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.

Safeguarding access to my home and family

Thank goodness I have my diary back, because I see we have an imminent visit from Aunty Dee - that's the children's Aunty, not mine - she's lucky enough to be my sister-in-law.

Aunty Dee is also a social worker, and has been totally supportive of our decision to home educate. OK then, she has not yet threatened to have me sectioned and the children farmed out to foster homes, so we can count that as the same thing.

Nevertheless, in her honour, we are all now engaged in screwing on some doorknobs, clearing up the trip hazards from the floor, and nailing the gate back together.

Clearly, this involves some necessary child labour.


But of course we are not mean employers. No. We have bought off our small employees with the promise of some cheap Neapolitan ice cream from the Co-op.

A day spent mostly at home in general maintenance is also a good time to wander round blogs and take stock of opinion around the BadmanBalls review of home education.

As Shark finishes painting the gate, I reflect on Recommendation 7 that to routinely monitor the education Shark, Squirrel and Tiger receive, a local authority officer could be given the legal power to enter my home and interview my children without my presence.

That's more powers than the police. It is also a power that can be extended to any family in this country with children.

I would just like to say for the record that if anyone were to try and enter my home, we are not just going to remove all the doorhandles again.

You will have to break in past Shark's newly painted gate and navigate the garden and floors which will be strewn with plastic junk.

Assuming, of course, you can get past my dead body nailed up over the doorway.

This could be a match from heaven

We head off at short notice to a field. In this field there's a drama workshop for home educators. By the time we leave, at 7.30pm, I round up three kids, keys and glasses ... but forget my diary, packed with details on all forthcoming activities.

When I realise, at 8.30pm, that I am diaryless, I suddenly feel totally and hopelessly lost. That's a feeling not unlike someone just threw me off a tall building, lopped off both my arms and plunged my face in vinegar pickle.

Fortunately, Richard Gere* has been running this workshop, and I have his telephone number stashed in my mobile. He rescues my diary, saves my sanity, and delivers back to me this forthcoming week. I may now have to fall madly in love with him.

And with these glorious green spaces.






* He just seems to me to bear an uncanny resemblance.

And just when I thought no one cared

Thank you, Maternal Tales, for the award.

Some weeks ago, I took Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to a workshop. We'd driven a long way, everyone was impatient to see friends and grumpy with the journey. I'd tired my passengers with This Sceptered Isle and we'd grown impatient with word games.

But then we arrived. Shark, Squirrel and Tiger bounced out the car and started off to their teacher and group. As they sprang away they came to a sudden halt, investigated a fluttering moth, trapped between dandelions, and ran on. Our learning is like play, and I doubt the children know much difference.

I sat on a bench to wait, along with other parents. Some had phones and diaries, busy arranging lessons, workshops, outings, social meetings. Some chatted. Several sat with younger children, scattering crayons, teddies, paper, workbooks, enjoying the summer sun.

A woman, about fifty, sat next to me.

We are like all mothers, when you wait at school gates, or in the doctor's surgery, or in queues, when you might be called forward. We offer the same things. Nice weather! How many children are you waiting for? Aren't the roads busy? Her name is Mary, she says, and her son is Don.

With a laugh, Mary says she'd point out Don to me, but he's already disappeared from view, because Jack's here, and when they get together, those two are as thick as thieves, but she doesn't worry about that, only about how expensive are Don's exams and she'll suppose they'll manage somehow.

Then our talk gently turns to how difficult it is to home educate right now, how things are changing and how betrayed we feel. And then Mary tells me her story.

Don went to primary school. He was happy. There were times when the balance went wrong and school overturned family life. Mostly because Don had trouble reading and writing and Mary gave up time she didn't really have to help him at home, more when there were too many tests to do. But on balance, she said, Don was well supported, the teachers took time, and the classes were friendly.

