Frosty Veg

I get a feeling that I might look back at my last post, with it's lovely pictures of all the things growing in my garden, and weep by the end of this week!

What IS it with this weather?! A few days ago we had snow in some parts of the country again, and widespread frosts at night.

I panicked. I don't have a greenhouse. My tender plants - courgettes and tomatoes - were already out in the garden as they had outgrown the pots that fitted on my window sill or in my ramshackle plastic thing, and I had no choice but to plant them out.

Without any proper poly tunnels or the luxury of cloches, I had to make-do-and-mend. I pulled apart an old wire hanging basket, gathered all the large stones and sticks I could find, and collected a miraculously-timed gift of bubble wrap courtsey of my local Freecycle.

This was the result:

tomatoes and herbs
Strawberries
Courgettes
Brassicas
French beans
Over the days I've refined the covers a bit, and found some plastic cover from a new mattress which I've cut into strips to make long polytunnels to cover two rows of carrots and my precious yellow beetroot.

Sadly, three out of four courgette plants are struggling. Ironically not from the night-time frosts - they have been perky every morning when I've taken their bubblewrap bedjackets off - but from the low temperatures and keen winds during the day which was something I hadn't counted on.

Still, at least I've tried. I have felt very much like Barbara in "The Good Life" and I'm sure it must have been a great source of amusement to my neighbours to see me out there every evening..

One evening the other week we helped some friends out by collecting their three children from school and looking after them until their Mum finished work.

We cooked our famous slow cooker chilli and served a just-made-up-that-evening pudding that was a real success.

I made a rhubarb and apple compote, covered it with what we've decided is the ultimate crumble, in individual little tarts.

We served it with our home made rhubarb ice cream and a lovely syrup made out of reducing the liquid from the compote.

I managed to impress myself!

Josh, in true autonomous fashion, has decided that he'd like to improve his math ability in order to feel more confident so he's set himself the task of doing an hours math study every Monday. Gobsmacked!

Roarke had a day's acting work, on a small budget film. By the way I realised this week that Perrier's Bounty is out - Roarke is in that! I don't know if it has/is going to show anywhere near me which is a shame. Apparently the Special Relationship is out shortly too, which he is in.

Josh has continued with his sailing, and Samuel is enjoying learning the multimedia and sound desk at church so that he can start doing the sound at Baseline. I'm so proud of my lads! They have all said that they want to start doing both services on a Sunday in order to get the most out of church, and get to spend time with their friends there.

I've been able to help out more at church, doing another two meetings/trainings with regards to funding, and also helping at their awareness seminar for the work of the Hope Foundation.

Talking of Hope, Roarke is doing well with his training for the Triathlon. PLEASE sponsor him!

I'm organising a trip for our home ed group to go to the View Tube on the Olympic site which is exciting! I haven't organised an outing for a while so it's a bit nerve wracking but it seems to be really popular and we've already booked two days, with some 70 people taking part!

We've won a battle, but not the war

Thanks to the support of opposition MPs, home educators yesterday saw the Ed Ball's "flagship" CSF Bill take some heavy damage.

Clause 26 - the home education clause - was thrown out of the Bill.

Home educators across the country lifted a glass/cup at 9.30pm to toast our relief, and all the efforts of hundreds of parents and children across the country who had spent the last twelve months fighting off the invasive, aggressive agenda of this government against our community.

However..

The war isn't over. Labour and the current DCSF leading civil servants have succeeded in casting aspersions onto home education, and in sowing poisonous seeds of doubt in the minds of local authorities, children services professionals, and the general public.

Home educators have now got to weed out all of those lies, replant healthy relationships (you can tell I've been gardening today!), and generally spend precious time and energy (that we'd rather be spending on our children) on trying to fix things.

Most of all, we have to consider how we are voting on May 6th. I'm not the only home educator who is aghast at the thought of having to vote tactically JUST on the basis of one issue. There is so very much within the Tory manifesto that I disagree with, but this one policy affects us right to the core of our family in a way that nothing else could (other than policies that infringe our Christian values and lifestyle - which is why I personally won't be voting Lib Dem), so I am left with very little choice other than to vote for the Conservatives this time.

I am under no illusions as to what might come after a Tory win, in terms of home education getting back on the agenda, but I think that will be secondary to the local level (and media level) battles that will face us.

To put it bluntly, most local authorities didn't know how to correctly operate within the existing legal framework, when it came to home educators. They didn't know the powers they had, and they didn't understand what powers they didn't have.

DCSF have played with their minds over the past fourteen months, and all the inaccurate statistics, misinformation and rhetoric has now left us with the situation where schools are refusing to take children's names off of school registers ("because you have to get permission now from the LA"), where local authorities are turning up with tickbox forms to "assess the suitability of your educational provision" and much more.

Unless there is a change at senior level in DCSF, then even a change in government will not be enough to bring clarity and calm to the situation.

I allowed myself the luxury of a celebration last night, but I remain in battle mode.

Telephone Lines and Ready Steady Cook

The week has seen the usual regular activities sprinkled with a few extras: church on Sunday (Roarke was serving in creche), he had drama practice on Tuesday (he had a 24hr bug thing on Monday so missed rehearsals as he went to bed at 7.30pm and slept till 9am!), on Wednesday he took Samuel and William on a home education trip to the Royal Observatory.

The boys both really enjoyed it, including the presentation and the workshop that had been organised. It is interesting to see just how different William in when he is interested in something - paying attention, Roarke said that he asked lots of questions, knew lots of answers, and generally got fully stuck in. He's also continuing his own, slow progress in recognising letters and words.

Samuel is definately well into his teen stage, including being eyed up by some school girls on the bus on the way home from the trip apparently!

Josh is pining for SAVVY as they have broken up for the Easter term. He's learnt all his lines for his part already and can often be heard practicing them.

Last Monday the local exchange had problems and we ended up losing our phone line and our internet too. I got very stressed!

So, as a result, my kitchen is sparkling, my bakeware drawers have been tidied, the top of the fridge has been cleared cleaned and sorted, and I baked. Lots.

Gluten free bread (Olive oil bread from the Healthy Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
book, but I ran out of olive oil so used mainly canola oil - still smelt and tasted divine!)

Samuel helped make gluten free donuts (of which only these two and half were left by the time I got the camera!)
and of course some chocolate easter crispy cakes

I also made some great dinners, but I always forget to take photos of them!

We got a phone line and internet back after 48 hours but after not having any phone calls in two hours (unheard of) we realised there was still an issue. Sure enough, the engineer had made some wrong connections and we have someone else's phone line/number! It is actually quite upsetting as I know that not only are media calls going unanswered, but local home educators enquiries are also not getting through. Seeing as I take several a day usually, this is really concerning. BT have said that we are a priority - because of those helpline calls - but we are now a week around and apparently someone is coming out tomorrow to "the property". Why they need to come here I have no idea when it is a mistake at the exchange. I've got a horrible feeling we're going to have our phone number changed.... surely I can ask for compensation if so?

Thursday I was really busy. My mum came over to focus on Jonathan so that I could focus on our business. Where2EatinKent has now become a limited company and we've got some major projects on the go. It was good to be "working" for a change (lol) and actually the thing I was working on was very rewarding and I soon got into the swing of things and got lots of work done.

Today we had a local home educating family come over, who we've met once before some time ago. The children were William's age and younger and it was good for him to have friends around that weren't older than him for a change. The kids all had fun, and us mums had a good chat.

