The brutality for kids out of school

Occasionally in cyberspace I trip over a dozy member of the general public who bursts out that it is the government's job to educate our children, and anything else is deeply unsettling and wrong.

These people are excellent, and more fun than tying my children to the air con and poking them with goat bones. These members of the public always appeal to the wisdoms of others to back up their arguments. So, they know their opinions are right about home ed because their friend Maureen has a sister, and she knows a woman who once worked for the NSPCC and everyone knows what a good job they do.

Maureen says that keeping your children out of school is unnatural and a cover for all sorts of stuff you wouldn't dream of inflicting on a dog. That's why home education should be banned. And if there is a weedy excuse why your child cannot attend school, like a bit of crying and a few suicide attempts, then you should have your house hard wired to social services so they can come and inspect you.

Well, Grit is speaking from several years of bitter home ed experience, and she can tell you a thing or two about learning outside a classroom. But don't listen to Grit, obviously, because Maureen's sister's friend says all home ed kids sit around sniffing glue and shouting abuse at passers by. That is when they are not hidden away in the crack house called home by their drug addict parents, or passing their PhD at age 13 because they have been hothoused all their lives, poor little mites.

I can only do what I can do, and that is to blog on, and present to Maureen's sister's friend the true horrible reality in the daily miserable suffering of a bunch of primary age, home educated kids.

The other day we visited a local gallery to see a collection of old maps, and the kids all stood around talking about them, choosing their favourites, finding the drawings of sea monsters and sailing ships. Then we all went to the park and the kids played hide and seek, charades, and their own version of Hong Kong's Got Talent.




The truth is so boring, I might well confess to mental illness, alcoholism, and a relationship with other family members based on mutual loathing. Just to spice things up a bit.

Hi Ofsted! I drugged my kids and dumped them in a field!

Fetch Christine, quick! After drugging my kids with a vege sausage sandwich and KETCHUP, I willingly sacrificed their frail and tender bodies to the evil forces of untamed nature! I am depraved! Save me from myself and take away from me my foul home educating ways!

For here is EVIDENCE. A bunch of abusing home educators, TORTURING these poor and innocent kids with butterfly nets, pots and lids. (And an expert in beetles called Amanda.)


Look how we seek to scare these kids to DEATH as we let them loose among the potentially hazardous GRASS, where all the fouls and fetids of the grass might dwell.


Shameless! We then force our innocents to squat upon the ground to receive the terrible words and commands that drip from our horrible tongues.


See me WEEP.

But first, before you come round to our field, get yourself some education on statutory duty.

(And as for the Chauliognathus lugubris, the little bastard's around here somewhere.)

Ofsted the undead

Tsk. Back again, the Ofsted vampire, clawing its way out the coffin and, under cover of darkness, creeping into the news again.

It is like some sad little creepy thing that won't slide off and die, honourably.

Here it comes, crawling, sucking the life blood out of parents, teachers, children; drip by drip seeking to sap the strength of us all as we go about our lives, creating educations we believe in. And each time the Ofsted undead leave their betraying little puncture marks in our necks, they seek to do a bit more harm, a bit more damage to us all.

Which makes me think there is a malignant presence, if not on the government front bench, but there, creeping around Parliament, seeping through the civil service, providing safe shelter for the vampiric undead. Someone, somewhere - for what reason I don't know but guess - some undead corpse needs to see every child locked in school.

And if not school, then as near as close can be, logged and databased, better to be accessed. At home then, where Ofsted can inspect. Home education becomes home schooling, and every family a part of the control.

But this time, they've mistimed. Here they want every child registered, for any authority to come calling.

Haven't we heard this before? The Ofsted fag end is the last gasp of an argument feebly thrown. It is nothing more than admittance of their failure to find harm. They find stories of success; they hear enthusiasm, positive lives. In return, they offer the regurgitation of a discredited review; the demand to access; then nothing. Nothing beyond the spread of innuendo, suspicion, mistrust.

I should thank Christine, really.

Part of me is deeply bored by the exhausted, worn out hollow shell of the Ofsted undead, and I am so very tired of watching their ancient sagging bodies sneak between us, feeding off the living.

But a part of me celebrates. Because did I ever love eating garlic and spitting back that barbarous sting.

Getting that off my chest

Today I shove Squirrel in front of the computer in her bedroom, find the Key Stage 2 Rocks and Soils BBC bitesize, and say have a go at that.

Five minutes later after an argument that begins it depends, she's scored 9/10.

I clip her round the ear for misreading the question about rock splashing from volcanoes. Yes, Squirrel, shut up about the marble with the heat and pressure. You did not read the word FROTH. You know they want the answer pumice, so no supper for you tonight.