But then school went horribly wrong. Don moved to the big school. He needed to be out earlier every morning because he had to catch the bus. And when he arrived at school, he talked different. He looked different. His new shirt looked too big for him. His hair stuck out. His shoes were too clean. He didn't fit.

At first Don simply said he didn't like school because he hadn't friends and people weren't nice to him and he felt lonely. Mary did what many mothers might do; she had a part time job, a husband to attend to, a daughter to encourage with GCSEs, and two dogs to feed. She assumed it was first-term nerves and everything would be alright with a little encouragement. Do the first half term, she coaxed, then at the holidays, we'll buy a new game for your player. Your sister was alright and now look! Loving school! Keep going. Sometimes we all have to do things we don't want.

Mary's tactic didn't work. Don became difficult, reluctant at the morning routine. He was sick. He missed the bus. He didn't want to go. His stomach hurt. The family, because they are supportive, and close, and worried about their son, were tender and understanding, and sat with him and tried to find out what wasn't right. He was being bullied, that much they found out, but who or why, they couldn't understand. Don was worried that if his mum went to the school, everyone would know and it would become worse.

Mary was discreet, of course she would be. By now she was feeling guilty, anxious, troubled. She was worried about the future years and how things would work. But the school was supportive, they listened and said they would do what they could. For a short while things seemed to be better and everyone was hopeful.

But the bullying didn't stop. It became sly, insidious. Don was punched on a bus. A child grabbed his crotch. Another grabbed his breast and twisted, hard. Janet, the school's pastoral head, was appropriately concerned. She removed children from classes and investigated. Letters were sent, back and forth, and the bullying didn't stop. The terrifying bus journeys continued.

Janet defended the school and said they had effective anti bullying policies in place. She wondered had Don in any way been more involved than he said? In any case, said Janet, the bus is not school grounds and they cannot be responsible for discipline on board the bus.

Mary said home life became hell. She used that word again, and again. Over the first year at the big school, Don had changed from a happy, outgoing, growing boy, to one who was withdrawn, difficult, obstinate, aggressive, fearful.

During the long summer holidays, Don relaxed and his parents saw glimpses of him return. He was helpful, engaged, wanted to plan the car journey on holiday to Wales, helped pack, suggested outings, looked forward to the beach, wanted to climb mountains.

Then September came again. Immediately Mary's son shrank, grew small, cried. Mary worried late into the night, argued with her family, husband, older daughter, then followed her gut instinct and gave up her job. She withdrew Don from school, and set about working out what to do. For several months they played at nothing much. She took him shopping, gave him books at home, found websites, talked with him about what he'd like to do, where they should go from here.

And that's why she's waiting now, in a workshop about trees, or beetles, or mud, or whatever, because Don loves the outdoors. More than anything in the world he wants to be a gardener and run his own landscape company.

But it's not enough. Because here comes the news reports that insist Mary is not only wrong, she's dangerous. By changing her lifestyle, ambitions, changing who she is, what she does, she's not helping her child, she'll hurt him, hinder him, stifle him, possibly abuse him. And how betrayed she felt by that, and how angry she had become, and how she thought few people outside the world of home education, which was now her main support, how so very few people would understand what she felt.

Shark, Squirrel and Tiger have never attended school beyond a summer at nursery. They've never been asked to stay in a situation of fear, physical attack, dread of loneliness. But I can understand how Mary feels now, and I want other people to understand too. I try and make sense of the criticisms of home education peddled through the media, whether they've been slipped in the back door by government-spun press officers, or written by journalists who shone at school, won awards at Oxford, have chips on their shoulders about religion or difference, or who are given a monthly pay cheque to write anything they choose that disregards all our families so casually and callously.

