A selection of your comments will be published in English and Polish on Tuesday November 14 after the Inside Out England special. I am the parent of two homed educated children, and of course would vote for home education. Having a 10 year age gap I am lucky enough to be in the position of having one who has come out well from home ed as well as one currently being home educated. Like the Green twins, my older son also went to school age 11 for a try out, he left after six weeks, not because he couldn't cope but because he was bored and astonished at the behaviour of the other children, he had gone there to learn, they seemed to be there to mess around. You mention that the twins handwriting appeared to be behind the other children - that is my experience too. My son's handwriting remained immature, as it was not something he particularly wanted to do, but the content did not. On his word processor he was writing reams, and even had some poetry published. Like the Green family we did child led learning, without any structured work at all. My son only did work that he wanted to do, driven by his own interest. He decided to go to college at 14 and took GCSE's, A levels and then went on to University at 17, where he gained a 2.1 degree in biology. He has also just taken his guitar Grade 8 which he passed with distinction, and he worked as a tutor at a ju-jitsu club to fund his way through university, so appears pretty rounded to me. He is popular and has no problem making friends, although he tends to gravitate to older people, finding his own age group slightly immature. My son is now 21 and was recently the youngest entrant in the memory of the admissions registrar at Manchester school of medicine on their fully funded studentship PhD programme (a highly contested place) - his handwriting is still scrawling, but it doesn't seem to be a problem :-)
Janet Ford, Sheffield My daughter has been home educated for three years, my second daughter is just starting her home education, and I was home educated. Despite what people think not all home educators are middle-class families - there are single parents, working class parents (my husband is a pig farm hand) and people home educate for many reasons.
There is nothing wrong or weird about it. Some children just cannot learn in a forced, artificial environment, some cannot get the special needs help they require from the state system, some have religious reasons and some children are just too damn clever for "normal" classes. Parents are responsible for education, no one else, so even if the schools are not educationg your children for whatever reason, failing schools, bullying etc, it is still your responsibility not the education department. Some parents just choose to take the responsibility a litte more literally. Most of whom would prefer no outside interference from those who think they know better.
As for spelling and handwriting, have you seen some of the spellings teenagers are coming out with these days? Whn kidz rite n txt spk whn n MSN? Try asking any school pupil today to write an essay without using a spell-checker. Most of them will find it impossible.
The assumptions that we home educators face and fight everyday are from generally being strange and not wanting our children to mix to being child abusers!
My children are happy to mix with others, my eldest goes to pottery lessons and has made many friends there of all ages.
What is cookery but chemistry?
What is gardening but biology and botany?
What is woodwork if not applying maths?
What is building robots if not physics?
What is watching the weather if not meteorology?
Too much in this country is geared towards what pieces of paper you have and not to what you can practically do.
Children and people are that, people not huge cogs in an ultimate machine. To quote a certain scientist...
"Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learnt at school."
Albert Einstein
Georgina Bass, Home educator. After watching your programme tonight on the Green twins, I would be interested to see if there would be a return visit to these boys in approx. six years time and see just how they have got on in the big, bad world of business & commerce or further education.
Not only have they missed out on the social interaction of mixing with their peers, but clearly from your report, they have also missed out on a huge chunk of basic education. Their standard of writing and spelling for their age group was appalling and they seemed at a loss in the maths lesson.
I cannot believe how unbelievably selfish their parents have been in living out their own dreams and ambitions, without a thought of how their children are expected to integrate into society. The boys have no structure to their day and the parents are not teaching them anything. I thought it was against the law for a child not to attend school, or if they are not being taught the national curriculum at home?? You see parents from inner city areas being punished and fined as their children are playing truant from school, well how is this different for this couple from a more privileged home?
These boys will no doubt be unsettled and disruptive at school as it is all so alien to them and their parents really did not seem at all supportive on their return home and I can't imagine that they will be encouraged with homework.
These parents should be ashamed of themselves.
Sarah Wookey - mother of two children - aged 10 and 11.
Great programme about home education. I thought it got across many of the reasons why educating children at home is a valid choice. It doesn't suit everyone, but it suited the family featured and it suits us. We are one of 70 families on the Isle of Wight who belong to a support group on the Island for home educating families. Maybe you could put our contact details on your website for anyone interested in more information :www.iwlearningzone.co.uk. or telephone 01983 886866 It would be great if you could do more on older or younger children and talk to those who have come out of school too. Chris Packham did a great job on the item. Thanks.
Sue Bailey
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Inside Out - South West: Monday November 6, 2006
