freedom to home ed facebook group

[Honesty]

sorry to post so randomly here after a prolonged absence! Much of the absence related to the current slur on home educators in the UK where the Government announced in January thsi year that hom eeducation is used as a cover fo abuse, neglect, forced marriage, domestic servitude and other nasty stuff. Been really bust writing letters, campaigning etc.

Some of the info is available to start on a facebook group Stop the UK Government Stigmatising Home educators!
http://www.facebook.com/inbox/?ref=mb#/group.php?gid=45453211491

All support welcome, even just in numbers!

I'll come and post again sometime now I have recovered my password :) :blueroll

[Janet]

Thank you for sharing. It's really terrible stuff. :(

[Honesty]

thanks for thinking of us Janet but shouldn't you be busy snuggling in your den? :)

The latest news is that the tasmanian model is being considered to be thrust upon us. Anyone able to enlighten me on the tassie model?! :shrug

[cgull]

DH is a british citizen so we signed the petition to the PM :)

While the Tassie model seems good, no one should have anything thrust upon them, without proper discussion...

[Ceres]

This is really horrifying stuff! I really dislike this mistrust of parents to make good decisions on their childrens' behalf. It's a tricky one really because on one hand we need to protect children (and sometimes protect them from their parents) and on the other hand having the state interfere with the family is a really dangerous move. Imagine if homeschooling became illegal - we might all have to find a desert island and start a new country or something.

[Honesty]

thanks for signing cgull, only a few days left on it so all gratefully received!

urgh, it is the govts public linking of home ed and abuse that is so bad, the authorities are saying we are too free and unregulated. to date am not aware of any known cases of abuse and home ed, looking at freedom of info requests for these. education and welfare have been mistakenly linked too, should type more but little one as just got out of bed to join me so back to one hand typing!

[~*heket*~]

I joined up :D

[Honesty]

Is that to the Facebook group? I assume you are not a uk-citizen to sign the petition....

I am off the group a little at the moment - so much in house fighting and politics or rather politricks! Weird stuff going on in the UK at the moment. Current theory it could be related to a volcano currently erupting in Alaska :lol

Facebook is addictive though...

[cgull]

(quoting from Tas Home Ed thread)


Aargh, it is so very frustrating being "given" things like this that none of us want!

Yes, by the sound of it, it's not so much a 'gift' to you, as to some unidentified persons making unsupported allegations...


As for taking on a role within, I have to say I would never join the system willingly like that!

I wasn't suggesting you collude with the system, but subvert it. Think of it like the community representative on a committee - not there to serve the aims of the Board, but serving the community by making sure their interests are represented. It seems to me that the strengths of THEAC are in the facts that the council reports directly to the Minister - not the Department of Education - and that they are 50pc HEs. This adds up to not being run by people who don't understand HE. Should a call go out for people to be this resource, someone like you, who has put such a lot of time into research, would be well placed to be one of the 'voices of reason'. But I know if I was in your shoes I probably wouldn't do it, I'd feel like a slave colluding with my captors. But if you can make life easier for everyone else, perhaps that's worth it.

But here's hoping it never happens and this conversation becomes moot.

[Honesty]

Actually, experienced home educators in the Uk already believe that an organisation well known here for providing h/e info are manouvering into that position. They have less than 8% of uk home educators as members but are growing in power thanks to behind the scenes government negotians and dodgy trustees who have lost all credibility amongst the people, so to speak. It might just be as scary as it sounds!


New news out today is also that the report has been put back from reporting in May, to June, which coincides with a court case of a home educating foster carer who abused her children. She was found out to have been abusing them for approaching 20 years Before she turned to hom eed. She was known to SS but no-one did a thing. I am one of many who believe that the bringing together of these two dates is a deliberate one, not related to the European Elections taking up too much time in May, which is what the leader of the review has claimed. The elections aren't in May anyway! They are in June too!

Check out this blog for latest info
http://sometimesitspeaceful.blogspot.com/

[Arkadina]

I wrote to my MP about this, telling him all about my positive experience and how essential this freedom is to society as a whole. He wrote back agreeing and telling me it's all been brought forward to Dec 2nd '09!