Home educators are not a threat. We don't deserve the whiff of suspicion. Right now many feel they are caught up in a battle; we have to challenge negative views, work together even though we are very diverse, persuade people of the consequences of this review for all parents of children any age - and all the time, with potentially damaging legislation hanging over us - compulsory access to inspect homes, our children interviewed alone, an obligation to deliver 'minimum standards', plans, assessments annually, in advance and in retrospect, requirements imposed on us by the state, regardless of whether the state education system has already failed our children. Recommendations like these may put off people like Mary from considering home education. And Mary's family, and Don, will suffer as a result.

If your children enjoy school, do well there, have no problems, then please consider what it is like if the opposite is true.

Another day of failure and misery

Especially for Mrs Gradgrind, here is more proof of the solitude, oppression, restricted life, emotionally insecure parenting, and general intellectual torture that passes for another ordinary day in the land of home education.

For today, without the clear guidance and direction of experts like Balls and Badman, I am left alone without an educational plan to wonder how we should squander the hours, and I alight on the Museum at St Albans, and their Tudor experience day.

Here we are deprived by being invited to take part in a workshop of Tudor music and dance. We're able to listen, handle, use and talk about a range of faithfully reproduced Medieval and Tudor instruments. I am sure every school music department keeps those in the stock cupboard, so of course there is no advantage to us to be here today.


But as the final evidence of the bleak educational desolation and sheer horror of our lives, simply look at the faces on the little grits, forced by Tudor Richard to join in!




What more can I say?

I could say, go book Richard York now for his excellent, sustained introduction to music of the Medieval and Tudor periods, and thanks to Dame Currant for her teaching us about cookery of the 1500s and the local history of real people who lived and died in St Albans. And, especially I could say a huge thank you to the Museum of St Albans. Your Education Officer deserves a pay rise.

But happiness, achievement, and success don't make a good story.

Am I threatening you?

Home educators are smug bastards who think they have a monopoly on good parenting. It's about time they got their comeuppance, poncing about museums and swimming pools when the rest of us have to work. We have to suffer, so why shouldn't they.

Let's take this opportunity to put the boot in. Let's suspect them of beating up their kids. Either that, or we can say home schooled kids have no choice and are locked up all day with NO rights and NO contact and NO social skills. And they grunt, yeah, and cannot count. Then we claim the parents are emotionally needy and leave a question like this hanging in the air, like should poor innocent children be subjected to the clinging parent who keeps their child away from school for their own SELFISH ends? Is that justified? Ever? IS IT?

OK, not those words exactly. But I would just like to say I can sniff a whiff of schadenfreude coming out from those comments over here.

Which is a little confusing for Grit, who imagined, like so many other hard working home educating parents, a different vision of what life could be, released from factory farms and battery pens, and rearranged her life, sacrificing salaries and new shoes so she could bring about that different vision and different lifestyle.

And despite giving up some of the stuff other people might value, well, we find we can live a content life, grow a family an off-template way, build the days how we want, and create the way we live, well that's sort of threatening, is it?

No. I'd say threatening was stalking you, keying your Audi, and shoving a dead mackerel through your letterbox. Which right now, I'd like to do very much. Should I give in to those urges, go ahead. Pour suspicion and vitriol down on my head.

But not until I get to the mackerel, OK?

Warning: unplanned life ahead

In Recommendation 1 of the recently published Badman review of home education, we read this:

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.

Hello Mr Badman and Mr Balls. When I taught in an actual school with penned up human beings who clawed at the windows on sunny days, desperate to run outside, play, be alive, I doggedly stuck to the lesson plan that I had so carefully prepared, and it was of this type of reproduced crap.

Teacher led introduction of new topic how language varies (15 mins): 1. according to context and purpose [for example, choice of vocabulary in more formal situations] 2. between standard and dialect forms [for example, in drama, the effect of using standard or dialect forms] 3. between spoken and written forms [for example, the differences between transcribed speech, direct speech and reported speech]. With support, children conduct brainstorming session (15 mins) to create wall display on types of talk. Teacher led wrap up session (15 mins) on what we have learned about types of talk in preparation for written exercise in lesson 2.

