense and wisdom, a BUILD YOUR OWN HOVERCRAFT KIT.

The second this kit comes out, complete with batteries and things that go whoosh, all hell breaks loose and my heart and all hope is ripped from my body.

Because at the sight of this electronic wonder the little grits are all breathless with excitement and delirious with joy. Everyone grabs that box to build their own hovercraft and it must be done HERE! NOW!

No matter it is one hovercraft to be shared between three engineers, a four hour job involving three adults, a trip to the Co-op for more batteries, and an inconsolable Squirrel half way up the stairs, rending her clothes, tearing out her hair and screaming her face off because Aunty Dee said it was a sharing present and SHARK TOUCHED IT FIRST.

Building a hovercraft and coaxing Squirrel down from the ceiling is how the entire household passes the next four hours.

Aunty Dee. You are the bestest sister in law in the world, except at Sunday at 1pm when with your good heart, generosity and kind intentions, you unleashed a plague of locusts, the evil green eyed god of triplet jealousy and the end of the world all in my front room. Complete with hovercraft. Which works by 5pm.

Impressive, huh?

My consolation is that right at the moment everyone else was anticipating the joy that was the butterfly walk, it started raining.

We can't even hide them in a damn field

The UK government's seedy insinuation, delivered via the Badman review* - that home educated children are hidden from view, that no eyes ever see these unknown children - once again opened the flood gates. All the familiar prejudices poured out from newspaper columnists and commentators.

That everyone knows home education is a kitchen table operation. That home educated children cannot socialise. That they do not leave the house. That the mother is the prime teacher and she, with her iron hat and iron bar, controls and regulates her child's environment, possibly because of her emotional neediness, but also because of her unrealistic academic demands. She'll attain her goal through regular beatings, slavery, torture. Most certainly, she'll be driven by her sexual appetite.

Well, old trout Grit - that predatory mother intent on abuse - takes her children off to fields regularly, as readers of this blog will know. Here she has found that she can equip the home educated Shark, Squirrel and Tiger with some key elements in a well rounded education.

Because it is in these wonderful fields that she can put these little beings in positions where they must socialise, interact with teachers who are experts in their, ahem, field, and can take advantage of the world that is their classroom.

Of course I'll forgive you non home educators for thinking that these English fields must be lonely, isolated places with not a soul in them, and that possibly Grit only seeks to hide her children all the better in the long grass and smelly weeds.

In reality, these fields are quite busy. Spend a little while investigating, and you'll find ramblers, archaeologists, bat watchers, frog followers, butterfly spotters, musicians, drama groups, twitchers, Buddhists, and a blue badge officer guiding a party of American tourists on a two-hour walk to a medieval ruined church.

Today we join the geologists. There's kids on this walk too, as of course there will be, because even geologists have children, so there's a mixed age group if you need evidence of socialisation.

We've met these people before. Two of the geologists I know from Burham Beeches last week. One is an arachnid and insect expert and shows the kids a labyrinth spider and all the stages of a ladybird metamorphosis. I don't know what Mr Badman and Mr Balls call that, but I'd call it an education in our community with people who are passionate about their subjects, and committed and eager to pass on their knowledge to younger members of society. i.e. teachers.

It is truly such a fine day, one where we learn widely and freely about spiders, ladybirds, Victorian archaeology, Richard II, the difference between Portland and Blisworth limestone, and the effects of hydrochloric acid. Here are some photos.

Romano-British tumuli. And look! We're following other people! How did they get here?

Thornborough Bridge, the oldest in Buckinghamshire, built with Blisworth limestone and dating from the medieval time when Richard II was poncing about dressed like a Christmas tree. Oh you just have to know your history. Join the history group staggering along behind us.

Aunty Dee, do keep up.

Coombs quarry, where we find and identify bivalves, gastropds, brachiopods
and sea urchins. But not ammonites. You don't get ammonites over here.


An out of focus picture of a banded snail.
It can join the out of focus pictures of spiders and ladybird pupa.