Josh and Samuel have gone out to get to church for 5pm to serve in setting up Baseline, ready for when it started at 6pm.

I'd been rumaging in the reduced down section at Sainsburys and had bought some garlic ciabatta and some taste the difference cannelloni. Now, I know I should have read the packet, but still I think it is badly done that the cannelloni need sauce to be able to cook them but it doesn't highlight that in anyway. So there I was, ready to put them in the oven, suddenly seeing I needed a jar of tomato sauce and a jar of cheese sauce to cook it.

It shows how far I've come as a cook I guess, and how confident I am now, that instead of throwing a wobbly, I just thought "oh well, I'll have to make some".

I sauted off two shallots, melted in an anchovy fillet, put in a glass and a half of red wine (frozen down in portions you see, from the left overs of a bottle of wine a dinner guest brought a few weeks ago), added a tin of tomatoes and "seasoned to taste". I then half blended it then left it to reduce down to thicken. Meanwhile I made a roux to make up an extra thick cheese sauce. Some fresh thyme from the garden went into the tomato sauce along with one ball of frozen chopped spinach. Once that had defrosted out into the sauce I then pour it into a dish, added the cannelloni, topped with the cheese sauce and some torn basil leaves (from the pot on the window sill) - and into the oven. Served with the ciabatta and a totally-out-of-place glass of gluten free beer, it was LOVELY!

So glad I had the confidence to make that up myself :-)

Working Cars and Gardening Clubs

The background thread to the past two weeks continued to be the car. The friend who had kindly lent us his car whilst he was out of the country for three days called us the following week to tell us that HIS car had broken down too!

This put us back on the buses; public transport is ok but the sort of busy, disorganised life that we tend to use doesn't lend itself that well to bus travel and having to allow an extra half hour to get anywhere.

Sundays are a classic example: Roarke went out early to get to church before the first service started so that he can set up the cafe, I take all the boys on the bus later to the second service, then the issue of a half hourly service when you come out to get the bus back just 5 minutes after one has left and you have to sit at a bus stop with a tired toddler for 25 minutes (on those silly bench things that don't fit bottoms the size of mine...), then grab lunch and Samuel and William need to get a bus to Urban Saints, then whoever takes them has to walk back as there are no buses back for ages... then a bus or walk back to meet them 1 1/2 later and get a bus back... its exhausting just typing it!

Getting Josh to Wallington on a Thursday is equally as difficult, with a 1 1/4 hr journey of two buses and a tram to get him there.

Anyway, on Sunday a friend offered to tow our car over to a diesel expert in Thornton Heath ready for them to work on it on Monday. Whilst being towed Roarke engaged the engine to use the gears to help break - and the car started! So, the rest of Sunday we had the car working. Monday we got up and decided to catch up on some jobs. Roarke delivered some furniture for the Hope Foundation, and then went and took bags and bags of stuff over to the recycle centre. However when he got back in the car - it wouldn't start! He waited for the breakdown service who got him started again. We decided to still drive it over to the garage as there was obviously something going on. Long story short, it was something to do with the immobiliser. So as of yesterday we have a working car again - phew! Praise God!

It was great the other week to have Henrietta and some of the younger children over for the afternoon. William appreciated having friends of his age to play with, and I appreciated the chance to chat!

Last Saturday we had friends over for the afternoon and evening. We had just finished telling them about our scary experience at A&E last year when Jonathan broke his leg when yep you guessed it, he hurt himself again on the trampoline!!! Apparently he slipped over (running in socks on the trampoline) and he wouldn't stop crying. He said it was his leg.... we all prayed, and decided to wait and see how it went. All day Sunday he refused to walk on it, crying and saying his foot hurt. Monday he stood on it but he was dragging his leg; GP said it sounded like a hip problem and advised us to go to A&E. We phoned, texted and emailed all the Christian friends we could think of and asked them to pray.

Thankfully, A&E wasn't too bad other than one odd/snide comment from a nurse, and after several hours they sent us home and told us to come back if he wasn't walking on it by Thursday. He was, though still limping, and a week later he isn't fully back to normal but it was obviously therefore a muscle injury. Needless to say I've banned him from the trampoline!

Hasn't the change in the weather been lovely?! As soon as the sun shines I get on with the housework (for once!) and then the gardening.

I love my gardening! We've dug up 3/4 of the lawn to use for planting and I'm really eager to get on with it now.

A few families met this week for our new home ed gardening group.

We planted our potatoes from the Grow Your Own Potatoes project, and sowed carrots, cabbages, leeks, broccoli, squash, lettuce...

Great stuff! The kids all seemed to enjoy it - especially the digging for stones to use for drainage - which was of course the main point. We'll probably meet up weekly or fortnightly now.

Now I've just got to work out what to do with all the trays of seedlings... anyone got a spare greenhouse?!

What A Wonderful Life

Thanks to the generous loan of a car by a friend at church, we got out the house today. Josh and Samuel took the bus (it is an ordinary seater car so we couldn't all get in) to Bromley and the rest of us met them there.

We went to the bookshop to spend our World Book Day tokens (which we got posted out to us from EO), then on to the clothes shops. Shock No 1 - Josh now needs to shop in the menswear department not the kids section! Shock No 2 - Josh looking drop dead gorgeous (that wasn't the shock!) in a very grown up blue shirt...

Next we headed over to a cafe for a drink and a snack.

I love being with my family. I am blessed that not only can I truly call my husband my best friend, but also I am honoured to be able to count my sons as best friends too. We had our usual laugh, chatting, sharing, teasing, smiling over cute things that Jonathan was doing..

Shortly before we left a lady got up from the table next to us and came over and put her hand on my shoulder. She said she just wanted to congratulate me on having such a lovely family. She commented on how all the children had eaten with their mouths closed (!) - even the two and a half year old. She couldn't help but be enthralled by Jonathan - everyone is! She'd also noted how relaxed we all were, how friendly, how polite, and it was clear that our relationship with each other was something that stood out as being unusual and noteworthy.

Her husband then commented "don't let it go to their heads!" which, whilst we laughed, actually was quite a sad comment really - why shouldn't my boys be proud of themselves for behaving in such a way? I hope I always encourage, compliment and reward my boys.

It was so nice, that I think we all felt a bit choked up.

Next we headed off to the 99p shop to get a long-promised replacement toy for William (for a Christmas present that had broken straight away). Samuel took some money out of his bank, and Josh had a couple of pounds that his Nan had given him (for turning up at his Cousin's 4th birthday party and putting up with being bored to tears surrounded by screaming tots for nearly 2 hours - just because he had felt it was the right thing to do for the sake of his Cousin). Josh decided that he wanted to treat Samuel and William "because I don't do it often enough" (he said) and proceeded to spend his £2 treat money on treating his brothers.

Once again, Roarke and I were choked up.

I am truly, truly blessed. I thank God for my husband, and for my children. I thank God for home education which allows us the freedom to each be ourselves, and to have the family lifestyle (being together) that we all want and enjoy.

None of these things are things that I take for granted, and all of them are things that I will fight tooth and nail to protect and keep.

Let's get something straight

As is usual in all these cases where a child tragically dies, everyone is now desperate to point the finger and shift the blame.

