"I don't think anyone has any right to make hurtful and untrue comments about someone who they know nothing about."

Neither do I, Chris.

I hope you enjoy your freedom.

School is also wearing our children down. Something which should never be overlooked. It is as bad for them as it is for the teachers. The worst bit though, is that children feel doubly let down, not only by the school system, but because they are sent into it by the people in their lives who are supposed to love them the most, and so often, parents don't want to hear, don't want to know what's happening, perhaps because they can't cope.

Just the other day, a chap rang me about his son, 5 years old and already being bullied. He'd been given my number by someone else who home educates, and we got talking. This poor man is a nervous wreck already. His son started just last September, and has become a changed child, unhappy, tearful, not wanting to learn or create anymore. He is a deeply creative and sensitive child..

The parents are already being 'tracked down' by the Education system,despite it being only weeks that their child has been out. He's in fear of what 'they' will do, say, think...

He rang again today, as he's had another letter from the education dept...and his voice was shaking. I felt so sorry for him, and so angry too, because he now faces years of being checked on, of only ever being told that what he's doing is 'satisfactory' because that's the highest level you can attain as a home educator. He'll have no money given to him, no resources, no books...and unless he's very lucky, not much encouragement either.

I was blessed with our EWO, he is one in a million, and he made my children feel the same way. Paula, he was a teacher, like you, but had to give that up to look after his disabled wife, paralysed from the waist down after a car accident. She too was a teacher once. Neither of them will ever go back to teaching, and they despair for their grandchildren. Richard does what he does to help people like me and my children. He's inspirational! He makes my children feel so special, and even now, long after Nonny has come out of the system, she always makes sure she's there each year when Richard comes to see Josh. They make him cakes and chatter on to him like he's an old friend..and he is. He's a natural teacher, one who loves children, one who loves 'people'.   

We'd have been lost without him.