It takes the form of over 40 picnics at locations all over
The picnic dates mainly fall within the week of International Freedom in Education Day events (see: http://jipli.free.fr/england/).
It’s also a chance to welcome new families to their home-education community: families with children who were in school this time last year and have come out for various reasons; families with 4-yr olds whose parents have decided that they can continue learning naturally at home for now, as they have done since they were born.
In addition, the picnics are an opportunity for local parents to find out more about home education, if they are considering it and would like more information.
Above all, this is a day for parents and children to enjoy – with many activities planned, including giant games, circus-skills, art sessions and ball games. Children are taking part in painting banners and baking cakes for the picnic. Grandparents, aunts and uncles and other supportive friends and family are also invited to the picnics. This is a chance to come together and know that others all over the country are also part of the same event and the same community.
It's a shame that, behind the bubbles and balloons, there is a spectre at this feast.
On 11th June 2009 Graham Badman’s Review of Elective Home Education in
Home educators are angry and worried about this Review, which failed to produce any statistical evidence to demonstrate the need for its potentially damaging and expensive recommendations, such as:
- giving Local Authority employees a right of access to our homes
- requiring home-educating parents to provide annual plans for their year ahead (unrealistic for the many who have seen their children thrive, following their own pace and interests in education, without a curriculum and SATs to restrict them)
- giving Local Authorities a dangerous ultimate power to decide who is and who is not capable of giving their children an appropriate education (parents have no faith that Local Authorities have the training, experience and objectivity to make this kind of decision).
It is our fear that, if the Government acts on these confused and unjustified recommendations, some parents will lose the freedom to home-educate according to their children's needs, some children will be forced back to schools where they were unhappy and some families with children who are subject to bullying, who are suffering every day at school, will feel unable to take them out and help them as they might have been able to.
Following widespread criticism about the process and the conclusions of the review, a Select Committee Inquiry is now being undertaken, not a moment too soon, as the Government seems all too keen to rush the recommendations straight into legislation.
We hope that our picnics will draw attention to this issue and also show that we are not the 'hidden' families that the Government would seem to think, with children forcibly kept at home, at risk of abuse and domestic servitude, among other things. We are families just like any others, who seek to offer our children the very best that we can, in terms of both education and a happy childhood – it isn’t always easy, but we work together and offer each other support. The rewards are worth everything to us and we will fight to hang on to this right.
These are some of the things that home-educating parents have said about their experience of home education:
“The more I know of children, the less sure I feel that one teacher could ever really meet the different learning needs of 30 of them at the same time”
“It’s quite strange now to imagine spending 30 hours a week with people of the same age and background for so many years of your life”
“Within a few months of leaving school my son seemed a changed person, happier and somehow more 'himself' again"
There is already adequate legislation in place concerning home education – the new recommendations would seem to be seeking to fix something that isn’t broken. Could it be that the Government, aware of the shameful failure of authorities to act effectively in recent child-abuse cases, has tried to find a scapegoat and a distraction, by implying that there is a need to check up on these ‘hidden’ home-educating families? It's worth remembering that one of the most shocking facts about these appalling cases is that victims were known to the authorities, seen by the authorities and recorded on their various lists - after all, as the Government tells us, Every Child Matters...
The Not Back To School Picnic, together with a Mass Lobby of Parliament on Tuesday October 13th are our response to the draconian attempts by the state to undermine parental responsibility, to interfere further in family life and to reduce choice in education. These recommendations are unwarranted, unwelcome and altogether a step too far.
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