Elaine has summed it up perfectly:

Simple fact of the matter is that the school tried to save Khyra, the social services could have saved Khyra, the EWO could have saved Khyra, the police could have saved Khyra, the neighbours could have saved Khyra instead of leaving unreported the fact she was left standing outside in winter in underwear, the family could have saved Khyra instead of walking away, AND Khyra's father - who wants you to relieve him of guilt by taking the blame for his absence from her life - could have saved Khyra. I could not have saved Khyra. I did not harm Khyra. I was not there. If I had been I would have joined the school in expressing my concern to the Family and Authorities who could have saved Khyra

I find it disgusting that some are now publically making statements that are simply untrue, in order to justify the extreme measures currently before Parliament, that is Clause 26/27 of the Children Schools & Families Bill.

None of the existing procedures and process appeared to have been followed correctly in this case. Therefore it cannot be rationally used as justification for bringing in new measures. It can only be misused by those who ought to know better, who claim to have the interests of children as their priority, to feed the current witch hunt against home educators.

I trust that the Lords who are now to debate the CSF Bill will show integrity and refuse to be swayed by media hype but instead chose to stick to the FACTS.

My "education summary" for my LA

Having made it clear to my LA that I will not have any more home visits - in protest over Badman/Clause 26 et al, I decided to agree to their "suggestion" that I send a report in instead.

I remain convinced that what I see as an accurate, honest and appropriate summary of how home education has looked for our family - and where we see it going - will not be acceptable if DCSF gets it's way.

With that in mind, I am sharing the summary that I sent this week to my LA - which they have accepted.

Since our last visit from our LA’s EHE team (around June?), the family has continued to follow an autonomous style of education. Each child is allowed to follow their own interests, and to progress at their own pace. We occasionally have conversations about things that we – as parents – would like to see happening but
we do not force them to do anything (other than tidy their rooms!).

Joshua’s main focus continues to be drama and acting. He has taken part in two shows with the SAVVY Young Company (http://www.savvytheatre.co.uk/young.htm). The first was "What Use Any Generation?" Josh wrote a review of the project for Youth Theatre Now magazine as part of his Bronze Arts Award (see pages 8 and 9 here http://www.savvytheatre.co.uk/ytn.pdf).

A cut down version of the show was also performed by them at GUILFEST in 2009.
The second show was DAGS (http://www.savvytheatre.co.uk/yngpast.htm). Josh is currently working on the next show, Midsummer Night's Dream, where he is playing Theseus, Duke of Athens.

Josh is about to submit his Bronze Arts Award work for accreditation. This has included writing a website to showcase his "arts hero" – David Tennant (see
http://www.artsaward.joshnewstead.co.uk/).

He had a modelling job, on a photo shoot for Macmillan Education, which was fun – if somewhat ironic!

Outside of these things, like any teenager, he spends a lot of time on instant messenger and facebook chat keeping up with his friends. He also helps out at Baseline in Bromley – the largest youth group in the Borough of Bromley – every Friday.

He maintains his own interest in current affairs via news website and the BBC news channel.

Samuel continues to progress amazingly well. He has made tremendous efforts to deal with the quirky aspects of his personality resulting from Aspergers and his social development has been incredible. A year ago, he would not go on a bus, would not want to be out when it was dark, would not have stayed away from home and was awkward in peer social situations.

However in the summer he decided to go to Rock Camp, the 5 day youth camp for 7-11 year olds that our church runs every year. For a child with Aspergers this was such a big deal. Going away from home for the first time, new people, new environment, crowds, noise, no privacy, shared sleeping, games, activities, constant stimulation... the list of challenges he had to overcome is long. Yet not
only did he go but he met all those challenges and grew noticeably as a result.
He now helps out on a monthly basis in Sunday School for 7-11 year olds, being responsible for the multi media.

He attends a weekly teen group along with Josh which involves them getting a bus to and from Bromley in the dark. Again, this is a significant step for Samuel (though he still won’t go alone).

Despite have no formal "lessons" Samuel has worked himself on his spelling and towards the end of the summer went from having quite atrocious spelling to now a very competent level of writing.

Somewhat counter-intuitively this seems to have come about from using chat/text speak via instant messenger and the in-game chat facilities on World of Warcraft. He can type very fast, and very accurately.

Samuel is keen on cooking and is currently designing a website to showcase his gluten free cooking (http://www.samuelspecialsupplies.co.uk/). He is also designing leaflets to hand out to local people!

William’s progress has been slower but we are aware that his issues are more complex.
When we were living with William’s grandmother the situation had become untenable and, in particular, sharing a room with Samuel had led to multiple meltdowns on a daily basis. Since moving into our own place in May – where William now has a room of his own – these meltdowns are less than one a week.

He now attends Sunday School weekly on his own (as his brothers are in different groups) and also goes to Urban Saints on a Sunday afternoon – again, whilst Samuel goes as well they are in different groups. This is significant because William has to manage without any of us there to interpret to him, and on his behalf. Whilst it is obvious that he is failing to grasp some 60% or more of what is happening during the sessions, he is enjoying them. His section leader is SEN-trained which is a
bonus.

William has not wanted to learn to read and we took the decision to wait until he appeared ready and willing to learn (I do not feel it is appropriate to force an ASD child to learn something they do not want to – quite apart from it being very difficult!).

Despite this, William has made some amazing progress with his reading. In true autonomous style, this has taken place via Club Penguin! Within the Club Penguin website there is a place that he can take his character that has a "library" where you can "take a book out" and read it. The idea is that you type the words you see on the screen to turn them from grey to black, and every now and again you can select one of two words to go into the story. Despite not being able to "read", he attempts to do this. He sits and tries every key on the keyboard until he finds the right one.

He has his own laptop which of course has a keyboard all in capitals so hardly any of them look like the letters on the screen. This means he is learning his capitals at the same time.

This experience led us to discuss as parents the relevance of the actual alphabet (as a learn-by-rote activity). The relevance of the order of the letters is not as relevant in today’s society. Other than being able to recite it, or use it for codes, or filing, why do you need to know it? However the relevance of the position of the letters on a keyboard (or on a mobile phone pad) seems to be more important.

In addition to this, William wants to use an online game that his brothers have used and as such has decided that it will be useful to be able to read. He is now voluntarily spending half an hour a day on sites such as Super Why and Star Fall practising spelling.

As a family we have enjoyed the company of many other home educating families both through regular organised gatherings and through the many family-to-family relationships that have been formed.

We’ve made use of the plethora of home education groups in the South East of London and across Kent and taken part in many of their outings. This have included the Annual South East Home Educators’ Beach Day, a visit to a chocolate factory, the Britain at War Experience, and Reigate Fort to name but a few) as well as outings to parks and indoor play areas.

Our hope for the rest of 2010 is that Josh will continue to pursue his love of drama. We will need to discuss with him whether or not he wants to progress to the Silver Arts Award and/or look to take GCSE drama or indeed start looking at the entry requirements for drama school.

We will continue to encourage his involvement in the community activities through our church, reaching out to the desperate and needy of Bromley – and particularly to the disenfranchised youth.

Samuel has recently developed a serious interest in drumming and we are seeking someone to teach him how to play the drums. We also hope that he will pursue his love of cooking. We intend to provide as many opportunities as possible for him to follow his entrepreneurial instincts.

William needs a lot of support as he starts to become more aware of how his ASD impinges not just upon himself but upon others. Blissfully unaware for the most part of the world around him, it is important that he discovers those things that he needs to be able to manage in order to take part in the wider world – outside of his family, church community, and home education community where he is understood and supported.

