(no subject)
Aug. 6th, 2009 12:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
strange_raptorsI've been catching up with what's going regarding Graham Badman's report on home education (full report here, summary of recommendations here). More specifically, I've been looking at what Education Otherwise (the home education charity) has been up to regarding the report.
On the plus side, they seem to have a decent barrister with whom they're consulting, who raised a large number of issues with the report (proper issues that stand up in court rather than the instinctive "Oh god! This is so stupid!"). The minutes from that meeting are here.
And then there was the survey that EO did of its own members - not the adults, though, but the kids. And I read through the responses that EO had collated. And I know they probably picked the ones that best suited their purpose because this is politics and not science. And I know that the sample size is far too small for the numbers to actually mean anything realistically. But the responses ... they made me cry. They made me cry quite a lot, in the sort of desperate crying you get when you realise that the messed up bit of the world has just intruded on something close to your heart.
And I made footnote rashly promise that we would seriously consider home educating our kids when we have kids. Because the responses of the kids to that survey were about how some of them had had really appalling times at school, really appalling, but how they were doing better now. How they were happy, and learning stuff, but above all being happy.
This is not a good detached report on what's happening with the law and home education at the moment. But it sums up my feelings on the matter, I guess.
For reference, Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 (which is referenced quite a lot) can be found here.
On the plus side, they seem to have a decent barrister with whom they're consulting, who raised a large number of issues with the report (proper issues that stand up in court rather than the instinctive "Oh god! This is so stupid!"). The minutes from that meeting are here.
And then there was the survey that EO did of its own members - not the adults, though, but the kids. And I read through the responses that EO had collated. And I know they probably picked the ones that best suited their purpose because this is politics and not science. And I know that the sample size is far too small for the numbers to actually mean anything realistically. But the responses ... they made me cry. They made me cry quite a lot, in the sort of desperate crying you get when you realise that the messed up bit of the world has just intruded on something close to your heart.
And I made footnote rashly promise that we would seriously consider home educating our kids when we have kids. Because the responses of the kids to that survey were about how some of them had had really appalling times at school, really appalling, but how they were doing better now. How they were happy, and learning stuff, but above all being happy.
This is not a good detached report on what's happening with the law and home education at the moment. But it sums up my feelings on the matter, I guess.
For reference, Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 (which is referenced quite a lot) can be found here.