Of course I am quietly satisfied, but I am a hard task mistress. Squirrel got here, to this knowledge filled world, without dressing in grey and white and never being allowed near a rock face. She got here by rolling in mud, scraping her knuckles, and crushing soil under her fingernails.

Well, today's lesson proves me right. Home education gets us to the same place, with years of added freedom.

But a result like that makes me want to shout out and applaud the people over here who are standing up to Balls and saying children matter more than he does. And what is Balls' response? Bully Boy is threatening to send the Heads home with letters to their mums and a fine from their pocket money. Pathetic.

So here is the rant that I immediately took downstairs, and it fell out my mouth much as it's falling out my finger ends. Only I'm skipping the effing and blinding.

What is the SATs? It is a bunch of packaged factoids, some of which is such a low level of comprehension my eyeballs fall out. These ridiculous factoids are presented as total truths: absolutely certain, finished, done complete bits of unquestionable knowledge. And nowhere can you say it depends, which is what we are shouting here most of the time, because we know knowledge isn't complete. It is only ideas in development that ask for challenging and questioning.

What is all this SATs crap even doing via a computer screen anyhow, like is this the homework kids have to do when they get home from school?

This is weird computer-mediated knowledge which is telling kids the world can only be known through someone else's pre-packaged selection. This is like the kid next door who won't eat plums picked from his own plum tree in the garden. He'll only eat them plastic wrapped from Tesco.

For goodness sake, turn this generation out of doors, kick them into mud piles, send them running along beaches, face down into rock pools, scrambling up hills, climbing up trees. Kids should be at the world, exploring it, picking it apart, reinventing it for themselves, not sitting passively receiving bits of it because someone else made a decision that would be a quiet and neat thing for them to do.

And where is creativity in all of this SATs crap? I want people around me who observe with sharp eyes and speak aloud. No matter how ruddy uncomfortable it makes me feel. I want people to bring questions, fresh perspective, strange angles, personal tellings, because all of that inspires me and does away with everything I thought I knew and recreates everything afresh. How can the SATs crapfactoidlist do that? It offers only a disconnection from the world we live in. It invites a child to distrust their own observations, to refuse to speak them, to be passed as right or wrong. That is only a disconnection from a person's own intuitive sense; disempowerment and disengagement.

And boy, am I cross about the way knowledge is twisted to fit the final answer. What is the point of thinking anything if you know you must give the answer they already gave you? What is the point of wondering what if this happens, wondering what if that didn't happen, wondering anything at all?

Well Shark, Squirrel and Tiger can take the ruddy SATs at Key Stage effing 2 with no sodding preparation and that will stand as absolute stick-my-finger in your eye to the total idiot who said to me today that kids are disadvantaged if they don't complete those pointless facile tests.

And HIP HIP HOORAY to every teacher who scorns them, and to every Head who collects that letter to take home to mum.

So I went straight back upstairs after offloading all that spewed out frustration with the type of crap children have to live with, pouring from this anti-educational, tiny brained mentality that's been - not leading us, but telling us what we can and cannot do - and Squirrel says she just went and did the Key Stage 3 Astronomy, and scored 11/12, so now can she have supper?

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

I'm trying to take Diana Johnson seriously.

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

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

She's an arse.

There you go. I just cannot take her seriously.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arse.

Notes here.

If evidence were needed

I forgot. It is my current mission to show you how home educators abuse their children by forcing them to socialise.

Here is a bunch of home ed kids at the regular Mad Science workshop. Socialising. If that's the right word for this point.


I guess socialisation is what any government lackey calls this activity in schools - when everyone sits down and stares at the teacher - so we'll call it that here, for the benefit of those challenged by more than one interpretation of the s-word.

At this point, a home educator would say, Socialisation? We do it all the time. There you go. Photographic evidence.


But I know for any government lackey peering into this blogging home ed world, this is all merely further damning proof. These photographs are simply evidence of how home educators find the surest way to damage their offspring, academically, psychologically, and socially, literally guaranteeing them a life on the streets.


I can hear them thinking how they might represent the hazard home educators present to mainstream society.

They can present the casual, ordinary way we expose our kids to the danger that is other home educated children; they could tell you how we coerce our kids into sitting down while a teacher type person tells them about atoms, molecules and compounds; or how we force children to breathe each other's sweaty smelly breath in closed halls and rooms, with doorhandles crawling with swine flu bacteria.

And if that fails, those government lackeys could leak to the press how those damnable home educated parents laugh when they abuse those child innocents by forcing them to queue.