This needs to be a slow and gentle process.

As always, we will continue to be guided by our children to ensure that progress is relevant, appropriate, and timely.

Ups and Down

I managed to upload my new background image from twitter to Blogger too, so I thought I'd better post something to draw attention to it, lol!

The photos are used here with kind permission, but are copyright to John Walmsley 2010, educationphotos.co.uk (thanks again John).

As always, we seem to have done lots yet done what feels like very little in the past week or so! Roarke took the boys on a home ed visit to Reigate Fort. William in particular really enjoyed it and Roarke said he asked some really insightful questions. It is brilliant to catch these glimpses of what is going on inside his head and to be encouraged that some things ARE going into storage in his memory banks... Generally speaking, with the ASD, it seems that everything is now and nothing else has any meaning. His world is his immediate vicinity and this present time only.

He hasn't made any more effort to sit in front of the reading websites but we have noticed more and more that he is obviously reading an increasing number of words around him.

An interesting thing has been that Jonathan has taken to "reading" his own bedtime stories. He knows them all off by heart (the Peppa Pig collection) but has never sat and looked at the pictures (he's usually playing in the bedroom or in his bed when we read them). A few days ago he took one of the books and started turning the pages, saying the story out loud as he went. It was fascinating to realise that he was looking at the pictures, working out what was going on in them, and then adding the mental commentary that he had in his head - sort of syncing the visual and the audio if you like. Of course this "reading" of the pictures is exactly how Josh and Samuel learned to read and is a natural stage.

What we noticed though was when we passed the book to William for him to do the same - he couldn't. Despite having sat in the room and listened to the stories every night when we read them to Jonathan, and despite the fact that William DOES look at the pictures, he couldn't do that "syncing".

I've been helping BCC to put in a funding application for funds for the Hope Foundation. Having fed almost 4000 people in the borough of Bromley, and with at least 31 statutory and non-statutory agencies now referring people in need to Hope, we need more funds! Everything to date has been provided through the giving of the congregation.

Josh has started helping at Baseline, going an hour early on a Friday to help set it up, which is awesome. Samuel of course helps out with the multi-media in the ROCK Sunday School once a month. It is so cool to see the boys deciding of their own accord to serve.

Roarke has had some merchandising work to do which has been timely, and he is also making great progress on an extension of our Where2Eat in Kent business. His preparation for the Triathlon is slowly building - gradually because of his gout and other issues - but he has now gone from a size 42 waist since Christmas to a size 36!

Tuesday evening I went to a friend's house for a "girls night", with 11 other women, and enjoy good food and a good natter - lovely!

The major downside this week has been having the builders in. The landlord's solution to the damp problem (penetrating damp across the whole of the front and side of the house, and mould all inside the bays) was to pay to have extractor fans fitted. Despite having a heat recovery unit, the already-cold temperature in the living room and bedroom has plummeted with these things on. They are also unsightly and very loud. I'm not a happy bunny. Still it is no surprise that this was his preferred option - the alternative being the have the house coated/rendered and replace the two bay windows with modern pvc glazing...

Today I got a (very) early birthday present from my Mum - La Varenne's Cookery: The French Cook, the French Pastry Chef, the French Confectioner! I like this version as not only is it a modern translation but it has added in all the history and context of Francois Pierre's food. I hope to learn a lot!

I'm currently finishing a report for my local authority. I was contacted by them recently and the gentleman said that he understood I had withdrawn my cooperation with the LA as protest over the Badman Report and Clause 26. He asked if instead I'd consider sending in a report. I decided in the end that I would, because I want to make another point - *my* idea of a report summarising the past year and talking about the year ahead does not match with anything that I have seen suggested or outlined by anyone at DCSF.

Once I've sent it in, I'll post it here and you can judge for yourself :-)

Baking Bug

I seem to have caught another bug - a baking bug!

For some reason I'm finding myself wanting - even needing - to bake every day.

Partly this is down to following the inspirational gluten free journey of Shauna and Danny. Whilst I may scour the internet for ideas and recipes for the family, I had gotten out of the habit of creating my own. Reading her blog, and getting ideas from Danny, sent me back to my own recipes that I used to cook before gluten became an issue.

I've been tweaking, experimenting, and generally enjoying myself!

This week I've made (all gluten free) chocolate biscuits, "rocky road", sun dried tomato & rosemary bread, lemon drizzle cake, tea cakes, banana bread and flapjacks!

Most of those recipes are in our online family cookbook but some need a bit more work before I'm ready to share.

Talking of food, Jonathan is eating better now which is great. In fact, he doesn't seem to stop eating with "Mummy, I'm still hungry" being a regular refrain around the house (makes a change from the teenager saying it...)

Talking of the teenager, Josh has the script for the first project SAVVY are working on this term, which is A Midsummer Night's Dream, where he is playing Theseus, Duke of Athens. I'm wondering if this will give us the chance to look at some Shakespeare (she says, in a guilty, meant to be autonomous-and-not-push-them kind of way).

And talking of autonomous, this is typical: William, my seven and a half year old lad with ASD, cannot yet read or write. Partly this is down to his refusal to learn and partly down to the aforementioned autonomous home education approach. Yesterday evening however he came downstairs to ask if he could set up a Runescape account. Leaving aside any other considerations as to whether or not I think that is going to happen, I reminded him that we had made clear to him that we would not subscribe him to, or open any new accounts on any new online games until such time as he could read. Whilst it never ceases to amaze me how he can wander around the internet playing games without being able to read (obviously he recognises the important - to him - stuff like which button he clicks to start, open, run, close etc!), taking part in things even as basic as Club Penguin means constant requests to read something to him, tell him what he should be doing or what he has just done wrong.

I also worry about his laptop as he can't read any warning messages that pop up...

So, anyway, we reminded him and immediately he said "ok, I'll learn to read then!".

Being ASD, actually what he meant was "I'll learn to read now" and I had to explain that it wasn't quite as simple as that, and he couldn't just learn in a few minutes. I could tell that he didn't believe me!

The upshot of that conversation was that I set him up on Starfall and then on the SuperWhy website. After about half an hour he came over to us to ask for a pencil and some paper, and proceeded to show us that he had learnt the upper and lower case for J, T, A, B, Z, Z and O!

Why those letters, I have no idea. But what was interesting was seeing further evidence that suggests to us that he may be dyslexic and/or have some other visual processing disorder.

On the subject of that, we are toying with the idea of taking him to see Ian Jordan, as the option offered by Bromley Local Authority of an assessment of SEN is not what we want and will lead to a level of interference and intrusion that will in no way be equalled by a benefit.

Despite my baking, Roarke is still changing shape and losing weight, and in consultation with his GP working on progressing his training for the London Triatholon which is he going to do in order to raise funds for the Hope Foundation. Mind you, he hasn't had the Rocky Road yet...

On a sad note, this week I finally got around to finishing another page on the family website, for the new "health" section. The page is about Coeliac Disease. It was very hard to write, but I feel glad to have done it. Dad's story needs telling. This weekend would have been Mum & Dad's 45th wedding anniversary..

Home Educators' Vigil Tonight

On Tuesday 8th December from 6.00p.m. home educators are holding a vigil in Old Palace Yard opposite the Houses of Parliament.

