This was the press release I came up with for the papers but it never got used so here it is.
Not Back To School Picnic
Salisbury Cathedral Grounds
1:00pm – 3:00pm
Wednesday 16th September 2009
Here we are in September, when all school children have returned to school, having a picnic with our children who we have elected to legally home educate. Across the country this week thousands of home educators will be outdoors enjoying the remains of the summer in more than 40 organised Not Back To School Picnics.
School is not compulsory, neither are timetables and the National Curriculum, but education is. We are passionate about our children and their future happiness and success. As a group there are many different reasons why we home educate and many different ways we do it, but the upshot is it works for our children and our families. Within the home education community there are thousands of happy children, thriving and learning, having been taken out of the school system because the opposite was true for them there. Others of us have never sent our children to school, preferring from the outset to facilitate our child’s educational experiences. We can tailor each child’s learning journey to their own particular needs, interests and pace.
The latest Government Review on Home Education has suggested that our children are vulnerable and hidden from view, but in truth most of their education takes place in the public eye in places such as this: museums, libraries and the great outdoors. Our children regularly attend a wide variety of workshops and social events. They mix in their local communities and with a wide age range of people from diverse backgrounds. These picnics are to help the public at large to understand a little more about home education and to protest somewhat at the Recommendations made subsequent to the Government Review of Home Education.
The changes proposed will make life very difficult for home educators and extremely stressful for children because it hasn’t taken into account for the variety of learning styles that home education encompasses, coupled with the fact that LA inspectors could be given unnecessary powers, including the right to home access and to be able to interview our children alone. We are here to stand up for our rights as parents, the rights of home educators and the rights of our children. We are just having some fun doing it.
Salisbury Cathedral Grounds
1:00pm – 3:00pm
Wednesday 16th September 2009
Here we are in September, when all school children have returned to school, having a picnic with our children who we have elected to legally home educate. Across the country this week thousands of home educators will be outdoors enjoying the remains of the summer in more than 40 organised Not Back To School Picnics.
School is not compulsory, neither are timetables and the National Curriculum, but education is. We are passionate about our children and their future happiness and success. As a group there are many different reasons why we home educate and many different ways we do it, but the upshot is it works for our children and our families. Within the home education community there are thousands of happy children, thriving and learning, having been taken out of the school system because the opposite was true for them there. Others of us have never sent our children to school, preferring from the outset to facilitate our child’s educational experiences. We can tailor each child’s learning journey to their own particular needs, interests and pace.
The latest Government Review on Home Education has suggested that our children are vulnerable and hidden from view, but in truth most of their education takes place in the public eye in places such as this: museums, libraries and the great outdoors. Our children regularly attend a wide variety of workshops and social events. They mix in their local communities and with a wide age range of people from diverse backgrounds. These picnics are to help the public at large to understand a little more about home education and to protest somewhat at the Recommendations made subsequent to the Government Review of Home Education.
The changes proposed will make life very difficult for home educators and extremely stressful for children because it hasn’t taken into account for the variety of learning styles that home education encompasses, coupled with the fact that LA inspectors could be given unnecessary powers, including the right to home access and to be able to interview our children alone. We are here to stand up for our rights as parents, the rights of home educators and the rights of our children. We are just having some fun doing it.