I knew this would tick boxes should OFSTED drop from the skies, dribbling with the forthcoming pleasure that if I didn't deliver some goods pretty quickly they could point the finger of fate in my direction and denounce me as a BAD BAD TEACHER. So basically I protected my job, fed the kids garbage and became little more than a dead delivery vessel for prescribed knowledge sanctioned, regulated and inspected by the government.

Making teachers perform pointless exercises is nothing more than making them count number plates to keep them busy. Shoving it in front of parents is an attempt to make teaching sound professional, because we hope it will confuse the average How's-Joe-doing parent. And for the kids? Sorry - educational consumers - it is a load of arsetwaddle acting as a facile replacement for real-world experience and real-world interaction and nothing more than containment.

But now I home educate, we can kick this shite into the long grass - and then go jump up and down on where it landed.

Out here in home education land we may discuss language use in real-life contexts with real-life human beings because we are part of this society, community and city. And we can do that when and where we want because it has arisen as part of being alive.

So you can shove your vacuous planning. Today the weather is superb. I take Shark, Squirrel and Tiger swimming at the outdoor lido. And hey! THAT WASN'T EVEN PLANNED.

But do you know what the local council plans to do with this wonderful lido and community resource?

Close it down and sell it to a developer so they can meet the government's new homes targets and build another housing estate.

We are told this is a better future than the one we sought.

Surely Queen Elizabeth II is entitled to some privacy

One reason the Grit and Dig marriage has lasted so long - despite the fact I have launched several mental traumas and a tin of baked beans at it - is that we respect each other's privacy.

Admittedly, for the first three years, life was a bit odd. After I broke into his house, cooked food and lolled about the sofa, Dig resigned himself to the fact that I wasn't going away. He didn't complain, much. He probably just wondered who I was.

Likewise, I respected his privacy in return. I never asked about the lack of detergent, the severed head in the window, and why all the doorknobs fall off.

Because of this respect for each other's privacy, or total lack of curiosity about each other's lifestyle, we got on pretty well. So well in fact that I have a theory about the way we got married, and that was I never went away, so Dig thought it would be a good idea to try marriage, and see if that would get rid of me.

It didn't. And now we have children. And still no-one's come to collect them, so it looks like we're stuck with them. But we still value our privacy. Dig leaves me alone to warp the brains of his offspring, and I wave him farewell when he travels around the world being important and earning money. So long as me and the three aliens can travel along for the ride once in a while, that's OK.

Now we live like this. I subject Dig only to a small amount of web cam surveillance of hotel rooms around the world, and I let him get on with his life. He lets me live mine. We are both happy with that. Of course there are sharing rules. I demand access to his bank account, but I do not touch his computer stuff. He does not have access to my bank account, and he does not touch my ipod or phone because if he does he is DEAD.

And like this, we endure. We can maintain this privacy because it is based on respect. We both assume we have each other and our children in our hearts, so we don't need to bother accounting for what we're doing, justifying or explaining it. We simply trust each other, unquestioning. From that, we and our children live in a safe, supportive and loving world we have built and shared.

More, our family life gives me a way of looking at the world, like I think trust, respect and privacy should inform my dealings with others.

So when an expert tells me someone I don't know should have the legal right to come into my home and talk directly to my children - unsupervised - and I need not have given anyone any reason to think I've done anything illegal, then it sort of crosses my beliefs about privacy, trust, and respect, and I want to start chucking baked beans about.

This is Recommendation 7 of the recent Badman reviewof home education which has been accepted by the government.

Personally, I do not think the state should have the right to enter my home on a two week warning. And I do not believe any government official should have the automatic right to separate me from my children to interview my children alone on the basis that we home educate.

Because by logical extension, everyone with children can expect a visit. It's any child at home, perhaps ill, taking a day from school due to family circumstance, not taking up the state nursery provision from age 3. Which makes me think Mr Badman and his like must be fair desperate to know what goes on in our private life, that they're so keen to get inside our home.