Inside, history is being made as home educators begin to petition the House of Commons to get rid of Clause 26 of the Children, Schools and Families bill. More than 120 petitions will be presented in a mass presentation with 10% of MPs in the Chamber, smashing the record for petitions in one day.

In total more than 250 identical petitions from constituencies all over England, an overwhelming record in parliamentary history, are to be presented to Parliament over the next few weeks.

Under existing law, Local Authorities have powers to take action if they have reason to believe home educated children in their area are not receiving a suitable education, according to their age, aptitude and ability. Under section 47 of the Children Act 1989 they also have the power to intervene and gain access to the home where there is evidence that a child is at risk of significant harm.

However, under clause 26, the Government is seeking to dramatically extend State powers.

• The Bill requires that all home educators apply annually for permission to continue home educating.
• Local authorities will also to have the right to enter the residence "where the education takes place" and potentially to interview children without the parent present.
• Home educating parents will be required to formulate an annual educational plan, which must be approved by the Local Authority. Parents will then be assessed in accordance with the plan.
• Non-compliance with the demands of the Local Authority will result in a Statutory School Order being issued.
  

The proposed legislation is in direct opposition to Section 7 of the Education Act that it is the `duty of parents to secure education'. For the first time in British legislative history, the Government will become responsible for children's education instead of parents. This represents a fundamental shift in power, allowing the State to intrude yet further into family life.

Currently home educating parents take full responsibility for their children's learning, at no cost to the taxpayer. They are sensitive to the shifting developmental needs of their children. However, the proposed legislation threatens this educational approach, as parents who diverge from the enforced plan will have their children forcibly sent to school.

The Government is proposing to spend £1000 per child per annum on just monitoring each home educated child (no funds are earmarked for providing support or improving access to services for home educated children). As there is no evidence that this monitoring will improve educational outcomes for children, this is an unwarranted additional expense at a time when massive cut backs in existing services are necessary to stem
Government debt.

Home Educators: if you are planning on coming, please bring any placards left over after the mass lobby although there’ll be some stuff to wave provided and some masks that were used at the mass lobby demo. As it’ll be dark we thought it might be fun for everyone to bring torches. Also anything loud like whistles would be good as MPs might be able to hear us as well as hopefully some passing traffic honking their support. Bubbles in torchlight might work too.

If you can't be there, but you are on twitter, please tweet! Join the P Party at 8.30 by searching and tweeting with the tag #HEPP.

Try to get media coverage please call BBC London, Radio 5 live, LBC etc or send a press release to your local paper.

BBC London’s news desk on 020 776 50935 or text them on 07786 200 949

It is likely to be covered on Five Live Drive Time - http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/get-in-touch/

Call: 0500 909 693

SMS/MMS: 85058

Email:5live@bbc.co.uk

Twitter: @bbc5live

And so on to December

Jonathan went to his dietician appointment last week. She was very impressed with his overall diet but concerned at the sudden constipation that he started with a few months ago so she recommended that I made an appointment with my GP.

Typically, since booking that appointment it appears to have cleared up, more or less overnight, on its own, no change of diet or anything, stopping as suddenly as it started!

On Thursday Roarke took the three older boys to a home education trip to... a chocolate factory! As you can imagine, a great time was had by all:and they enjoyed eating their produce :-)

Friday was a busy day. Samuel was collected in the morning by friends and went to the home ed skating at Gillingham. Roarke drove Josh over to Sutton to meet up with Theo for his birthday trip to the cinema. William and Jonathan went over to their Nan's whilst Roarke and I went for a business meeting. Then we collected everyone together again, had a very quick dinner, then Josh and Samuel went to Baseline with their friend Aron.

Saturday morning I had the chance to go out and share a breakfast with some of the women from church, at someone's flat, which made a really nice change. I'm really bad at making friends, especially with women, so it was A Good Thing for me to make myself do.

In the afternoon Roarke took Josh over to Carshalton to the theatre ready for his show. Roarke, myself and Samuel went to see it in the evening. The whole show was excellent. Once again the Young SAVVY Company produced some amazing performances under the direction of Sheree Vickers and the play DAGS (by Debra Oswald) was really enjoyable. As Roarke said, it wasn't some end of term young people's play - it was a real performance that was enjoyable and would have been impressive from a bunch of adults let alone 13-19 year olds! Josh was A STAR of course and we were excited to see how he has grown in his acting. He had one line that relied 100% on comic timing - something not all grown actors can do - and he delivered it absolutely perfectly and it was really funny.

DAGS is about the culture of school/youth, bullies, fitting in, being fat, teen relationships... it was quite unsettling to see Josh in a school uniform to play his part - shocking actually - and hugely ironic that he would be in such a show. I actually found the play upsetting in so far as it could have been written about me in my secondary schools years...

Defiinately made me come out thanking God for home education!

Sunday was community day at church, with an italian themed meal after the second service.

Over the course of the weekend we started putting up our Christmas decorations. Regular readers will know that we make the whole of December a special month, rather than focusing on just the two days of Christmas, because otherwise our aspie and asd lads just can't handle it. Yesterday (Monday) we finished putting up the outside lights on the house and had a grand switch on in the evening much to the amusement of the rush hour queued traffic outside our house!

A brief round up

Joshua is nervously approaching his Show on Saturday, with just the tech rehearsal on Thursday before the performance. He's also finished the website for his Bronze Arts Award "My Hero" project which you can view here.

Samuel is in turn working on his next venture, which is his own gluten free hand made shortbread service! He's designing a website and some leaflets and wants to then leaflet the local area. He's been doing a lot of research and costing it all out, including deciding the best packaging to use.

William seems to be doing increasingly well despite not being able to read properly still. He's even managed to create a movie, drawn in Paint and put together in Movie Maker! As soon as I've got it off of his laptop I will share it.

Jonathan is continuing to shine. As an example, view his latest "performance" on Youtube!

He's also been introduced to the potty, aged 2 1/2, and managed this evening to use it for the first time. He recognises lots of letters, all his numbers up to 10, can count up to 20 in English and 10 in Spanish and is generally scaring the living daylights out of us!

Finally he's allowed someone else other than me to put him to bed. All last week Roarke did it, and then on Friday we were out and my Mum put him to bed.

Roarke and I have been busy, but there have been some highlights. We reviewed a restaurant in Sevenoaks which turned out to be one of the best meals I've had in a very long time. Then, this week, we attended the Gala Reopening Dinner for Limoncello Restaurant in Sidcup. It was a lovely evening (we hosted the Deputy Mayor at our table), including opera by Aspects of Opera, and their new chef proved he was more than up to the task of a four course banquet for around 80 guests. If you live near Sidcup, please go and visit. This weekend they have an Italian Market at the restaurant and you can sign up here to get a voucher for a free cappuccino when you buy a cornetto pastry (yes, it's an Italian pastry - like a croissant - and NOT an ice cream!)

Roarke has actually been quite unwell and is awaiting an appointment with the rheumatologist to try and get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, we're picking back up our Herbalife business and thankfully the nutrition products are working their usual magic and his health is picking back up.

Christmas is a busy time for our church, especially for our community arm, the Hope Foundation. With a Christmas meal for the elderly of the borough, and a Christmas Hamper give away to those in need in the area, it is a very busy time. If you live in the BR, CR, DA or ME postcodes and have any white goods - especially coookers - that are in good condition and full working order, PLEASE contact me as we have many families in dire need who would be very grateful for them. I can collect from any of those areas. Leave a comment on this post with your contact details - all comments are moderated so I will not publish those details but just make a note and use them to get hold of you. Thanks!

