A homeschool register for homeschooled children is completely unworkable it is a harebrained idea, impossible to monitor and nobody knows what an appropriate education is for a child. Well, the courts do, because it was defined back in the 60s as that which prepares the child to live and work in the community they belong to. This is just one of the innumerable hurdles any   ridiculous attempts by education officials to effectively stop educational diversity will have to jump. Not only that, because the education officials are  so blind to the nature of children learning, all learning takes place in state schools according to them, they don't understand how well homeschooled children do and why. One of the most enlightened aspects of the English education system is home education, introduced by a Tory in the Butler Education Act 1944. God bless him because if Miles was forced to go to school it would have held him back years.He not would be the fulfillled and happy lad he is today.

I must say this because it actually happened and is good evidence of how stupid Local Education Authorities can be . Darlington Borough Council sent out an inspector to assess Miles work. I invited her, one of several invitations to see his work. The trouble is when she got to my house with an educational social worker she actually refused to look at the A4  files of work that he had done over the past few weeks. I believe she refused to do this  because she wasn't very good at the mathematics, science or geography that Miles was pretty good at and had done loads of it so she was in no position whatsoever to assess anything! I pushed the open file underneath this inspector's fingers and she completely refused  to even look at what was there under her nose : the evidence of a young person's education. The educational social worker did not know where to put himself he was so embarrassed at this display of complete ignorance by a highly paid education official.

 So, I sent two of the A4  files and sealed them with tape to the local Education Authority of Darlington Borough Council. And you know what, they were in possession of the evidence of my eldest lads education and they still refused  to look at it. They had the files for over a month and they were returned to me still sealed. I used to bait them by telling them to take me to court if they think anything is wrong which they refused to do because they knew they would lose. It was pathetic, but Darlington Borough Council gave up in the end because I quite legally and properly engaged them in a discussion all in writing and it cost them a fortune, an employee got sacked for behaving inappropriately in an e-mail and the Director of Education wrote me a letter out of total frustration saying that my lack of willingness to comply with their stupid assessment procedures was costing the Council a fortune to which I simply answered "If you think my son is not receiving an education take me to court" something I had said innumerable times. I enjoyed running rings around them!

 The funny thing is that had we gone to court the only thing the court wants to see is the work that the child has done which is precisely what I offered the Council. I complied with the law. Because of some vandalising of our property which we could not prove came from a Council officer even though one got sacked and had a motive to do this, Durham Police, who investigated our allegation of Council wrongdoing were actually the only people who saw the work that Miles did and strangely enough they were interested in it and thought it was pretty good. In other words, the test that the courts apply which is that if a education satisfies a "reasonable person" that it is an education indeed it is an education. The police thought this and I intended to use one of them as a witness if the Council tried to take us to court. If the public knew how much money local councils waste on harassing home educators there would be an outcry. And they get absolutely nowhere!

Good for the home educators of Wales because standing up for what is your legal right is very important in a society which claims to be just. No Education Authority can arbitrarily go beyond its powers as so many of them try to do. That is not only wrong it is unjust and illegal.

The man mentioned in the article Mike Fortune-Wood is a really good bloke and helped me immensely, with his copious posts and writings about home education, with understanding all the legal procedures and how to take Darlington Borough Counsel to the cleaners and run rings around them so I could further and protect my children fully within the law. Let me be clear about  this I was obeying the law Darlington Borough Council  was breaking it .

Strangely enough I had a phone call about a year after Miles had finished being home educated from a man who had heard that I was a home educator,wanting advice  and I can only say that what this man was doing as home education was completely wrong, nothing abusive nothing like that, he just did not know what he was doing, and it was obvious to me that the child was being used in some sort of battle with the authority about education. So, the child who really  needed intervention from Darlington Borough Council Education Department was not getting it at all. The job that the Local Education Authority was supposed to do they could not even do that! Very strange.

PS. Home educating Miles in Richmond in North Yorkshire when we lived there was totally enlightened . I invited the Education Authority to see the lads work , he was 5 at the time and they sent a great official called Alan Critchlow who quickly looked at Miles work and thought it was great and way beyond what he would be doing in an infant class . He stayed 15 minutes , I wanted him to stay longer because he was a good bloke , but he had to shoo. He would drop in from time to time , I said come any time , and he never  really looked at Miles work again although he saw him  writing away sometimes.  Darlington Borough Council Education and Legal Department and the Education Officials in Wales  : learn from North Yorkshire because it will save you a lot of time and public money !