An Open Letter to the DCSF

Dear DCSF,
I am writing this open letter as a last-ditch attempt at true communication with you.
In the past few months, since the Badman Review into Home Education was released, I have had cause to try to contact you. I have carefully composed letters that have voiced my concerns and asked, politely, for explanations. In return, I have received replies that strongly suggest that the letters I have taken time to write, time that I could have been using to interact with my children or clean my house or to get in a few precious moments to myself indulging in my hobbies, have not actually been read by the person who wrote the response.

Why do I suspect this? Well, simply because none of the replies have contained any actual answers to my questions or reassurances over my concerns.

And after comparing received responses with other Home Educators who have also taken the trouble to write to you, it is clear from the incredible comparibility of the wording and the similar reactions those families had that a standardised letter format is being used that does nothing to address any of the specific complaints and worries you are being asked about.

When I am replying to a letter, I always do so with a copy of that letter next to me. I check it carefully to ensure I answer any questions and that I respond to all the important points appropriately. Now, I am an individual with a relatively small number of corespondants, not a large department flooded daily with sacks of letters on the same topic all demanding a reply and required by law to be answered within a set time limit.
However, knowing, as I do, that there are a number of areas where home educators are asking the same questions and repeating the same concerns in a large amount of the communications they are sending to you, I do wonder why, if a standard response letter is deemed necessary, it was not composed to answer and assuage the main points that must have come up over and over again in those communications?

You see, the responses you have sent me so far all say the same things - after giving a quick, oversimplifyed synopsis of the review, including some quotes from it, I am informed that You are 'perfectly satisfied' with the contents and recommendations.

And this completely misses the point.

I know what the review says. I've read it. That's why I'm writing to you, the government department in charge of initiating, publishing and implementing it with my requests for clarification.
I know you are satisfied with it. You would not have accepted the recommendations in full the day after publication if you weren't.

The point is, I am not satisfied.

Your 'satisfaction' is irrelevant. When I write to you expressing concern and asking for specific information and answers, I am expressing my dissatisfaction. I am asking for my concerns to be addressed and my worries considered carefully. I expect you to tell me why you think these things are a good idea and why you think I don't need to be concerned, or what you plan to do to about them. I expect to be treated with respect, with my queries given the attention they are due and responded to promptly, truthfully and in full. I expect my status as a member of the voting public asking serious questions about a government proposal that I feel is likely to have detrimental and long term effects on my family and it's autonomy to be accepted and taken into account. I expect serious, polite questions to be met with serious, polite replies. In short, I expect to be treated as a responsible and intelligent adult.

But.

You treat me like a child.

You make no attempt to answer any of the specific queries I make. I ask things such as, what are the rights of children with regard to refusing to be interviewed alone (a position that may legitimately be taken by any child but which the Badman Review does not mention, leading to the possible interpretation that such a refusal would be overidden, thereby directly contravening those 'children's rights' the review clams it wishes to protect) or when I point out that It is my parental duty in law, not my 'right' to ensure my child receives an education, but that the recommendations in the review are assuming quite the opposite and because of this in order to be implemented they will require an overturning of the laws which place this duty with the parents and the creation of new ones that give it to the state in their stead.

You reply with, "Your concerns have been noted." The official equivilant of, "We'll see."

I express disapointment with the review, pointing out the faults such as the author's lack of apparent understanding of Home Education, particularly the autonomous method, and the unpleasant atmosphere of suspicion and avoidance it is likely to generate in the public towards home educators and the equally harmful humiliation and fear within those families if it makes them subject to intrusive examinations of their home life that the rest of the population are exempt from.

You respond by giving me an overly brief and simplistic condensed version of the review that contains no detail and avoids mentioning many of the main recommendations at all. In the same way that a parent may 'edit' the more scary parts of a bedtime story to avoid giving their child nightmares.

I tell you these recommendations are causing me to fear for the future of my children, that I can see parallells with the recommendations and the historical descriptions from Nazi Germany of practices by the state against those they wished to persecute, that the powers these recommendations will put in the hands of LA's that have often shown themselves to be ignorant of the laws surrounding home education and give false information to families that in many cases implies the LA officers have greater responsibilities and rights than they actually do will be likely to lead to abuse of said powers, that I feel my rights to privacy and my freedom to choose my lifestyle will be curtailed and that I feel deeply insulted that despite the review stating clearly that no evidence was found to support the suggestion that home education is being used as a cover for offences against children, it went ahead and made recommendations that are clearly based on the premise that it is used in that manner anyway.

You tell me "We are satisfied with the review" effectively the equivilant of telling me "Mummy knows best, dear".


I am not a child, to be fobbed off this way without complaint. I want to engage in intelligent communication with those whose decisions will affect the lives of thousands of people, not to be given the brush-off with platitudes and 'many words, no content' replies. You are a government department, supposedly working for the populace with the best interests of children at heart, so why do your responses to me imply strongly that you don't care what I think and have no interest in what I expect the impact of your actions to be on my children? When I read your responses to me, I do not feel like I have recieved them from an intelligent human being who cares about the people they govern, rather I get the strong impression that it has been tossed on a pile of others that a quick skim has shown to contain the words 'Badman review, concerns' for the work experience bod in the office to count then press the button to print off the necessary number of 'Home Education -reply' facimilies.

I do not want to feel this way. I want to feel listened to, my arguments understood, my points accepted. I want to feel that I, the ordinary individual, has an opinion as important to you as those expressed in the carefully worded and legally approved statements released by big organisations and rich stakeholders. I want to know that the needs and wants of the families your policys affect directly will outweigh the vested interests and endorsed proposals that sometimes seek to create change without consideration for those families.

And I will fight to get this. Because if I can't rely on those who are supposed to represent and protect my interests and those of my family to actually pay a little attention to what those interests actually are then officially I have no real voice. And history is littered with the dreadful detritus of societies that denied their citizens a voice. I don't want this country to become one of them.

So please, DCSF, communicate with me. Answer my questions, respond to my concerns. Engage in proper to-and-fro dialogue. Do not ignore me. I am not asking for the Earth, only a little courtesy.

Thank you,

L.B.

A home educating 24/7 parent.