I'm Having a Day Off. Honest.

They say a week is a long time in politics... well the past 10 days have been a very long time!

The fight that home educators are engaged in at the moment has really consumed those days. Monday 12th saw Graham Badman and DCSF up in front of the Select Committee (if you watched online, that was my head in the bottom right corner of the screen!). I went along and made copious shorthand notes which thankfully I haven't had to try and transcribe as the official transcript is available online!

The next day was the mass lobby. Roarke went up to this and helped out as a steward. Some 450 home educating parents, children and young people attended and it took over 2 1/2 hours for them to get through security and in to lobby their MPs.

It was such a massive acheivement and it is a shame that there was only one bit of TV coverage.

Well done to everyone who took part.

The next day Autism in Mind, Education Otherwise, Home Education Advisory Service, Home Education Centre, and a pro-Badman home educating parent, gave evidence followed by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, National Children’s Bureau, NSPCC, and West Sussex County Council. Again, you could watch it online and read the transcript.

Families were beginning to feel some stirings of hope at the way in which some on the Committee appear to have got their heads around the issues and begun to understand the concerns and outrage of home educators. An indication of this was the Chair's decision to hold an informal session on Monday 19th at which a number of home educating parents, their children, and home educated young people were invited to attend. By all accounts, it was a positive experience with the children and young people as always being the one piece of evidence you just can't ignore - home education WORKS.

That same evening, the consultation on the monitoring and registration of home educators closed with at least 5342 submissions made. The e-petition also closed, with 4,884 signatories.

We will NOT be bullied!

Tuesday evening, Education Otherwise's Government Policy Group took the battle into the heart of Westminster by holding a briefing event for MPs. A team of twenty eight people had formed a working party to arrange the event. Speakers included Ian Dowty, and Dr Alan Thomas. I need to get my head around writing the event up properly, but it was certainly a positive event.

Now today I'm meant to be taking a day off... so I'm not really online, writing this...

Mass Lobby of Parliament on Tuesday 13 October 2009

Press Release from the Badman Review Action Group:

PARENTS and their children will be attending a mass lobby of Parliament next week to protest about planned changes to the law on home education that will strip them of their rights and intrude into family life.

Nearly 200 adult supporters have confirmed with the organisers that they will be attending the rally on Tuesday 13 October, bringing with them 190 children. Many of them have firm appointments to see their MPs.

The mass lobby has been organised in the wake of a Government review into home education.

Graham Badman, former Director of Education at Kent County Council, who carried out the study, recommended that local councils should have the right to enter family homes and question children alone.

He also said that parents who home educate should be forced to register every year and gave local authorities carte blanche to refuse registration.

The Review of Elective Home Education in England was accepted in full by the Government, which wants to change the law as soon as possible.

It intends to use its Improving Schools and Safeguarding Bill to introduce home education registration and monitoring legislation as early as next month.

The Badman report and the Government’s eagerness to accept it has brought an angry response from home educators.

Mass lobby organiser Claire Blades, 45, from Aylesbury, said: “No longer are parents being trusted to make decisions about their own children.

“First we had the news that 11.3 million people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland - close to one in four of the adult population – would have to have Criminal Record Bureau checks.

“Then we had the case of the two policewomen who were accused of illegal childminding because they took care of each other’s children on their days off.

“Now parents who home educate are to be forced to undergo intrusive monitoring in their own homes because they are not trusted with their own children.

“By ignoring the onward march of legislation that intrudes into family life, we are allowing ourselves to sleepwalk into a nightmare. It is time to wake up and call a halt to the ever-growing band of officials who think they know what is best for our children and our families.”

Home educators claim that the Badman report, published in June, is inaccurate and shows little understanding of the home educating community.

So many home educators complained that the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee ordered a short inquiry into the report.

There were more than 200 written submissions to that inquiry and home educators are awaiting notification of when the Select Committee hearing will be.

Mrs Blades said: “Mr Badman claimed that the ratio of home-educated children who were “known to social care” was twice that of the population at large.

“It turns out that that vague statistic came from a small sample of 25 local authorities.

“The group, Action for Home Education, has carried out its own research using Freedom of Information requests to all local education authorities in England and the picture painted is quite the reverse.

“Interestingly, even Mr Badman has come to realise that his statistics are flawed.

“On 17 September 2009, he wrote to all local authority Directors of Children’s Services to say: ‘I would like to strengthen my statistical evidence in advance of the Select Committee hearing so that it is more extensive and statistically robust.’

“He practically begged the Directors of Children’s Services to help him ‘make the strongest possible case to the Select Committee’.”

“The picture painted of home education in the Badman report is unrecognisable to the thousands of families in this country who exercise their legal right to educate their children without sending them to school.

“It is unrecognisable to the thousands of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends who share the lives of home educated children. It is unrecognisable to the children themselves.

“The mass lobby is an opportunity for us to show our MPs what home education is really about and to bring important issues like inaccuracies and bias in the Badman report to their attention.”

2007 Home Education Guidelines

For some odd reason the DCSF 2007 Elective Home Education Guidelines for Local Authorities has disappeared from their website.

EO have asked them when it will be back...

In the meantime, a number of people and groups have helpfully put a copy online for ease of reference. So if you are looking for it, you can find the DCSF 2007 Elective Home Education Guidelines for Local Authorities here!

Arts, Rocks, Reading and Chaos

Josh is now back at SAVVY. His arts award stuff is coming along, but very slowly. He's running out of time to get it completed before the end of the period (November). Its very hard trying to get the balance between autonomous learning - not interfering or taking over - and encouraging him and keeping him on target.

William has made some amazing progress this week with his reading. In true autonomous style, he's done it via Club Penguin! It seems that on Club Penguin, if you go to the Town, and into the Cafe, upstairs there is a Library where you can "take a book out" and read it. The idea is that you type the words to turn them from grey to black, and every now and again you can select one of two words to go into the story. Despite not being able to read, he has been trying to do this. He sits and tries every key on the keyboard until he finds the right one.

Now, his keyboard on the laptop of course is in capitals, so hardly any of them look like the letters on the screen. This means he's having to learn his capitals at the same time.

We decided a few weeks ago that we would stop focusing on the alphabet; why does he need to know the alphabet? I don't mean why does he need to know the letters, but why does he need to know the order?

Think about it.

Other than being able to recite it, or use it for codes, why do you need to know it?

Surely today it is more relevant to know the order of the keys on a keyboard!

Anyway, this means that we are more than happy for him to have found this way, that is relevant to him, of learning his letters. It has really worked! He watched an episode of SuperWhy with Jonathan in the evening and successfully called out every one of the "super letters" on the screen - which are all in capitals. That's the first time we've ever heard him get them right.

There's that autonomous learning again :-)

Today we had a nice morning out in Tunbridge Wells. We went to Wellington Rocks. Jonathan proved once again that he has no fear, and every confidence in himself, by charging off to climb straight up the rocks after his brothers. Poor old Roarke was kept on his toes trying to keep up with him, let alone one step in front!









We then got a portion of chips for everyone and drove home, because Roarke was expecting to have to go into London for a costume fitting for an advert that he is short listed for. The call never came, but we spent the rest of the afternoon not sure what was happening from one minute to the next!