But then there is the proof staring straight at us all.

The government toady will cry, Of course it is an inadequate education! It should be stopped! The evidence is right there! In front of your eyes!

Not one of those kids can be learning anything. Because not one of them is in UNIFORM.

Of course I worry about my sanity

Because I am a paranoid nut-case I often stray into websites and documents designed for paranoid nut cases, like the Education Act (1996) or guidance to local authorities for dealing with parents who choose other forms of education than school. Or even the starting points to get myself informed about stuff affecting my daily life.

Sometimes I stray to the homes of other home educating bloggers, like the thoughtful lady behind Making it up or to the uber achieving manor house, a place pretty much of my aspiration and where I steal my home ed ideas.

And then sometimes I stray to stuff over here. Or here. Or here.

Sometimes I even have an eye on what the kids are expected to do in mainstream state primary schools, where all teachers are told to do the same stuff and not different stuff, like they do in my world. Hey, we may have to slip into that stream ourselves, like if I die, Dig pushes off to live alone in Hong Kong, or really if my kids choose it; we like to keep all our options open.

In that vein, we completed the junior SATs science papers a couple of years ago, and spent ages over questions which sounded like

Where does wool come from? Does it come from:
(a) sheep?
(b) motorway?
(c) tree?

I'm serious. Shark spent five days puzzling over questions in that style. Like, Where is the trick? They are trying TO CATCH ME OUT! There MUST BE a trick!

Meanwhile I have to take myself by the scruff of the neck and give myself a good shaking not to be appalled at the level that sort of question aspires to.

And then, because by now I am completely paranoid, what with being aware of the law, and the diversity, and the standardisation of learning all over this country, I sometimes wonder what it is to be a primary school teacher, so I stray into what skills you need.

Typical activities for all primary school teachers include:
teaching all areas of the primary curriculum

And now I am stuck, all over again. Because there is an issue for me, right there. How can any primary school teacher engage fully with all areas? Like, how can a primary school teacher speak with fluency, passion, and knowledge, on geography, history, literature, maths, physics, drama, computers, chemistry, visual art, other languages, other cultures...

And I guess the answer is, well, primary kids do not need to know these things.

So there is the second problem I have, and it's the primary curriculum. Like, who created the primary curriculum? Who decided what is important for kids to know? What's not important for them to know? Why aren't they important? Does the school curriculum reflect the things I feel are important for my mini citizens to know?

Well, no.

I would like Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to have a more well rounded education than can be offered in the state primary system. I want them to meet people who are enthusiastic communicators, who know the subjects they are talking about, who can inspire others in their subject with passion and energy.

Those people are so rare to meet. I guess we won't meet them in the primary classroom, not in all the range we want. Which is why I send the little grits down mines, up trees, into fields, over ditches; chasing after experts who know their stuff, who know how to make their subject come alive, and who know how to engender a love and interest, long after the cold, hard SATs statistics are dead and buried.

Thank you, Jill, the geologist, who took the gritlets to the field this weekend, showed them ice swept landscapes, mammoths trapped in the tundra, blasting winds, frozen soils, and the beauty of rock crystals hidden beneath our feet.

We know where to find the experts, and the curriculum we seek. It is in the real world, with love, passion and commitment.

And I guess if this blog continues to champion those, you can call me a paranoid nut-case anytime.

Graham Badman saved my marriage!

Readers of this blog might sometimes guess, reading between the lines, DIG ISN'T HERE and, when he is at home, DIG WORKS AT HIS COMPUTER.

When Dig is at home, working at his computer, it is usually for a deadline that is impossible and requires 18 hours work a day. The stress will cripple this entire family, squeeze the pressure on the delicate Grit, and bring a dense oppression to this marriage, until Grit arrives prostrate at the floor and has a big squeal. And in that big squeal words might be heard, to the effect of

YOUF*KINGIGNORANTARROGANTB*STRD

followed by other delightful epithets, delicate phrases of tenderness, and a sustained verbal assault on how shoving one's chosen life partner under the 12.20 Virgin train to London might be a rational thing to do.

Now I cannot deny that in this house last night there arose from this kitchen turns of phrase which sounded a lot like the above.

But this morning, Dig and Grit stand shoulder-to-shoulder. Here we are, happy. United. Husband and wife.

It would feel good if this united front was due to a night of steamy passion. It was not. It was the mutual discovery this morning of the endeavours of Graham Badman.

We have looked each other in the eye, equally, problem shared, and started laughing.

For readers of this blog who are mystified because they come here simply to discover what new disasters and triumphs can be manufactured by a home educating family of five (but mostly four because one is never here), I should explain a background story.

