Select Committee hears weird evidence

Sir Paul Ennals, chief executive of the National Children's Bureau, said a register needed to be a "proportionate response to the problem".
"The registration system should only be a light tool, not overly elaborate," he said.

That's from the BBC's unbiased report of the proceedings today at the Select Committee who are currently charged with determining whether or not to murder home education in the heretofore amazingly liberal and freedom-supporting country of England.

And what has the National Children's Bureau to do with my children, you may ask? Nothing, I answer. Do they pay for tuition? No. Do they accompany them on outings? No. Do they sit anxiously at my child's side when that child is unwell? No.

Do I know Paul Ennals? No. Does he know me? No. Is he competent to judge how my family relates, how I help my children, where I might fail and where I might succeed? No.

No.

A proportionate response to the problem, Paul? (I feel that I know you ever so slightly because you are engaged in a process that might smother all home education in England within months)

What problem would this be then?

Sorry, I've looked at it a few times. Can't see it at all.

If there is no problem, and I cannot see one and, believe me my dear readers, I am good at finding problems, why should there need to be a response? There shouldn't.

The only problem is you. You bloated enormous cats sucking down money and you other bloated Children's Services types, Peter Traves, who are trying to protect your ass in case, which has happened quite a few times in other cases in similar organisations, you're too busy having parties or sticking up Christmas wreaths to bother about little folk you might actually help.

The problem is you.

Not home educators. We take responsibility for our children. You do not.

At least now we've found a problem.

And it's you.

Mr Traves again: "I'm held to account for children's welfare, and I think not to know there are children living and being educated in my area is actually unreasonable if I'm being held to that account."

No, you are not held to account for children living and being educated in your area. You should be held to account for children who are in your remit which is school and you obviously don't give a flying damn for them. I'll prove it, Mr. Children's Services.

Look at these numbers carefully:

450,000 children are bullied EVERY WEEK in school. EVERY WEEK. Not every year. It is incomprehensible, isn't it? How many a week? 450,000 children.

What are you doing about that, Mr. Traves? Nothing. You're responsible for them, you say. But what are you doing about them? We know the answer.

360,000 children a year are injured in schools a year. Well? Did you hear me? That's a lot of pain.

Saddest of all, 16 of our dear young people feel so battered and bruised by bullying at school that they choose to kill themselves. No home educated child has been so deeply injured by life that he or she has felt compelled to leave it.

Are you sweating yet, Mr Ennals? A little uncomfortable in your cushy seat, Mr. Traves? Or still bothered about the public humiliation you might suffer if you fail in your cushy job?

Then, there are the Children's Services and the National Children's Bureau staff who sit by as 1 out of 6 children march out of school not knowing how to a) read, b) write and c) add up.

That's a lot of children to fail. A lot of young people to add up.

Want to do your jobs yet?

What about the 1 million - yes, 1 million - children who truant every year? Are they part of your job description? Do you want to register them and monitor them? Or are they just collateral damage on the job?

No, you just send their parents - usually mothers (funny how it is usually mothers) to gaol. That's the ticket. Kick the mothers in the teeth to show the children what's what.

What sterling work you are doing for the majority of our nation's children, Mr. Ennals and Mr. Traves. The ones you are responsible for, you don't give a flip chart about, and the ones you are not responsible for, you cannot wait to tag their little ears.

What have we got in this Britain?

People of rare ability and quality indeed. People who will demand to register my children then go back to protecting their money and their keisters while avoiding the avalanche of human misery in the schools that they are actually responsible for.

You're not responsible for my children. I owe them a hell of a lot more than that.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8306730.stm