You can see the day is so good, so busy and alive, and filled with people and talk, that when I get home, I could kick myself.

Because I could have given at least seven adults these cards, confident that we would have been understood, supported, and these cards would have been posted.

So I'll sort those, and take the opportunity in that field next time. It might help get over those ignorant, worn out prejudices.

And Dani, a big, big thank you.


8.4 '...attendance at school brings other eyes to bear'

Mr Balls, I hope you can see your mistake

Because Mr Balls, now you're not contending only with old trout Grit in this household.

You're taking on all the little grits, fourteen unicorns, a plaster fairy and a pegasus.

This unlikely alliance is the result of you trying to remove their rights. Shark, Squirrel and Tiger believe it is their right to choose what they learn, where they learn, and how they learn. And they see you as trying to undermine those rights.* So they have started drafting out campaigning newsletters.

And putting up banners in the garden.


And then assembling the leaders of the march in a big pile to be given a rousing speech by Squirrel, who has said you are probably a big fat bum and she would like to punch you on the nose, but she recognises that is not how we do things so she is setting up an organisation to defeat you. Her words. Not mine.


Now you can pooh-pooh their work as the result of parental brainwashing if you wish.

But I will call it the result of seeing school parties of 60 kids at a time queueing for twenty minutes in Snibston discovery centre to be shouted at for wandering off, while Shark, Squirrel and Tiger play happily on the equipment for as long as they like before discussing their observations one-to-one with the education staff.

I will also call their work today the result of the freedom they experience in choosing to go swimming, visit London, attend walks, workshops, and be talked to and respected as individuals at our local library, shops and museum.

I'll also add the fact that one of their schooled friends told them that being home educated must be the coolest thing ever.

And the fact that Squirrel says she now is quite interested in politics, and why don't they teach that at school because she quite fancies that when she is not doing law, running her own business or being a paleontologist and dancer.

I haven't yet got round to their observations about the way kids are locked up all day away from society, or the boring uniforms, the lack of ambition in creative arts, and the grudge that Squirrel still holds about the sandpit from nursery. The sandpit she so desperately wanted to play with, day after day, and was told she could not do that because they were all doing something else INCLUDING WATCHING TV.

And the fact that my mini campaigners originally spelled out We want rats before this was pointed out to them and it became We want rits and finally We want rites merely goes to show that this is all part of a living education, tied to real life, real need, and real demands.

Mr Balls, I hope you're listening to these active campaigners, and future voters.


* Recommendation 1, being told what 'outcomes' to teach for, and 'supported', should we choose differently:

At the time of registration parents/carers/guardians must provide a clear statement of their educational approach, intent and desired/planned outcomes for the child over the following twelve months.

Guidance should be issued to support parents in this task with an opportunity to meet local authority officers to discuss the planned approach to home education and develop the plan before it is finalised. The plan should be finalised within eight weeks of first registration.

Would that plan co-incide with your National Curriculum, Mr Balls?

Thanks, Aunty Dee, for coming to the funny farm

I'd better look truth in the eye and say that the day Aunty Dee finds out about this blog is inching closer by the minute.

Mostly thanks to everyone in this house shooting off their mouths about mummy's blogging habit.

But it could also be something to do with the way I am stacking up high horses and orange crates all over this house before climbing on board, raising one finger in rhetorical pose and subjecting anyone around me to a forty-five minute lecture on why Graham Badman is a Balls lackey and why that is not just my opinion. Ending it with the instruction not to take my word for it but you go read those blogs out there! is possibly the wrong thing to do to maintain complete invisibility.

So I had better take the opportunity to say here and now, publicly, that Aunty Dee, you are the best sister in law that anyone could ever have. And I am not just saying that because you know the incriminating stuff.

You are ridiculously patient with us all, even when we do not deserve it, and even though we treat you badly and throw mice at you. You are generous, big hearted, thoughtful and wise, and you have an uncanny sense of what it is like to live in a house stuffed with triplets. Possibly because of your own past experiences there, but they have served you well and made you into a wonderful person to be fought over by Shark, Squirrel and Tiger.

