Continued from above.....

"She studies photography and science with equipment that I neither possess nor could afford."

Well ladeedadeeda! My daughter goes off everywhere with her camera, then comes back and turns those photos into paintings! She doesn't like science, so never feels she's lost out..It ain't her thing.

Your point is??????????????


"She is educated by dedicated people who have spent years developing their subject knowledge and their teaching skills."

Mine was educated by people of a similar background, but many of them didn't give a flying fuck about her. In Tavistock College her teacher didn't even know her name, read out someone else's file to us, told us how badly she was doing...Ha!!! WE had to point out her mistake!


"She also has the social environment of school, where she develops her friendship groups and learns to navigate difficult social situations, just as she will have to do later in life."

Well, again, ladee fucking da!   So what???????? My daughter deals with people of ALL ages, all the time!   She has good friends that she goes out with all the time. She also has two jobs, is doing a flaming Open University Degree and is learning to drive. She pays for her driving lessons herself and has bought her own car. She has money in the bank and is NOT in debt!

Is that OK for you??????????????????????????

Holey Mother of Munchkins!


"Working in schools, I have not seen anything I would identify as teachers bullying their pupils - "

Then, you have your eyes wide shut!


"but I am quite appalled by the number of children who bully their teachers, clearly because they have never been taught any manners or respect at home."

Maybe they're also sick fed up of being so controlled, so stressed out with workloads that they don't want and often couldn't give a toss about??????????????? Hmmmmm???????



"Yesterday, I took a bottom-set RE class which was about morals and ethics. The class had to come up with a list of 10 rules that they thought would make society better. This class includes some of the school's real hard-nuts, and their little group came up with rules such as "no drinking age", "bring back smoking in pubs", and "get rid of all the Pakis and immigrants". God help us if the people who have dragged these kids up were also responsible for educating them."

There are good and bad home educators, just as there are good and bad teachers! OK? Do not paint all home educators as bad. I, at least, state, over and over, that I have UTMOST respect for great and brilliant teachers...but I also realise that you do NOT have to have had studied for years to be such a teacher. You can actually be a bloody wonderful natural teacher.

I had a friend who taught for years. She hates children. Can't bear the little buggers. Now WHY would someone who feels that way become a teacher? She was hopeless with my children, no maternal instinct whatsoever. She loved facts though. She wanted to impart those facts, but she couldn't bear all the emotions that came with children...She didn't remain a friend for long.


"It may be "a steady job", but it's one that requires at least four years of study and training. And marking, lesson planning and administration take up an enormous amount of time - the perception of a teacher's "free" time far outweighs the reality."

I am well aware of what a teacher's life is like. Thanks all the same. Teachers do however, even after lesson planning and marking have more free time during holidays...and yes, I know that they have to plan for the next term during those holidays. Personally I think it's shite the amount of paperwork teachers now have to do, and the amount of stress they're under to meet 'targets'. It all stinks, as does the controlling way in which this Orwellian Government controls how they teach, what they teach and the way they're supposed to teach it...It's crap!


And Joan, you have seen my daughter's myspace page, so you damn well know that she is a very intelligent person. This is not a 'my daughter's better than your daughter' situation!

Home Education is damned hard, and you get no help whatsoever! You literally learn as you go along, but you soon learn that when the rules and regulations are removed, the children WANT to learn again, just as they always used to.

My Education Welfare Officer thought the absolute world of my two children, and he did all he could to help us. He was a former teacher, of many, many years, as was his wife, before she was paralysed from the waist down, in a car accident. Richard looked after her and helped people like us, and he looked after the kids who were expelled too. They of course, got 25 hours free education a week, and I think this may now have gone up even more. We got nothing, as we had chosen to leave The System. Richard knew The System inside out, and he used to despair of what was happening inside it.

Don't tell me it's all hunky dory and bloody marvellous, 'cos it ain't!

The System nearly killed my daugher. It turned my son OFF from learning. I turned them both back on....so don't go talking to me in your usual condescending manner, thank you, because in this instance YOU are the one who hasn't got a clue!

And the fact your daughter is going to Japan means zilch to me. Life is not about trips abroad. There is a whole lifetime ahead for those trips. They are not a necessity. My friend struggles financially to send her son on those kind of trips, and quite frankly, I don't think school should be asking parents to pay out vast sums like that. I realise that your daughter had to raise some of the money herself.

My daughter went abroad for the first time in her life, last year. She went to Florence, along with her brother. She'd read up all about it, before she went, although she already knew heaps, because of all the art history there. She planned where they'd go, she took photographs, she had the most bloody wonderful time. Why? Because her enthusiasm had not been dulled by endless trips abroad with her school. It was all so new to her, so terribly exciting!   She loved every single minute of it, as did her brother...

So please, don't patronise me, nor my two children.

I am very glad your daughter is so happy at school. Many children thrive there, as I've said countless times. Many do not.

Go listen to the music of your new pals...and you may learn a little more..I'm off to talk to my 'thick' kids now and explain to them what a terrible life they're going to have because they were home educated...

Holy Jumping Elephant Fish!


Oh..and by the way, what the fuck makes you think that I would EVER want to be part of a system that nearly killed my child?????? I have a job, I have TWO actually, being a Carer as well.

So,you do your job, and I'll do mine.

Thank you.