I've almost finished our new family website. It is mainly so that I have someone to tell our home ed story, and also somewhere to put our gluten free recipes that people ask me about. Let me know what you think :-)

Tomorrow we are, to say the least, over booked. I am meant to be doing the shopping then going to the home ed meeting. Roarke is meant to be working in Orpington. However if he gets his call, he'll have to go to London. We are also meant to be meeting our MP in the evening (he kindly gave us 24 hours notice).

The weekend is equally as busy. Again, Roarke is either working in Orpington or, if he gets this part, filming somewhere on Saturday. Sunday is our church Community Day with a hog roast for the adults and a barbeque for the kids, then straight across to my brother's for his birthday party!

Oh and we had a house guest overnight Saturday!

Picnics and Hairy Bikers

Sunday saw our church moving to two morning services in order to make room for growth. I got to go to both services, one after the other which was just amazing.

I'd been highly organised in the morning and had put a curry into the slow cooker at 7.30am so we got a hot midday dinner before Roarke and Josh went off to the O2 in order to take part in Hillsong's 10th Anniversary celebrations up there. By all accounts that was pretty awesome too!

Monday was a busy day with Roarke in and out, and us trying to catch up on various things.

Tuesday evening was a logistical nightmare! We took Josh and Samuel to their life group for 6am, collected Mum to babysit William and Jonathan here, then left to get to church for 7.30pm for a meal and then the start of the DNA2 course that we are doing. Josh and Samuel therefore had to get a bus back to our house. It was the first time they'd got the bus together, only the second time Josh had got a bus without us, and the first time either of them had done it in the dark. They missed the first bus and had to wait quite a while.

I am SO proud of Samuel yet again. Even a few months back that would have destroyed him, as he would have been so anxious about being in the dark, being out "on the streets", feeling vulnerable. I really do have God (via Rock Camp and BCC!) to thank for that, as well as the time and space that home ed has allowed him. He is maturing so quickly!

Anyway, they texted us to let us know they were home, and we could relax for the rest of the evening!

Today was Not Back to School Picnic Day! We went to Gravesend and handed out leaflets and balloons in the high street, then on to the park for a picnic. About 43 children and adults attended and all had a great time. The highlight was that someone we'd given a leaflet to came along with his two young daughters to share the picnic and find out more about home education!

It definately made it all worth while.

Jonathan had a fabulous time. The longest time he'd spent outside at a park, safe and secure and able to play away to his heart's content on all the equipment.

He feel asleep in the car, and stayed asleep when we carried him in, and then slept like this for another hour and a half:
Very cute!

I've been watching the Hairy Biker's Food Tour of Britain and loving it! Mixing two of my favourite things - cooking and motorbikes - is a definate winner for me. It has really inspired me to get cooking properly and the family have definately benefited ;0)

We've had daube of beef and herb crusted pork tenderloin so far this week! Roarke says I'm not helping his diet...

Wedding Anniversary

This week we celebrated 16th years of a most marvellous marriage.

I dug out the wedding photos and posted a few on facebook, managing to seriously embarass several people who were there at the time and I've hooked up with on facebook!

Here are two of us from that beautiful day:

We look shockingly young!

To prove how much we have changed, here's a similar pose taken on our anniversary:

Even allowing for the poor quality photo, squashed noses, and the fact that Josh took the picture, I think we are looking a bit the worse for wear :0)

We had a nice day though. A friend from church took me shopping (as we didn't have a car at the time - see next item!), then I came back and packed some snacks to take to the Bromley home ed regular meeting. Roarke met us there half way through and we took the boys to McDonalds for a change. In the evening Mum came over to baby sit Jonathan and William and we got a lift to Bromley so that Josh and Samuel could go to Baseline. It was Samuel's first time and he was nervous and excited. The pastor and the youth leaders kept an eye out for him though and he had a great time.

Whilst they were there (3 hours) Roarke and I went for a tapas meal in Bromley, then onto a pub. We both felt very old watching the goings on in the pub! Actually some of it was shocking, to see that the stuff on the news about binge culture, and girls in particular, is totally real.

Neither Roarke nor I were saints in our teens (he became a Christian in his early twenties, and I calmed down around then too) and I certainly had my fair share of outrageous behaviour, but still this just felt different. Not nice.

Anyway, praise God that through being part of BCC, our lads have the opportunity to be involved in Baseline, and through home education too they are able to have a much more positive teen experience than I fear many of their schooled peers are able to.

I'm in the process of sorting out our new, revamped family website. The old one was very popular, especially the gluten free recipes, so its well overdue for me to get another one up (after loosing the free hosting we used to have for it). That's in my spare time ;0)

We spent the afternoon today in the garden clearing up and getting it ready for autumn. Now we've finally got the housing benefit sorted I think we both feel more that this is home - rather than expecting to be thrown out any minute - which is why we've both felt the need to attack the garden. I dug up the strawberry plants to clear out the bindweed coming under from next door, and took the opportunity to split up lots of new plants before replanting. I also got the chance to replant the crocosmia. Roarke took out two shrubs that were in the way, and we moved a tea rose too that had been covered by the shrubs and was looking very sorry for itself.

All the time a small rodent was runny around that appears to be a mouse that lives in the other neighbour's shed :0(

Roarke is already starting to go into hibernation mode; he's not a winter person and as soon as it starts getting dark of an evening, and cool, he starts to struggle.

Time to dig out all the soup recipes....

This week has been a rollercoaster week. The car broke down on Monday night and we went from thinking it was a small thing to fix it, to being told the car was a right off as it would cost more to fix than it was worth (and than we could afford) to the garage ringing us back saying it was a "miracle" but they'd found some tiny thing that was causing it all and had fixed it for £80! God definately had it all in Hand.

Next week our group is planning a Not Back to School Picnic along with more than 30 other groups across the country, as part of an effort to raise the positive profile of home education. The deadline for the written submissions to the Select Committee Inquiry is also approaching so I've got to get around to sorting my personal submission.

The phone has been very busy with new home ed enquiries, mainly from people who have not been able to get their child into the school that they want and so they are needing to home educate whilst going through the appeal process and/or waiting for a place to come up.

For all my non-home educating friends

The Government's main plans for home educators focuses on several areas:

• compulsory registration
• the parent providing a statement of educational approach against which the child's "performance" will be assessed
  
• annual inspections, with right of access to the home and
  
• right of access (alone if necessary) with the child

I can understand that some people who have no experience of home education may fail to appreciate why reading that list is sufficient to make me weep, and I also understand that some families who DO home educate, may also scratch their heads and wonder why other home educators are so distressed and angry at these proposals.

Many finer minds than mine and more eloquent writers have already put into the public domain explainations of the issues in order to raise awareness and to gather support. However this is just my attempt to get some of the stuff rattling around in my mind OUT - in the hope that perhaps some of my non-home educating friends might better understand what is consuming me at the moment.

Compulsory Registration

This is a point that I think most members of the public have the biggest problem with, in terms of understanding why many home educators are against this. What everyone needs to understand - including home educators who are already to known to their Local Authority and/or who don't have a problem with the concept of registration - is that this is NOT about "being known". This is NOT the "we're doing it to protect the children" measure that it claims to be. Being registered will not save the life of even one child. I am convinced of that.

