OUR Sons and Daughters

Ours is the final chapter and addresses the political dimensions of opting for elective home education in a culture which is persuaded that the normal and the best way to educate children is for them to go to school. Political matters are frequently overlooked by home-educating parents, due to the demands of day-to-day living, because they take some effort to understand, but mainly because we’d all naturally prefer to forget the thought of some ill-defined threat overshadowing our comfortable home ed status quo.

For all these reasons, parents have not pushed back strongly against an increasing side-lining of their views and their primacy. So after reviewing our own journey of understanding, we try to encourage folk to play their part in resisting this ‘big state incursion’ into the lives of ordinary families.

Re-reading our words following the publication of the Schools Bill only makes us want to say the same thing again more loudly!

In one way this is a little people’s war, with the outcome dependent on each family’s level of determination to push back and reassert the natural and historic boundaries of their God-given remit. Standing against this ideology requires courage, but there are few things more determined than parents galvanised into defending their children. This is not simply about protecting the right to home educate: it is about protecting the responsibility of parents to be parents.

Randall and Mary Hardy began their married life in Manchester, and have lived in Shropshire since 2007. They have six adult children, plus grandchildren at every age and stage. Their first encounter with alternative education was through a small Christian school which operated as a parents’ cooperative. Their older children’s education took place in this context until they moved on to sixth form college. It was through the school that Randall and Mary heard about home education, which was the route they chose for their younger children, often working in partnership with other Christian families. They maintain an ongoing interest in home education, having witnessed its benefits for various members of their own family. Some of Randall’s material may be found on his blog, No Nationalisation of our Kids.