Dear David,
Thank you for your response, and that of Delyth Morgan. Unfortunately, neither adequately addresses my concerns. Indeed, in announcing yet another government review, this time into "suitable and efficient" education, Delyth actively precipitates them.
Your government asks many questions but does not listen to the answers. Here are ten questions I need answers to.
My bullet-point comments will unpick the common logical fallacies of Ministers and the DCSF for you.
1. How will HE inspections detect child abuse?
- Abusers are socially manipulative and highly skilled at avoiding detection.
- Even if we visited you daily to prove that we were not "hidden" this would not be proof that we do not abuse our children.
- Even if we installed CCTV in every room of our house to prove that we do not abuse our children, someone, somewhere, would disagree.
- Almost every child killed at the hands of a parent or carer was not "hidden" but already known to services and failed by them.
2. Why should government dictate to parents regarding the education they choose for their children?
- Children are not objects. However, they rightly belong first and foremost to their parent or guardian, not the state and this is how their interests are best served.
- State education has failed 1 in 6 children who leave school unable to read and write properly.
- Parents make private education arrangements for their children because of dissatisfaction with state provision.
- It is utterly bizarre for the state to prioritise the oversight of privately educated children over those who are in sub-standard state education.
- Assessing a suitable and efficient education is not a tick-box exercise. It is debatable as to whether such an assessment is even possible as "suitable and efficient" will look radically different according to each child's unique ability and aptitude.
3. What "welfare concern" requires a child to attend state school during the day, but does not warrant intervention at evenings, weekends and holidays?
- An assessment of welfare is incredibly subjective. Detailed guidance issued for social workers, from NICE and from the NSPCC would flag up most children as "at risk" in some way or another.
- Children whose behaviour or traits fall outside the bounds of "normal" are often home educated where it is easiest for their differences to be accommodated and celebrated, not pathologised or prevented.
- Some professionals erroneously class certain parenting philosophies and practices as pathological - for example attachment parenting.
- Some professionals automatically assume that deeply religious parents or parents with disabilities constitute a welfare concern.
- The institutionalisation and segregation of children in large groups according to their age or ability for "socialisation" or "preparation for adulthood" is nothing more than a cultural construct.
- It is utterly bizarre for the state to prioritise the oversight of privately educated children over those who continue to be bullied in state education.
4. Why should any parent be licensed and inspected for the simple act of refusing state provision?
- Licence, n: a certificate, tag, document, etc., giving official permission to do something; formal permission or exemption
- Inspection, n: Critical appraisal involving examination, measurement, testing, gauging, and comparison of materials or items.
- Disproportionate, adj: too large or too small in comparison to something else, or not deserving its importance or influence
- Totalitarian, adj: of, relating to, being, or imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed
I am a good, responsible and loving parent to two small children who I would never dream of harming or abusing. I will be home educating because it is the best way for me to fulfil my legal duty to them.
5. How will you give me a cast iron guarantee that my children will not be harmed or abused by the proposed system of parental licensing and inspections?
6. How will you give me a cast iron guarantee that my children will not be removed from me if I do everything I can to protect them from being harmed or abused?
7. How will you give me a cast iron guarantee that my children will receive a superior education under the proposed system of parental licensing and inspections?
8. How will you give me a cast iron guarantee that my parental philosophy, practices and other defining characteristics will not cause me to be discriminated against?
- I can provide you with a dossier of CRB-checked professionals who have systematically abused children in a variety of settings.
- I can provide you with a dossier of children who have been erroneously (and sometimes also maliciously) removed from their parents by professionals.
- I can provide you with a dossier of children who were abused and/or killed at the hands of their parents or carers despite being known to statutory services.
- I can provide you with a dossier of professionals who can demonstrate widespread mismanagement, misconduct and profoundly discriminatory attitudes within the local authority - despite performance management, training and qualifications.
- I can provide you with detailed information and/or qualitative and quatitative evidence relating to every comment I have made in this document.
David, I have answered your government's questions many times over. What I ask is wholly reasonable. If you cannot answer my ten questions clearly and satisfactorily - and you cannot give me cast iron guarantees - then I have to make this declaration:
I cannot give you a cast iron guarantee that I will, in good conscience, be able to co-operate with this proposed legislation, should it be enacted.
This means that I, and many other principled parents like me will:
i. Cause our local authority to incur significant costs in terms of time and other resources in order to accommodate our requirements and defend actions as and when they arise, and/or
ii. Be forced to break the law in order to do what is best for our children and protect them from harm.
9. Is it right for home educating parents to divert significant resources away from the most vulnerable children who are already failed by overstretched services?
10. Is it right for parents to be criminalised for doing what is best for their children and protecting them from harm?