One thing that it is about is numbers, statistics; the fodder for government departments to use, manipulate and chose to focus on - or ignore - as it suits them. Knowing just how many home educating families there are is important if you are wanting to win votes, or bring in unpopular measures. Knowing how many children are home educated is a useful figure to know for budgeting purposes. It would also help them know if more people were turning to home ed (though sadly, I doubt any increase would drive them to examine the reasons why and improve schools - instead it would just lead to more restrictions).

If it was just a matter of your name being on a list of home educators, held by your local authority, then it is true that some home educators would not have a problem with the idea of being known. However, not only do many more home educators have real issues with the idea of registration even if it was something straight forward (for a variety of reasons, ranging from lack of trust - with good reason - of the authorities, social services, and other services right through to a belief that the state does not have any right or need to have such a list), but also we take issue with the sort of registration proposed by the Badman Report.

One recommendations states:

That local authority adult services and other agencies be required to inform those charged with the monitoring and support of home education of any properly evidenced concerns that they have of parents’ or carers’ ability to provide a suitable education irrespective of whether or not they are known to children’s social care, on such grounds as

• alcohol or drug abuse
• incidents of domestic violence
• previous offences against children
  

And in addition:

• anything else which may affect their ability to provide a suitable and efficient education

Does not the phrase "anything else" not frighten you? Maybe you have been fortunate enough to never have experienced depression, or post natal depression. Or have any long term illness, disability or condition. Maybe you do not have strongly held Christian, Muslim, Pagan, or any other religious or political views that you know often sets you apart from others. But, if you do, then you are well aware of the potential abuse of such a dangerous phrase.

I am not a conspiracy theorist. I think I'm a fairly open minded, fairly rational person. The fact remains however that we live in a world where governments - western governments - regularly use laws to their own ends regardless of the original meaning or motivation behind the law makers. I think the Terrorism Act is one prime current example.

On top of which, lets just examine the rest of that recommendation. Of course it might seem on reading it through that it was reasonable to think that someone with a history of, say, drug abuse, shouldn't be allowed to home educate.

Can I ask you to stop and think WHY? WHY shouldn't they be allowed?

"Safeguarding", you say, "the child isn't safe there".

Now think that through logically.

The child is considered safe to be in the care of its parents - otherwise it would have been removed. Yet it isn't safe to be educated at home. That is illogical - Mr Spock or Tuvok could see straight through that one! Either a child is safe, or not. Either a child is under social services care, or not. To suggest that a child is safe with their parents as long as they are at school during the day, is ludicrous. Even to say ah well its because the parent couldn't cope with them home all the time - er, excuse me, what about the summer holidays?

If a child is not safe enough to be educated at home by its parents, then presumably if the local authority deny permission to educate the child at home then the same local authority will pay for that child to attend some kind of school club in every single school holiday - because the child is "not safe" to be with its parents between the hours of 9 and 3.

Absolutely complete RUBBISH. It is so ridiculous I repeatedly have to reread the Report to believe that someone actually wrote this down without thinking it through.

The fact that the DCSF and government have come out 100% in support of the Report either means they haven't read it, or they are equally ridiculous.

Statement of Education Approach

This is an area where there are a number of opinions, it has to be said, amongst home educators, but nearly everyone can see that particularly for those of us who are child led, autonomous learners, informal learners, unschoolers - whatever label you want to use - this is a disaster.

It also has to be said that many who home educate for religious or philosophical reasons also will have issues with this, regardless of whether they are structured or not, because it has the potential of your view being judged by the LA as "not being suitable".

This has already happened in Sweden where you can no longer, in effect, home educate for religious reasons as to provide an education based on one world view is apparently not suitable.

The detail of this recommendation is truly ridiculous, but possibly only of interest to a home educator - things like the LA being the one to help a new home educator draw up such a statement, which is like saying that a GP should get help from a herbalist in drawing up a plan of medication for a patient. The GP and the herbalist share little in common other than (supposedly) both wanting the best for the patient and for them to get better. However, their belief as to what constitutes "the best" and "getting better" and how to acheive that will most likely be completely different. For every GP who is open to alternative therapies, or every herbalist willing to work alongside a GP, there will be many more who wouldn't even want to give each other the time of day because they each believe that the other is doing more harm than good.

That's what it is like to say that an LA employee should help a family who have just deregistered to draft a plan - even worse, that they should have a say in whether or not MY PLAN is suitable.

I don't have a plan! There, I've said it. I have no educational goals for my children.

I certainly have hopes and desires. As a parent, and as a Christian parent, I have very firm idea as to where I hope my children will be - as people - by the time they are 18 or 19. I know what I would like them to have learnt and understood by then. Not one of those involve anything to do with maths or english.

I want them to be secure in themselves. I want them to love life, love God, love learning. To have open hearts and minds. To be able to see the beauty around them. To be able to see the beauty inside everyone they meet. I want them to have a willingness to help, to teach, and to be helped and to be teachable. I want them to believe that they can have, do, be anything that they want to. I want them to have chosen for themselves to always walk within the will of God.

I want us as a family to have had the chance to explore each other, to build bonds, to store up precious memories, to be able to rely upon each other. I want them to continue to see their parents and their siblings as their friends.

I don't think that my LA will take that as my "statement of educational approach" - though I will certainly be submitting it as one should it come to that.

Annual Inspections/Right of Access

I would hope that most people could understand for themselves that for the Government to be bringing in powers that give a local government employee automatic, legal right of access to the home of someone who choses to home educate, is, well, downright scary.

Remember, the law already exists to give them legal right of access to the home - and the child away from it's parents - if they have safeguarding concerns. They had right of access to the child in Birmingham who was taken out of school and starved to death. For some indefensible reason, they didn't exercise that law. Instead, that case is now being thrown in the faces of home educators as justification for this change of the law. I can barely type that sentence because of the rage that I feel whenever I think about it.

This is an automatic standard right. It can only be seen as "prevention" - our children are, because they are home educated, "at risk of being at risk" of not receiving a suitable education and/or of being harmed without anyone knowing. Apparently.

Anyone who believes in human rights, civil liberties, should be horrified at this and campaigning alongside us to get it thrown out. I cannot understand how any MP, once made aware of these facts, could consider voting this through. Anyone who doesn't believe that the State knows best, should be against this.

Actually, I may come back to this point, because I am genuinely now so upset writing about this that I think I need to go away and come back to it.

I need to think how I can make my friends understand the seriousness of this.

If you are a friend of mine/ours reading this, regardless of your personal feelings about home education, please please consider supporting us in fighting these proposals. Please add your name to the petition against the recommendations which you can find here.

Please also consider writing to your MP to ask them to vote against the proposals to be contained in the Improving Schools and Safeguarding Children Bill due to be announced in the Queen's Speech in November. You can either read more about this here or contact me personally to find out more.

You can also watch a short video about it here.

If you are still reading this, please consider if these proposals were applied to whatever is dear to you. Whatever is precious to you.

Consider replacing the word with any other minority.

What if it was right of access to the home of any Muslim? Any Socialist? A disabled person?

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me."

There is no evidence that supports this attitude of "guilty unless proven innocent" being directed towards home educators. Trust me on this. I am living and breathing this at the moment, and am part of many different groups of people who are doing an incredible amount of work to find the statistics, the information, the detail, the evidence, the research, and are gradually building up the picture as to what evidence is (or actually isn't) available that could form any basis for any of these recommendations (something that was severley lacking in the actual Review/Report).

If you are the sort of person who needs proof, evidence, that's fine - contact me. I can talk detail!