A little while ago, the Department for Children School and Families (DCSF) put up Graham Badman to write a review of home education. A panel of names was supplied along with Graham to make it look like the review was independent; Elizabeth Green of the DCSF provided 'advice'.

Whether you're for or against the recommendations, we can take it the review was not independent but originated from the DCSF with Badman as the front man.

The report recommended a variety of measures, all of which led in the direction of social control and not much in the direction of home education.

To prove that all home educators needed intervention by government, Badman came up with a strange statistic playing on middle England's fear of the words 'social services'; he suggested many home educated kids are more likely to be 'known' to social services. As the report was published, the NSPCC linked stories of abused kids and home educators. Some newspapers repeated these claims. Tie it all up, and you get child abuse + social services = home education.

The government clearly thought they could get away with it. Let's face it, home educators are a disparate bunch containing the widest variety of all society. In this group there are the posh, the desperate, the mad, the sane, the middle class, the non-mainstream, the unconventional, the Radio 3 listeners, the pink hair enthusiasts. Who would speak up for this lot? Who would dare?

Home educators put up a fight. With freedom of information requests, they proved the statistics that Badman collated did not stand up to scrutiny. Worse, the statistics were manipulated to give the public a misleading and defamatory impression of home educated parents and children.

Let's say the reality. Children in home educating households are less likely to be preyed upon by abusive adults; they are more likely to be protected from predators, from bullies, from abusers; they are more likely to have the space and freedom to grow, and to have their educational and life needs met by their parents and family.

But the DCSF, wounded by this reality which keeps on coming back to them, then replied, That's it! We're not giving you home educating nosy types any more ammunition! The statistics you want are not interesting! Because we say so! And what's more, some people are poking fun at Mr Badman!

Well, Grit can't make it any worse, so here she goes.

Graham, you saved our marriage!

Because this morning, Grit and Dig wake to see that Graham Badman has written to the DCSF, I want more time to prove that home educators are a bunch of abusive layabouts who are inept and known to social services! I want to show the world that I was right!

The DCSF has of course granted Graham more time to find the statistics to damn us all, and off he's gone, looking, because he couldn't find any before.

But something else will turn up, won't it? There'll be a juicy story somewhere that links - wait for it - home education and pedophilia. And from the government's point of view, that will do the job where statistics will fail. Shove some shitty press stories covering abuse and home education through your letterbox, and if there was any sympathy for home educators, by the time the DCSF, Badman, Balls, Morgan and the press have had a go, they hope there won't be any soon.

So. The state of affairs today in this household is that Grit and Dig are looking at each other, and laughing. This government will continue to stitch us all up to achieve what they want. Possibly, a nice big database, not much freedom from you, and lots of social control.

On the plus side, there should be lots of jobs for inspectors, authorising agents, third-party data services, Capita Software, and people you don't know poking around your private life before declaring you guilty of something and a fine of £60 for infringement.

But as I said, for the moment, Grit and Dig have a common enemy. Graham Badman has brought us both together in united purpose. We're laughing, shaking our heads at the state of this government, and wondering whether life would be better together if we lived elsewhere.

Of course I won't say the idea of a common enemy isn't an attractive one if it puts the Grit and Dig marriage back on track and engenders such a state of togetherness.

...

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.

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?

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.

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?

Grit, did someone get your dander up?

There are some morons out there - sorry, some uninformed ignorant twats (that sounds so much better) - who believe that home education means children stay at home.

When children stay at home, they do not see anyone else. Nope. Not a living person. Maybe the postman. Or maybe not, since last week we kidnapped him, butchered him and used his liver in the Satanic rituals we conduct in the cellar.

And then again, because we home educate, no-one sees our children, Shark, Squirrel and Tiger. So you can naturally assume the things we do to our offspring behind closed doors.

Of course what we do is brainwash them. That's timetabled 9.15am to 11am. Then we hot house them for their Masters degree in Pure Maths, 11am to 2.00pm. You'll note there's no lunch involved. Satanic rituals take place 2.00pm to 5pm. Then the evening's taken up with constant humiliation and beating. Bed is 7pm with a bowl of gruel. That's when mama and papa have sex in every room of the house involving drugs, vodka, excrement, goats, PornTV, she-wolves, you name it, we done it.

Because we use this word home education. Which must mean, in the brain of the average moron, that it takes place only in the home. Where we must have something to hide.

And somewhere in this field is Shark, Squirrel and Tiger,
not going anywhere on their bicycles.
Certainly not to Tuesday's activities
which involve French, horseriding, sailing and no dance.