In any report

In any report, you should have enough courtesy to quote your statistics.

In any report, you should have the decency not to lie.

In any report, you should mind what you say because you could rip families apart and tear children to pieces.

In any report, you should know better than to quote people who have no decency or honour, and who lie without compunction and who are openly liars.

In any report, you should be able to divorce yourself from the prospect of making money from other people's misery, or get someone else to write the report.

In any report, you should have the civility to be honourable and fair.

In any report, you should check your facts and check your facts again, weeding out any suspicious 'facts' that you cannot support.

In any report, you should mind what you say because what you say could smash children's safe havens where they escaped to from bullies and shouting teachers and the slog of eternal tests and quizzes and homework when you'd been at school all day and wanted a rest and a play because you were a kid after all, and the weariness of being taught and being frightened by not achieving and not attaining, and being found wanting, and being called names and being branded an 'outsider' and being called gay and being hit by bigger kids and being laughed at in the shower while they pointed at your penis and having chewing gum stuck in your newly-washed hair in the science lab and searching for your carefully constructed story that you poured all your creativity into which disappeared off a pile of work and hearing whispers about you that you couldn't quite hear but felt were about you, and being asked if you had nits by six different people on the first day of school in a new school when you didn't but they didn't like you because you wrote good stories and the teacher approved of you because of your writing, and being herded through huge corridors and knocked from one side to the other because big people barged past you or called you 'cute' and thought you looked like a doll, and someone stole your favourite pens out of your very own pencil case and you never knew people who nicked things before, and you found your coat on the floor of the cloakroom with a ripped sleeve and boot and shoe prints all over it and it was your only winter coat, and your mum couldn't afford to buy you another one, and girls who wanted to be your friend and asked to borrow your gel pens never returned them and weren't your friends after they borrowed them and wouldn't speak to you and giggled with each other if you tried to talk to them, and the girl who was your friend lasted a week and moved on to another friend and another friend and another friend until she'd been through everybody.

You could hurt people doing that.

You weren't there

You weren't there when I first saw the blue line in a little window.

You weren't there when I told her father that we were to be parents.

You weren't there when I felt the first unimaginably gentle butterfly wings against my stomach.

You weren't there when I threw up all over, in the house, out of the house, and the car got hammered too.

You weren't there when I saw the outline of a real live baby on the strange topography of the scan.

You weren't there when the huge force of nature opened me and shook me and bent me and stole my breath in momentous labour pains.

You weren't there when she came out, purple-faced with blue eyes gleaming, raising hell with a piercing demanding cry.

You weren't there when she rose up and tottered towards the toy basket, and then fished inside for something she wanted and grabbed at it with a squeak of mastery.

You weren't there when I dressed her in an infinitely tiny skirt and a miniscule sweater embroidered with the school logo, and told her that she would 'enjoy school.'

You weren't there when her school shoes were put in the shower and soaked in the middle of winter.

You weren't there when she shivered and coughed and felt really ill in P.E. standing about, listening to the teacher drone on about nothing much in -1 degree weather.

You weren't there when the light died out of the gleaming blue eyes because the girls in her class wouldn't play with her or talk to her or team up with her in any games or classroom endeavours.

You weren't there when she bowed her head under the insults and the insolent stares of hostile kids.

You weren't there when they forced her up against a toilet wall, two against one, and pulled her arms back until she managed, thank God, to squirm free of their malice and their hatred.

You weren't there when the lovely girl got paler and paler, and took on the greyness of transparency.

You weren't there when we walked into school for the hundredth time to complain about the bullying.

You weren't there when they said it was her fault that she got bullied because she was 'too quiet' and I said how the hell can you be too quiet, and when was it a crime to be peaceful?

You weren't there when they made fun of her favourite comfortable shoes.

You weren't there when they tried to trip her up in P.E. because they wanted to hurt her and make her fall and make her look stupid in front of the rest of the class, and hurt her and hurt her and hurt her.

You weren't there.

Why are you there now, demanding access to see if I'm abusing her, you infernal condoners of abuse and misery. You two-faced harridans with your human rights that you choose to ignore when it damn well suits you?

Go save the children who ARE there. Those you are supposed to care for. Go. Take up your true responsibilities and leave my family alone.

We must be assured of your safety, kid

"Wherever a child is educated, local authorities need to be assured that each child is safe, well and receiving a full time education, suitable to their needs and abilities. The safety and wellbeing of all children is of the utmost importance and where local authorities have concerns about the safety and welfare, or education of a home educated child, effective systems must be in place to deal with those concerns."

From http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/ete/homeeducation/

It is obviously untrue. In just one incident, when my child was in school, she was pushed up against a wall face first and had both arms wrenched back. It hurt. Not just the pain from the assault, but the pain from being excluded, being the butt of someone else's disdain for your privacy and self-hood, your safety, your personal power as an individual. Let's face it. If a person slams you up against the wall like that, it probably means they don't like you. Of course, it also means that they are in serious trouble. They are possible psychopaths. They damage themselves and are poison to others around them. They need interventions to help them understand that they cannot so treat another human being. They need help. But they don't get it. And they go on and on and on hurting other children...

Our local Local Authority never even knew, I guess. If they had known, would they have bothered to investigate? Would they have come along to deliver a workshop about bullying entitled: "We all hate bullying" or "Bullying is bad. Don't do it!"? When the workshop, with the bullies in ringside seats sitting comfortably, butter wouldn't melt, nodding solemnly at every word, was over did the LA people trundle off in their various cars congratulating themselves that they had made the school safer for targets of bullying? Likely.

The government statistics say that 450,000 children are bullied every week. With 52 weeks in the year, well, kids aren't in school every week but you get the idea. That's a whole lot of bullying. That's a whole lot of children NOT being safe in school, isn't it? That's a whole lot of lonely traumatised children on the fringes of playgrounds, ostracised by their peers, picked on when they speak, ridiculed when they stay silent, living in a confusing, frightening daymare of absolute misery and pain with no way out.

That's 450,000 children every week that the Local Authorities do not keep safe.

There are about 50,000 home educated children in the United Kingdom. 450,000 children. 50,000 children.

I can understand really. 450,000 children you are bound to keep safe but don't must be a huge drain on mental resources. The guilt must weigh heavily. The weighty sadness must tug at your guts. Who haven't we saved from hell today? Which child has been beaten up for a bit of fun by a gang of other kids? How many tinies are hurting because we cannot do anything?

450,000 children every week are suffering.

So much for your aims and missions and visions. Your religion of pronouncements that 'children are safe in school.'

It is quite clear that children are not safe in school. That is a lie. You can tell a lie six million times but it doesn't make it true. Many home educators have to take their children OUT of school to ensure their children's safety. Meanwhile 450,000 school children are being bullied every week.

And we, responsible parents who often agonise about the best thing to do with no help from schools, no support from Local Authorities and in a constant state of anguish over the safety of our beleaguered children, are told we are suspects in child abuse cases. Go monitor that over which you have control, LAs. Go to the source of evil and leave responsible parents alone. All I want for my children is that they are unmolested in their young lives, and I can ensure that. I can hold their hands as they move towards independence and let go when they are ready to fly.

Leave us alone to do our utmost for our children.

Because I've seen what you can do (or rather what you do not do).

Leave us alone.

Let our children learn to fly when their wings mend.