And I know there will be people who say Fine! Anyone can inspect my home anytime they wish! And all they'll find are happy children!

Then I hope we can trust everyone to do their job fairly. I hope the day when someone calls, and claims they are within their legal rights to enter the home, interview the children alone, that they choose a day in anyone's life when no-one is ill, when the front room is in disarray, the laundry not done, that there is no ordinary life circumstance that has caused disruption and unswept floors.

Because what if there are children with dirty faces? The lawns not maintained? The ironing not done? Is that visitor there to help and understand? Or is that visitor there to ensure minimum standards are maintained, to police and inspect the environment? To assess the suitability of a home? How much mischief could a visitor make if they chose?

So Mr Badman, let me tell you now, when you find out what my husband keeps in his bathroom, then you will realise we would all have been better off not knowing.

By the way, if you are thinking Queen Elizabeth is just a gratuitous name to pull in those desperate Americans in a keyword search, you are partly right.

Today the gritlets visited one of Mrs Windsor's castles, saw the changing of the guard, the round tower, the state rooms and took part in a workshop about Henry VIII and his very large armour.

Of course we are only allowed to see a very tiny bit of Windsor castle, and there is some intensive security and monitoring of us, so don't think you can just call in like the Local Authority would like to do to us. And most certainly we are not allowed to visit the private rooms of Queen Elizabeth II.

Do you think she has something to hide?

But it's not surprising my hair is turning grey

So I'm getting ready for bed, in the upstairs bathroom brushing my teeth, trying not to remove what's left of the enamel, concentrating on making sure the teeth in my head at the age of 99 are mine and not plastic, when I hear a blast of noise from the street below - like kids WHOOPING and SCREAMING - which is not particularly strange given that it's 10.30ish at night. But it is strange I hear some kid shout SHE'S GOING TO BLOW!

Now naturally curious about these late night impromptu street parties hosted by teen gangs here in Smalltown, I go to the window to look out with my toothbrush stuck in my face and my mouth full of Colgate foam and I see a lot of small bright fires blazing over the tarmac. One fire is under the wheel of a parked car and some kid is pumping his foot up and down on that blaze like he's trying to kick the fire out, but he's not having any luck with that because fire and rubber like each other very much and no Nike trainer is coming between that embrace.

The kid does what any responsible young adult does in our society, and runs off, with three other kids, away down the street whooping and calling. And Grit does what any responsible old adult does, tosses the toothbrush on the floor, runs down two flights of stairs to the kitchen, grabs a flower vase, chucks the flowers out, runs outside and throws the water over the fire and ppffff, out it fizzles.

Just as I stand there in the middle of the road, holding a flower vase, staring at the tyre, a vehicle screeches to a halt by me, a young man jumps out and shouts That's my car! What the hell's happening? Grit, with her mouth full of toothpaste foam, puts up a forefinger by way of suggesting Could you wait one moment please? and goes and spits in the hedge.

From that point life becomes slightly more surreal but involves the young man chasing four teenagers, a stand off down the back lane and Grit phoning the police. Over the next hour I have to hang round street corners half undressed with toothpaste dribble down my chin. It almost beats the time I stood in the business district with a plastic bag on my head thanks to a fire alarm at the hairdressers.

But I would say that it is an appropriate ending to a day here at the Pile. We have been guided by madness all day long, possibly a form of post-gooseberry disorder. Squirrel has declared she is writing a book and is copying out someone else's book as an expedient and quick way of doing it. Shark has wailed she now needs a pet so badly she has gone out and caught greenfly in a jar and is now looking after them with an intensity that will make them wish they were dead. Tiger, not to be outdone, has manoeuvred a reluctant slug into a marmalade jar and demanded I give up my organic lettuce to feed him and, by the way, his name is Nutmeg.

Given this daily environment and the routine state of Smalltown, it is surprising that I am as normal as I am.