I am truly proud to call you my sister in law, and you honestly feel more like a sister to me. However, I won't follow that through because then I would have married my brother and that is wrong and creepy.

But thank you today for coming to the farm with us and spending hours in unpaid back-breaking fruit-picking labour.

And, this time, we promise not to wait until you go home before eating all the raspberries.

You see? This is a measure of her loyalty.
Even though we push her into the middle of a field, shouting That way!
she keeps on coming back.

See that man over there? He started it.

Grit has never been particularly active in local politics. Don't count that year I bought each person in my meat-eating, stand-for-the-queen, respect-the-land family an annual membership to the Vegan Society, Republic, and Hunt Saboteurs Association. No. That was called Youth and Look at the expression on my father's face.

But now things are different. Now, I have children. Here's one of them, pointing the finger at the guilty.


You see? Things are different. Now, I have to be serious when taking sides.

That's a tough call. My head is mangled already and some days works only with medication. But it has not made sense. Because here I am, thanks to Balls, considering voting Tory. My heart may stop, my brain close down, my disloyal hands drop from my arms inside that voting booth, but there is the fact.

The problem, the real, big, deep problem is the centralising, controlling, paranoid heart of the Labour party.

My God! I voted for them! Did I know I was asking to be eaten alive by some monster that wants to control, monitor and inspect us? It's the Labour party that wants to manage our family life through 40 pages of form-filling bureaucracy, then report back on us through the prying eyes of state officials.

Did I realise the Labour party will provide, thanks to Lackey Badman, penetrating powers to small-minded officials, and those powers stab right to the heart of my individual freedom, the integrity of my family and our civil liberties? Was I warned about that?

Well now Grit's gone all political. Partly through guilt at having brought this on her own head; partly because she is a bloody-minded old trout not going without a fight, but mostly because that little finger-pointing person up there is one of three most precious, loved people in my world. And Balls is not going to lay a hand on them.

But I'm at an age where I can no longer endorse slipping dead fish in privet hedges. Even though my heart says yes to that, my body can't run quick enough. So I have complained to the press, written a letter to my MP, and demanded Early Day Motions* are signed.

You could argue this is all a good thing. I'm learning a lot more about parliamentary process, and the kids are getting a fine education in how to become a thorn in the side to your MP; how to express your dangerous ideas, and how to use your vote.

Yes. That is a good thing. Unless you are in the Labour party.

If I make it out the polling station, I shall probably be struck dead by my mother's curses from beyond the grave. I may have only two options. Vote Green, again, or spoil my ballot paper.

Which some people say is pretty much one and the same thing.


* These are our rights, and I'm keeping them.

Early Day Motions here. MPs from here.

EDM 1785
HOME EDUCATION AND THE BADMAN REVIEW 01.07.2009

Mark Field

That this House acknowledges and celebrates the hard work of the many home educators in Britain who teach their children to an exceptionally high standard; recognises the excellent value they represent to the Government; notes with concern the conflation of welfare concerns with education issues in Government statements on home education; further notes with concern the recommendations of the Badman Review which suggest closer monitoring of home educators, including a compulsory annual registration scheme and right of access to people's homes for local authority officials; and calls on the Government to focus on its own ability to fulfil the Every Child Matters objectives rather than undermine the independence and integrity of home educators by enforcing the Badman recommendations.



EDM 1784
HOME EDUCATION 01.07.2009

Timothy Farron
That this House recognises that an estimated 45,000 to 150,000 children are educated at home; believes that parents should be allowed and supported to home educate; notes with concern the proposals put forward in the recent Badman Review; expresses particular concern at the lack of consultation involved in conducting the review; considers it unacceptable that local authorities are able to circumvent their responsibilities to pupils who are being home educated; accepts the need for a system of support to ensure that home educated children receive a good quality of education without creating an excessive and damaging degree of bureaucracy; and calls on the Government to strike the right balance between allowing parents the freedom to give their children the widest possible educational opportunities and ensuring that all children receive a well-rounded education.