NOTE ON PICTURES: This shouldn't be necessary but I have, sadly, noticed growing cases. Please DO NOT link directly to pictures on this website - it steals my bandwidth and is BAD! I CAN trace you if you do and I will take action.
Friday, June 12, 2009
*Takes deep breath*
There are many people on many blogs giving their opinion of the home ed review so there is really no need for me to go into it here.
IF all this become actual law and IF home ed parents are forced to accept these things then I really hope that the Government has made provision to accommodate the sudden influx of school applications. This is because I strongly suspect that there will be many people currently home educating who will be scared by all this and put their kids in school (I guess scaring people is what this is all about to an extent). Also, if LEA's do exercise their new powers and start deciding willy-nilly that this child or that child is not getting a good education and is not "safe and well" and order them into school, that is also going to increase the school admissions. Phew, that was a big sentence!!
I think, if I'm honest, the thing that is making me more angry than anything else is the bit about the kids having to "exhibit" themselves, without their parents being there (was I alone in thinking that Mr Badman's choice of wording there was a little ... um... inappropriate?!) Registeration I can deal with (already known to them), annual inspections I'm "happy" to go along with (already do yearly reports) BUUUUUT, having my children interrogated alone I will not tolerate - NOT because there is anything to hide but because it's a recipe for disaster and an unfair situation. Even if your child is confident talking to people (strangers!!), ALL kids have off-days - what will happen if your kid decides to have an off-day when the inspector comes round? They'll get ordered into school.
NOT FAIR. With a school, it's the overall establishment that get's inspected and monitored - the teaching, the quality of the education etc. You do not get children in schools routinely being dragged off into another room, on their own and interrogated - it doesn't happen. Furthermore, do you think their parents would tolerate it? No effing way! Of course not.
Sooo, there is another alternative which some current home educators MAY consider (myself included!) and that is setting up their own school.
This is something I've mentioned before and I temporarily filed away but this whole sorry saga has brought it back to the front of my mind again.
No, we shouldn't have to do it BUT maybe, in order to retain SOME kind of control over our kids education we might have to. Consider:
- An independent school can choose it's own "curriculum" - whatever that might be - Summerhill anyone??
- They can be as big or small as you like - currently, you only need FIVE, school-aged children to be able to register as an independent school.
- If the school is small (I'm thinking 5 or 6 kids max) you can hold it in your front living room and make use of local sports facilities, libraries etc for the rest.
- You get school discounts on books etc (something us home edders don't get)
- You don't have the kids interviewed on their own.
I really hope that the united force of home educators voices does overrule all this. I really hope so. Let's face it though, so far they have been pretty much ignored and in order to retain at least SOME of our way of life and SOME of the control over our kids educations it might be time to start thinking of ways around it. The small school or learning centre is one such way.
I'm not giving in or backing down, merely getting my brain in gear and preparing for the worst.
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